tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25372593466321087122024-02-19T05:10:01.146-05:00Behind the Scenes @ Summer Stages DanceWelcome to Behind the Scenes @ Summer Stages Dance. It's a backstage, in-the-studio look into this acclaimed summer dance festival and a workshop of cutting-edge creativity right in the heart of historic Concord. Summer Stages Dance is really cool dance by some of today's most provocative contemporary artists. Performers meet with audiences after the show, engaging in a dialogue we'd like to continue here on our blog.Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-74581276387150198352011-07-26T08:59:00.000-04:002011-07-26T08:59:38.027-04:00Choreography Showcase this Saturday at the ICA/Boston by Kelley DonovanI’ve been out in Concord most of this month developing a new piece and learning lots of new things, I have created a multimedia project with video artist John Slepian. We will perform the work in a Choreographers’ Project Showcase, Featuring New Work by Edisa Weeks and Choreography Fellows, Kelley Donovan, Adele Meyers, and Tennille Lambert on Saturday, 07/30/2011 at 03:30pm Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater at the ICA/Boston. <br />
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A showcase of new work developed by Choreographers’ Project fellows--myself, Adele Meyers and Tennille Lambert--and featuring an original piece by Edisa Weeks, performed by Summer Stages Workshop participants. 30 amazing dancers!<br />
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Here is a clip of a bit of rehearsal from Saturday:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/26rrp9hoMZQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
I’ve been able to work with 8 talented dancers in the program as well as Laura Murphy and Nordica Houlton who have been a big help to develop this piece. I hope you can come see the final product. The dancers create the sound score for the piece as they move! via John’s video technology. Earlier David Parker will perform at noon which is free family event see info below:<br />
<a href="http://www.ticketstage.com/ts-bin/f.wk?ts.seat.selection.gen+@PID=SSD-CHORE2-15917-55800">http://www.summerstagesdance.org/performances/meet.html</a><br />
<a href="http://www.ticketstage.com/ts-bin/f.wk?ts.seat.selection.gen+@PID=SSD-CHORE2-15917-55800">http://www.ticketstage.com/ts-bin/f.wk?ts.seat.selection.gen+@PID=SSD-CHORE2-15917-55800</a><br />
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John has been great to work with! here is a bit more about him:<br />
J<i>ohn Slepian’s artwork has been shown at P.S.1/MoMA and Hunter College Art Galleries in New York, the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Axiom Gallery and the Boston Center for the Arts in Boston, and elsewhere in U.S and Canada . He exhibits with the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco. In 2002, he received the New Langton Arts Bay Area Award. He was a resident in the P.S.1 National Studio Program in 2002-2003, and in 2005-2006 was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts grant in Computer Arts. Slepian is an Assistant Professor of Art and Technology at Hampshire and Smith Colleges in Western Massachusetts. <a href="http://www.johnslep.net/">www.johnslep.net </a></i><br />
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Our mentors, Richard Colton, David Parker and Danny McCusker have been great, visiting rehearsals often and giveing us advise at every stage of the development of the pieces. David Parker & The Bang Group Backward and in Heels Saturday July 30, 12 p Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater, ICA/Boston Free tickets will be available on the day of the event only. Space is limited; first come, first served. Co-presented with the ICA as part of their monthly Family Programs. <br />
“[The] Bang Group is a dance company dedicated above all things to the sheer joy of dancing. With witty allusions to everything from Swan Lake to A Chorus Line…everyone up there is revelling in the sheer fun of movement, and that joy is irresistible.” – theatreguide.london A suite of dances displaying The Bang Group’s trademark rhythm and humor. Choreographer David Parker and his dancers will open up their process and show how they build humor out of rhythm and predicament using Velcro costumes, bubble-wrap, Chinese take-out, elbow grease, their voices and their own eight feet. A touchstone for the performance will be Slapstuck, Parker’s award-winning dance for two men in Velcro costumes which has earned an iconic place in The Bang Group’s repertory and will be danced by its original cast: Parker and Jeffrey Kazin. There will be, in addition to the performances from repertory, an interactive exploration of the company’s improvisational work, wide-ranging use of percussive dance forms and how they generate kinetic wit. <br />
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It should be a fun day all around! Hope you can join us!Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-21758526589393266122011-07-19T14:09:00.001-04:002011-07-19T17:48:55.405-04:00"Lucky" (working title) - Tennille Lambert, 2011 Choreographers' FellowA very full first week of rehearsals has past. I am sensing that a center of the material has been found and I am beginning to understand how each of the performers relate to one another as well as behave in the environment of the work itself.<br />
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Upon arrival to Summer Stages, I didn't have an exact concept which would stimulate the piece that I would be creating or set phrases for the dancers to perform. Rather, I wanted to find the tonal premise of the work through examining improvisations which were explored by the dancers, and asking each of them questions in an effort to observe how they interacted with each other and the emergent environment that was created. The performers were open and generous with my process which may have at first seemed uncomfortably new and risky. By the end of the first week we found a few interesting ideas/concepts/themes and formed them into two sections.<br />
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Here is some of what arose in the group explorations which we have taken into more critical building place:<br />
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-The misplacement of people/objects - constant shifting<br />
-Wanting to find the right place for self and objects<br />
-Fragmentation of individual time lines<br />
-How people can occupy the same space but be completely disconnected from one other<br />
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In the first section, I extracted a few actions from "1/4" Canyon Scale" a work that I created in 2004 and recently reset. Therefore, I sense the new work may be a partner piece to "Canyon" and am interested in seeing how it individuates itself throughout the rest of the process.… We are definitely having a dance making adventure - insect repellent required!Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-79243960169634555712011-07-18T15:24:00.000-04:002011-07-18T15:24:30.905-04:00ideas in the raw (week one at summer stages) by Adele Myers, 2011 Choreographers' Project Fellow<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Part I: this dance is what you see (CPF project)</span></b><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Part II: a new work (Adele Myers and Dancers)</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></b><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">______________________________________________</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Part I:</span></b><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This Dance Is What You See</span></i><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I am simply interested in people dancing as if each moment were a sequence of events experienced with heightened awareness. Whatever that conjures is what it will become. Of course the sound, clothes, and environment etc. will frame what happens which is why the working title is: <i>This Dance is What You See</i>.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It is the chemistry of the group that dictates the work for me. I am simply a movement curator and perhaps a curator of chemistry between the eleven people I am working with at Summer Stages. I don't second-guess my instincts at this point. I use my intuition to make pairings and compositional choices about what happens when. I'll question and analyze later, maybe.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We are playing with being in control of being out of control. And we are playing with being individuals in a group. And about running fast and then taking time. It is not about that but it is that.</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There is not much more I want to say about this process yet other than to say with all sincerity that the chemistry of this group and each person and how they move seriously rocks my world twice.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><b><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Part II: A New Work</span></b><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I am working as a choreographer and director on a new collaborative project with a filmmaker, a writer, a composer and a dramaturg around the theme of falling or flying. We are working toward coexisting in time and space for 60-minutes or so without making it adance-o-centric performance. We’ll see. During the month of July(now), all of the collaborators will individually create seeds of ideas that wewill share with one another in August during an intensive week in NYC. We’ll see what sparks and develop fromthere over the next 18 months until the work premieres. </span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So far at Summer Stages I have been working in the Scout House experimenting withcreating visual, kinetic and sonic experiences that evoke for theviewer/listener a physical sensation of anticipation of almost…something. Teasing that threshold. So far, this is an “exercise” in abstraction, notso much an investigation of conceptual ideas or emotional states.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Words that frame this project:</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Risk</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Task</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Less</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Is</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><u><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A Task For You:</span></u><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg46YZSXWtOQvBbfycwYk38kl521b4neCeIxBL8K2KWeaFkeDUJaovDOyCmD0p0CKku8ispPUuepkpYAaNznp5-ntf-Q_Qq0iipOxyhNVKpXwm3Iwu5D0IGbTrlMyfzR7-yeSeq8bzHpQc/s1600/Adele+Trapeze+1+NYC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg46YZSXWtOQvBbfycwYk38kl521b4neCeIxBL8K2KWeaFkeDUJaovDOyCmD0p0CKku8ispPUuepkpYAaNznp5-ntf-Q_Qq0iipOxyhNVKpXwm3Iwu5D0IGbTrlMyfzR7-yeSeq8bzHpQc/s200/Adele+Trapeze+1+NYC.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR3mtwLhtDpfv81nobuk2rubZV9QJqGw8smGNMKrRNkFwVmUs6U2zIKbmVZUVFirkHvavU5rDjzG8nAWemYAJbf4vRS-gDbI9nMeFlJRtXwxnEqYj8Nc-_gu4w3AmsaPXqLYdEKEAmHLs/s1600/Adele+Trapeze.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR3mtwLhtDpfv81nobuk2rubZV9QJqGw8smGNMKrRNkFwVmUs6U2zIKbmVZUVFirkHvavU5rDjzG8nAWemYAJbf4vRS-gDbI9nMeFlJRtXwxnEqYj8Nc-_gu4w3AmsaPXqLYdEKEAmHLs/s320/Adele+Trapeze.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Above are two pictures. What do you see? Roland Barthes writes about the “punctum” in his book Camera Lucida. The punctum is a specific part of the picture that pierces you, draws your eye. What is the punctum for you in these pictures? (Can you let me know in person?)</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I also use the idea of the punctum to help me discover and edit in the choreographic process. The punctum of a movement phrase or exploration is a singular moment I am most drawn too. Scrap the rest and just dig into that. That is my approach for this project.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I am interested in the picture of the person climbing up the ladder. I find satisfying the colors in relation to one another and the clean lines in space and the person within the frame of the lines. It is a clean and controlled framing of a person about to do something or having done something. What intrigues me is that we do not know what just happened or what will happen. There is a big unknown for us (viewer) to figure out, or not.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The second picture is also from trapeze school where we launched the new project in late June. It is not the Apollonian aesthetic of the person on the ladder. It is the Dionysian experience ofletting go of control. It is a messier experience, seemingly. Can the two coexist? Does one precede the other? Looking at this photo makes the back of my knees feel funny and yet I crave that flight again. (Yes, both pictures are of me at trapeze school. Super self-referential. Yuck.)</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Some ideas and images that Diana and I discovered last week:</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><u><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Environment: </span></u><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There is construction happening at the Scout House and I am going to assume that is fate because of the picture of the ladder. I like taking situations as they are when making a new work and allowing that to shape the process. So far,we have been climbing up ladders (don’tworry, they said we could) and singing into the huge orange industrial fan. Who could resist that?</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><u><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Visual:</span></u><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One personclimbing an 18-foot silver ladder for 60 minutes-the duration of theperformance. (There happened to be ladders of ALL sizes here). This one wasleaning upstage right. I have a fear of heights so maybe I will do it andit will cure me.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><u><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sound:</span></u><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Creating some kind of surround sound environment - perhaps in the dark- where we disorient the listener's equilibrium. I tried this with someone (<i>Thanks,Tenielle</i>) sitting in a chair with her eyes closed. With the recording device onour cell phones, Diana and I recorded ourselves singing the same song indifferent ways into the industrial fan at full blast. We held the phones close to the ears of the listener and then began circling her at varying speedsand bringing the phones far and near. She said it disoriented her sense of balance while being seated. Much like a small vertigo but she said it was an intriguing state- not nauseating. Unless she was lying. </span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><u><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Kinetic:</span></u><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">the leaningroom</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Or</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">between two fallings</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I gave Diana and I the task of creating a movement study that we thought might agitate and/or soothe us and/or an audience. For us that meant standing still. I took a sound score that both agitated and soothed me with it's harmonic vibrations (soothe) and atonal (agitate) elements. I put the cell phone across the room and decided the task would takethe time of the score- 4 min. Our task was to begin by shifting our weight intoour heels to the point where we almost fell backwards. We had four minutes toshift our weight to our toes without falling forward. It is fascinating to see two or three bodies and various states of leaning. It is an experience ofexisting between two fallings (backward and forward). Watching one or two or three bodies do this task is very interesting. The space changes and does their relationship to one another-in leaning forward and back and struggling not tofall while teasing the edge of almost falling. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Diana sitting on a 6 foot ladder:</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Diana on 6 foot red ladder doing a series of accumulations of pendular (is that a word?) arm swings and gestures we combined into what we call the scapula dance. (This material has found its way into this dance is what you see.) It is scary for her and also a difficult series of movements to remember. We recorded her doing the scapula dance sitting on top of the ladder while I watched from beneath the ladder with my legs draped over the bottom rung. Interesting to watch someone watching someone on top of a ladder from below the ladder. As if we (viewer in the seats) can imagine an empathetic experience from the point of view of looking up.</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Adele standing on a 4 foot ladder:</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I simply fluttered my hands from the wrist impossibly fast like a humming birds wings for one-minute while standing on top of the 4 foot ladder. I watched the clock. Each second passed slow and matter of fact. It was actually very scary. Diana said her gut was clenched as he watched. </span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><u><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Momentum: </span></u><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We fell primarily into explorations of accumulation, variation, and repetition of actions in complicated patterns. We played with being as the mercy of momentum. Riding its sweet spot. Watching the series of pendular (there is that word again) swings they guide her through space it is quelling. </span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Those are afew beginnings so far. </span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Unfortunately, Diana had to go. She was only here for week one. Company member, Kellie Lynch is here for this week and so far we are experimenting with an idea we just affectionately labeled “Ralph”. To be con't…</span><br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" />Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-24580878396356327932011-07-15T11:09:00.001-04:002011-07-15T11:11:57.509-04:00Kelley: Combining phrases<div class="entrytitle" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It has been two days and we have finalized the vocabulary for the piece, I decided to combine parts to see how they look together to decide which phrases I’d like to pursue the most in the piece, I had 10 phrases and I distilled all the material down to the most unique movement from each person and combined these in groups of two or three, we ended up with 4 phrases.</div><div class="entrytitle" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div class="entrytitle" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is Michael and Lorrin’s phrase combined with Nordica, Stephanie and Sasha’s phrase, danced by Micheal and Stephanie:<br />
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</div>Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-68295816064439488922011-07-15T10:53:00.006-04:002011-07-15T11:12:12.929-04:00Kelley Donovan, 2011 Choreographers' Project Fellow: Choreographic Insomnia!<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This first week has been so busy I have not even had time to write at all. I’ve also been getting over a cold and not doing nearly everything here I want to do. There is so much going on.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We had auditions on Sunday night and we were very easily able to select our cast since all the choreographers were mostly looking for different qualities. I am thrilled with the group I have, they are all very talented and wonderful people.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The set up here is ideal for creative work. We have afternoon access to studio spaces to work on our own or today we worked with a video artist to play with some technical elements we will incorporate into the piece. In the evenings we work with the students here who auditioned for the program.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We have daily dance classes available to us but can use our time in any way that serves our process. It is an ideal combination of enough structure to push us but enough freedom to allow us to each have our own process at our own pace. We got to watch and open rehearsal of Alexandra Beller’s latest work on Wednesday which was very inspiring.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The food is great and I am eating more vegetables than I usually ever do, and it is fun to chat with folks about what we are working on or catch up with my dancers Laura Murphy and Nordica Houlton who have joined me here to help build this piece.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">All three choreographers are in a suite of three adjoined rooms with our dancers right across the hall or on an upper floor which makes post rehearsal video viewing in the lounge with a TV and DVD player ideal. I’ve been leaving DVDs for my dancers to check out during the day so it is just really nice on convenient to all be so near by. It is nice to see the other choreographers, <b>Adele Meyers</b> (from NYC) and <b>Tennille Lambert </b>(from NYC and LA) in passing most days just to hear how things are going.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Our first couple of days it was overwhelming. There were so many things about my piece I wanted to think about, getting acquainted with all 8 student dancers and how they move and how to create a piece suited to them. I think usually when you have a few days between rehearsal your mind has time to process all this kind of information over an extended period of time but my brain was trying to figure it all out in time for the next rehearsal each day so the first couple of nights I was awake processing my thoughts rather than sleeping and it was very hot as well. I got about 30 minutes of sleep from Sunday morning until Monday night! It turns out the other two choreographers were having a similar experience! Now we are getting in the groove of it a bit more and getting a break from the heat and a little more sleep.<br />
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Here are a couple of clips from our first few days of rehearsals: <br />
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</div>Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-69029958098368298032011-04-27T08:43:00.000-04:002011-04-27T08:43:07.140-04:00Check out what's happening with Boston Cyberarts!<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Boston Cyberarts Events by </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Summer Stages alum Alisa Cardone and Nell Breyer </b></span><br />
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<b>Seekers: A Bi-Coastal Dance Improvisation </b><br />
<b>Saturday, April 30 at 5pm, CyberartsCentral at Atlantic Wharf, 290 Congress Street, Boston</b><br />
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Seekers looks at the human need for intimacy and connection in a world where distance and technological mediation is the premise for the majority of our communications. Four performers in a studio in Los Angeles will create movement portraints or "profiles" that will be broadcast live onto monitors in Atlantic Wharf's Waterfront Square in Boston, where a second cast of performers will interact with them in real time. Seekers aks - to what degree is it possible to virtually capture and transmit the depth and complexity of life experience from person-to-person? The piece calls attention to the role that fantasy, desire, and imagination play in the absence of presence. <br />
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<i>Co</i><i>nceived and directed by Alissa Cardone and Alla Kovgan of Kinodance Company featuring performances by Asimina Chremos (Philadelphia), Zack Fuller (NY), Olivier Besson (Boston), Maria Gillespie (LA), Allison Wyper (LA), Michel Kouakou (LA/Ivory Coast), Alissa Cardone (LA/Boston) and others. Free. More information at www.bostoncyberarts/festival.org</i><br />
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<b>A Dance Within Sol LeWitt’s Bars of Colors Within Squares (MIT)</b><br />
<b>Saturday, May 7 at 4 & 8pm, The Green Center (MIT Building 6C), Cambridge</b><br />
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Nell Breyer’s “A Dance Within Sol LeWitt’s Bars of Color Within Squares (MIT)” is a performance project staged on LeWitt’s stunning polychrome terrazzo floor created for the atrium of MIT's Green Center for Physics in 2007. The performance work examines rule systems manifest in group and individual behaviors, revealing surprising aspects of motion, color and depth perception. It responds to the seminal work "Dance" by Lucinda Childs, Sol LeWitt and Phillip Glass. Audiences are invited to view the work from the cross bridges, balconies and stair well of floors 3 & 4, looking down onto the vibrant geometries of LeWitt’s floor and the ephemeral re-organizing passages of dancing bodies through space.<br />
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<i>Concept & Direction: Nell Breyer. Dramaturgy: Dejan Srhoj. Rehearsal Director: Sarah Baumert. Choreographic Contributions: Nell Breyer, Sarah Baumert, Dejan Srhoj, Sarah Witt, Ricky Kuperman, Alissa Cardone. Performers: Sarah Baumert, Isidore Bethel, Nell Breyer, David Glista, Theodossios Issaias, Kate Ladenheim, Marissa Molinar, Catherine Murcek, Rafael Oliveira Mariah Steele, Sarah Witt.</i><br />
Free. A reservation is required via [ http://mit-lewitt-floor-dance.eventbrite.com/ ]http://mit-lewitt-floor-dance.eventbrite.com/<br />
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A related exhibition, Perspectives on a Dance in Sol LeWitt’s “Bars of Colors Within Squares (MIT),” will be on view at Carroll and Sons, 450 Harrison Street, Boston from May 4-28.Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-83121396595166627252011-03-02T10:03:00.001-05:002011-03-02T10:04:59.647-05:00The many views of dance and sculpture!Dance and sculpture share the ability to give the viewer a multi-perspective view of its materials.<br />
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I find exciting that two of our most interesting and young dancemakers, <b>Kyle Abraham</b> and <b>Jack Ferver</b>, are currently working with sculptors for new performance works, <b>George Bolster</b> and <b>Mark Swanson</b> respectively. And renowned sculptor <b>Sarah Sze</b> and dancemaker <b>Trajal Harrell </b><br />
are developing new work together. It will be fascinating to see how they share their practices in these exciting collaborations! Follow Summer Stages performance series 2011-2012 and see! --Richard ColtonSummer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-40919238341988336422011-02-23T10:14:00.001-05:002011-02-23T10:15:44.575-05:00Don't miss John Luther Adams' "Inuksiut" in June in Morningside Park! I just experienced it at Park Amory: Just Extraordinary!John Luther Adams' "Inuksiut" at Park Armory was an extraordinary event. 80 plus percussion intruments beautifully spread over the expanse of New York's largest indoor space. And through the ingenuity of Adams you could hear the smallest rustlings of individual instruments<br />
and, yes, the fortissimo, were earth shaking but always of nature (minus the punctuation in one section of Varese-like siren warnings). Audience members transformed the space into a wonderful kind of beach, stretching out on cardboard squares supplied by the Armory. Or some chose to boardwalk-stroll through space and sound, all transported and grateful that Adams created this layered, luxurious, warm and glacial landscape (the composer is from Alaska). The piece began and ended with a quiet breathy play of simple, white paper funnels: the Armory at rest, time slowed, New York at peace: a thousand grateful spectators! Don't miss it in June in Morningside Park! --<i>Richard Colton</i>Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-91710174506047823912011-02-14T14:25:00.002-05:002011-02-24T08:28:22.660-05:00Walther exhibit @ Dia Beacon!It's fascinating to think of the many seminal figures in dance who have been critically influenced by their use of fabric. I'm thinking of Loie Fuller at the end of 19th century and her <i>Serpentine Dance</i> and Mary Wigman in the first quarter of the 20th Century in her <i>Witch Dance</i>, inspired by a robe she saw in a store window. And of course Graham in her iconic <i>Lamentation</i>. One of the best movement performances inspired by materials is happening now at DIA BEACON in a year long exhibit of the work of Franz Erhard Walther called "Work as Action." You are the performer moving wonderfully inventive fabric pieces that attach in surprising ways to the body. You can also simply be a spectator. Wonderfully sculpted images created as participants shape and move Walther's cloth sculptural elements. Heavenly, don't miss it! <i>Richard Colton</i>Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-51265803569239829562011-02-07T13:06:00.002-05:002011-02-07T13:07:45.191-05:00The Education of a Choreographer<span style="color: black; font-family: Geneva;">It was fascinating to spend time this weekend with three such distinctive dancemakers: <b>Bill T. Jones</b>, <b>Karole Armitage</b> and <b>Elizabeth Streb</b>--all at the ICA to speak about the education of a choreographer. Fascinating to sense the commonality in three such distinct voices. They all share the desire for their audiences to have a transcendent experience via the dance viewing experience, they share a strong romantic impulse. They seem to have a common hero in Merce Cunningham. Elizabeth for Merce's opening up of new spatial and temporal modes in choreographic work; Bill for Merce's fundamental inquisitevness and sustained investigations, and Karol for Merce's brilliant exploration of the dancer's technique. It was wonderful to hear them discuss the works, and what lead and radiated from them, where their voice strongly emerged (<i>Monkey Road Run</i> '79 for Bill, <i>Drastic Classicism</i> '81 for Karole and <i>Fall Line</i> '81 for Elizabeth). They described a freedom of process that had the quality of action painting! A new found will and courage to act on one's own intentions came through as they spoke eloquently and retrospectively about their creative histories. --<b><i>Richard Colton</i></b></span>Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-1028372540130488102010-12-27T10:39:00.000-05:002010-12-27T10:39:02.874-05:00Welcome to Summer Stages 2011! from the directors<div style="background-color: white; color: black;">Fifteen years ago, Summer Stages Dance was launched at Concord Academy. Our goal was to create a rigorous training program for students of contemporary dance and a laboratory for choreographers to develop new work. Today, Summer Stages is one of the region’s most acclaimed summer festivals. The program has built an innovative curriculum, a distinguished roster of faculty and performing artists, increasingly accomplished alumni, and a loyal and growing audience.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: black;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: white; color: black;">This July we will bring together an extraordinary group of dance artists to teach, mentor and perform. The intimate nature of our Workshop and our emphasis on participation in the creation of new work makes the Summer Stages experience unique. The incomparable dance artists <strong>Dan Joyce,</strong> <strong>Jeff Kazin, David Parker, Keith Sabado, Risa Steinberg, Dan Wagoner, </strong>and<strong> Edisa Weeks</strong> will be in residence to teach and to create new work. This year we are celebrating the artistry and mentorship of Bill T. Jones with a remarkable group of visiting artists, all former members of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company: <strong>Arthur Aviles, Alexandra Beller, Sean Curran, Lawrence Goldhuber, Heidi Latsky, and Andrea E. Woods</strong>. This special group of individuals will perform and teach during the festival. In addition, Beller’s company, Alexandra Beller/Dances, with be in residence at Summer Stages. The company’s new collaboration <em>"other stories,” </em>with sound artist Robert Poss, will premiere as part of our series, <em>Co Lab: Process + Performance</em>, in partnership with the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. And, as we kick-off our 15th anniversary season,the feeling of celebration will be very much alive when the extraordinary Philadelphia-based hip-hop company, <strong>Illstyle & Peace Productions</strong>, founded and directed by <strong>Brandon</strong><strong> “Peace” Albright</strong>, visits Stages Stages Dance. We know this amazing 20-member company will thrill audiences and students alike on the stage and in the studio! All these artists, from Albright to Wagoner, from Beller to Steinberg, make studying at Summer Stages Dance an unparalleled experience for Workshop participants. We think you’ll agree that our 2011 Workshop and Performance Series are not to be missed! Please come join us and make this our most vital year ever of dance making! </div><div style="background-color: white; color: black;"><br />
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</div>Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-57456898382447686192010-07-28T15:50:00.000-04:002010-07-28T15:50:13.722-04:00Summer Stages 2010 Fellow, Joanna Kotze - Third WeekAlready we are in our third and final week at Summer Stages Dance. Being a Choreographic Fellow here has afforded many things to me this summer...time, space, showings, inspiration, support, investigation, focus, feedback and much more.<br />
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As we wind down our time here and wind up to the performance happening on Saturday, I think about how fortunate I am to have had this time in Concord, with this group of people. Time goes quickly here, being involved in so much at once but all is memorable.<br />
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I have been working with seven wonderful dancers on the piece they will perform this weekend, 'Under The Fold'. They have all been a hard working, inquisitive, playful family. I have posed many challenges to them, ones I tackle with myself on a daily basis in the studio, and they have been willing to try, fail, succeed, and learn. They teach me something every day and I hope the information I am passing on to them will go with them beyond this summer. They are a great group.<br />
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I have taken time during the mornings and afternoons to be in the studio by myself, refining a solo I have been working on the last several months. I was also fortunate enough to have a friend and dancer (Francis Stansky) come to Concord to work on a duet I am setting for a show in New York City in October at Dance New Amsterdam. Francis and I had a short time to work - just a week - but having the space and time for a week allowed us to make huge steps in the progress of the new piece. He also helped me by being a second pair of eyes in the studio with the students, practicing with us and sharing his perspective.<br />
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I so look forward to seeing my girls give a great performance this weekend as well as seeing the other Fellows' and faculty's wonderful pieces in such a beautiful space at the ICA/Boston. It will be a diverse, entertaining and inspiring program.<br />
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Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-88670262247262757202010-07-28T08:06:00.000-04:002010-07-28T08:06:07.052-04:00cpf ana isabel keilson continues, learning how to see what she's createdNow the Festival is galloping to an end. The endless amounts of magical slow time in rehearsal have gone. Feedback sessions—both for the piece I am making with the students and the new dance I have made with Betsy and Kesa (my dancers from NYC)—have been very useful. Risa Steinberg has come to both rehearsals and given immensely helpful feedback. As a choreographer both inside and outside of my work, I am learning how to actually see what I have made, and Risa’s eagle eyes see so much. Two dances have emerged from the past two and a half weeks: both are named HEXENTANZ. Spellcasting, the movement of witchcraft, and references to Mary Wigman are obvious, yet endlessly fascinating to me. There are moments of “threes” in each dance—here’s to Macbeth and the most famous trio of witches ever to grace a proscenium stage—moments of transformation, power, and ritual. I love whispering and making sounds onstage, and this is happening in all of my work. Another fellow graciously donated the idea of “ghost choreography” to the student piece (thank you, Dorian), and now they skulk and shuffle in the blackouts. The students begin the dance as one shade of themselves and end the dance as another—an arc and a build that, this week, I am working on making crystal-ball-clear. Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-60589640265509868482010-07-20T14:36:00.002-04:002010-07-22T07:28:25.693-04:00thoughts on process from 2010 choreography fellow Ana Isabel Keilson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGali4gNm49WmIivKGNxyXfrRR0yk88_ugRdl9DPsanxyNIBFx4L3ecqJsgaQmNv0NpO8RtsBdcbykGsYH3RAzlmzY17GlT1wsJfWZie4aD5P1sKb01NCRt4J4LaPos5LMx6CjFhWDZJY/s1600/Ana+co+photo+1418.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGali4gNm49WmIivKGNxyXfrRR0yk88_ugRdl9DPsanxyNIBFx4L3ecqJsgaQmNv0NpO8RtsBdcbykGsYH3RAzlmzY17GlT1wsJfWZie4aD5P1sKb01NCRt4J4LaPos5LMx6CjFhWDZJY/s200/Ana+co+photo+1418.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>There is nothing like a lot of time and a lot of people to work with<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPRPZMf-poVMywO2aM6Deuci2rmq5JSecN05lXmZfXkrn7UfUYwelxyCGztPvGD35Wwi4NQ8rUA2iB2GOM7xmYTBLOP8r_OckQT0k7JpYOxO_PsxRN8Cjv5lvW0PIMJbMOQSX_MHUwe_I/s1600/Ana's+co+1417.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPRPZMf-poVMywO2aM6Deuci2rmq5JSecN05lXmZfXkrn7UfUYwelxyCGztPvGD35Wwi4NQ8rUA2iB2GOM7xmYTBLOP8r_OckQT0k7JpYOxO_PsxRN8Cjv5lvW0PIMJbMOQSX_MHUwe_I/s200/Ana's+co+1417.JPG" width="200" /></a>I am here for three weeks, I have come from New York City with two of my dancers, and while we are we rehearse every day, four hours a day. In the evenings, I am making a new dance for ten dancers—they are from all over—and we rehearse five nights a week for two and a half hours. This is magical time: slow, paced rehearsals that are not rushed, that go on day after day, that develop and crescendo and feed into one another and allow me the consistency to create and make choices.So many different bodies to be with, so many different faces, and voices, and rhythms, so many different ways of being in the studio. In both sets of rehearsals we are crafting vocabularies, sifting through the idea of “casting a spell on the audience,” both as a literal and metaphorical frame for a dance. We spend time casting spells with our bodies, imitating witches, chanting and whispering and singing songs (tonight we 13 made the storm break, lighting struck, we became one giant voice under the rain). I am greedily racing into the studio every day, lost in a forest of physical and intellectual stimulation. The people, the hours, the work has cast a spell on meSummer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-32087698620803619042010-07-17T10:56:00.002-04:002010-07-17T14:24:03.584-04:00Dan Wagoner and Jennifer Tipton graced us...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG7Ze8SoaxJ_Dbwc9jN-00oWmr0zc3qSbhXW2moHWguUiYfKf0emaF9Pvkhg5I60vHg_hFdaHWtMKbBpJwO7mVXXgWuAdXKI4otK6Mi94YNlAB2vfE1k9K6-edZoVqnmk1_irI-s9UgOI/s1600/Dan+and+Jennifer.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG7Ze8SoaxJ_Dbwc9jN-00oWmr0zc3qSbhXW2moHWguUiYfKf0emaF9Pvkhg5I60vHg_hFdaHWtMKbBpJwO7mVXXgWuAdXKI4otK6Mi94YNlAB2vfE1k9K6-edZoVqnmk1_irI-s9UgOI/s200/Dan+and+Jennifer.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQO28K6EL5xjZkKbXmz8tjoaSXZcLqDYiEDVQODdfTSXpaOxIA-EzTFWp1jM-5uw74aatJH_wo8cV6SBtE1O4q-17MO7EQtCH1xudNJEkaAzMapUJZm7GTip7pFVs0nFNQJXMjixLWHR0/s1600/dw+class.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQO28K6EL5xjZkKbXmz8tjoaSXZcLqDYiEDVQODdfTSXpaOxIA-EzTFWp1jM-5uw74aatJH_wo8cV6SBtE1O4q-17MO7EQtCH1xudNJEkaAzMapUJZm7GTip7pFVs0nFNQJXMjixLWHR0/s200/dw+class.jpg" width="200" /></a>A wonderful day at Summer Stages Dance! Dan Wagoner and Jennifer Tipton graced us. They spoke in dialogue for our workshop participants. Their life, art and philosophy generously revealed to us through stories, humorous and moving. When Jennifer speaks about technical matters of lighting she has a way of approaching the metaphysical ("Focus does fade unless it is tended.")The conversation clearly showed the worlds of thought Dan and Jennifer bring to their work. Greek versus Native American thought was discussed, the mystery and physics of light, the light and movement in the paintings of Brueghel, and the social inequalities for women in the producing of the works of male writers and chorographers. Dan spoke of the need to cherish the natural and handmade, the time it takes to make bread, and applesauce, and the way people gather around in that time. And how dancing is rooted in that same care and presence. And Jennifer spoke of the beauty of being in the moment, an innocent observer, wanting to see. She spoke of the pleasure in being told the problem not the solution, essential to her working process. Leaving yourself open to many possibilities, a broad array of possibilities, and choosing from this richness, not to narrow yourself too soon was a theme that both returned to. We could see this very broadening of thought in their beatific smiles as they spoke, their faces reflecting the light. I think Dan and Jennifer gave us enough energy today to propel us through the year! We thank them! <i>--Richard Colton</i>Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-68548265493605907312010-04-21T10:07:00.000-04:002010-04-21T10:07:22.796-04:00Summer Stages furthers its partnership with the ICA/BostonArtistic Directors Richard Colton and Amy Spencer have announced <i>Co Lab: Process + Performance<b></b></i>, an adventurous new collaboration between Summer Stages and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) featuring some of America’s best artists coming together in dynamic collaborations between the visual arts, poetry and dance. During their Co Lab residencies at the ICA/Boston, acclaimed poet <b>Anne Carson</b> and choreographer <b>Rashaun Mitchell</b> (July 28), followed by renowned visual artist <b>Jenny Holzer</b> and dance maker <b>Miguel Gutierrez</b> (July 20), will present new works and share insights about their creative process. "Great artists don't ask for mirrors of themselves when they collaborate! So, I'm thrilled at the thought of these artists working together,” said Colton. “Even if our audience already knows their individual work, I'm expecting they will experience something excitingly new."Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-35265181501278463272010-04-21T09:32:00.000-04:002010-04-21T09:32:57.707-04:00Summer Stages 14th Season has expanded opportunities for young dancers!<b>Auditions Sunday 4/25 and 6/6</b><br />
Amy Spencer and Richard Colton, directors of Summer Stages Dance, seek to establish an authentic bridge between in already existing young dancers program, Summer Stages 2, and the main Summer Stages Workshop, which is led by faculty drawn from the world’s premiere contemporary dance companies and ranks among the most respected and innovative summer dance programs in the nation. The Contemporary Dance Intensive, as the new program is called, is designed for serious dance students, ages 12-16, and offers rigorous training in contemporary ballet and modern dance in a supportive and challenging environment, by faculty drawn from the exceptional talent of the main Workshop teachers. The three-week apprentice program will run concurrent with the main Workshop in July. Join us!Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-40728986311646783422009-12-22T10:16:00.001-05:002009-12-22T10:17:25.892-05:00Save-The-Date for Summer Stages Winter Cabaret!Sunday February 28, 2010<br />Atrium Dance Studio/Performance Space at Concord Academy<br /><br />Let Summer Stages turn up the heat in the chill of winter!<br /><br />Come warm-up with the Donal Fox Trio in an intimate evening of gorgeous music and explosive dance!<br /><br />Special Guests:<br />Anthony Roth Costanzo, NYC Opera and MET Opera countertenor<br />Zack Winokur, Dancer/Choreographer/Director, The Troupe<br />Members of Boston Ballet in a new work by Viktor Plotnikov<br />Karen Macdonald, Actress/Singer, A.R.T<br />and surprise guests!<br /><br />Scarlatti/Fox, Roy Orbison, Cole Porter, Monterverdi and more!<br />Tapas and Spanish Reds!Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-77990966294041253552009-12-22T09:39:00.016-05:002009-12-22T10:13:58.659-05:00A Note to Friends, Supporters, and Audiences<span style="font-family: arial;font-size:85%;" >Collaborating Artists: Anne Carson, Sarah Sze, and Jenny Holzer</span>
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<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Calibri;font-size:11pt;" >This July, Summer Stages 2010 performance season will take a new and exciting turn, by moving the series, in its entirety, to the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA), and developing a program with the ambitious goal of demonstrating the dynamic resonance of collaboration between the visual arts<span style=""> </span>and poetry with<span style=""> </span>dance makers.</span><span style=";font-family:Calibri;font-size:11pt;" >The challenge of losing our performance venue at Concord Academy to repairs this summer creatively inspired a natural transition in Summer Stages ongoing partnership with the ICA. Indeed, the magnificent Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater, with views of Boston’s Harbor Walk, presents an ideal setting for this <span style="color:black;">season's focus of "Art as Collaboration" featuring two pairs of renowned visual artists and dance makers: <b>Sarah Sze</b></span><span style="color:black;"> and <b>Trajal Harrell</b></span><span style="color:black;">, and <b>Jenny Holzer</b></span><span style="color:black;"> and <b>Miguel Gutierrez</b></span><span style="color:black;">, as well as acclaimed poet <b>Anne Carson</b></span><span style="color:black;"> and Cunningham principal, <b>Rashaun Mitchell</b></span><span style="color:black;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-8826786946843961262009-07-25T14:21:00.004-04:002009-07-25T14:26:44.254-04:00Kelli Edwards, 09 CPF, 3rd and final weekThe showing on Sunday was extremely helpful. The piece has changed so much since then (it's now Friday) that I can't remember what state it was in when we showed it. I think we still had three separate sections and didn't know how they could be woven together. And we still had music. There is no music now. Once I realized that the dancers could maintain the rhythm in the accumulation section without an outside sound aid, it seemed like adding music on top of what we had would be imposing a meaning that wasn't there. And as Richard pointed out, performing the piece in silence would force the dancers to take full responsibility for the movement and the sound of the piece. Instead of following something, they would be in charge of the whole thing. The process of weaving the material came pretty quickly after the comments on Sunday. It was mostly a question of what the movement through line was and what were the human moments that could be explored. Along those lines, during a conversation with Marisa, one of my dancers, I realized that the dancers for the most part didn't know how to relate to the movement in a meaningful way. So we spent an entire rehearsal exploring the relationships of the dancers by having them talk while they danced. It was a great rehearsal, with everyone laughing and connecting to each other and to the movement. Right now I am playing with keeping some of the talking. I like the way the talking makes them move and I like it as an addition to the sounds that they are making when they dance. In the last section, the trees, I am having them whisper and the effect is very satisfying and interesting. I think I want to keep talking in other certain sections but I don't really want the audience to clearly hear what the dancers are saying so we need to play with volume and what they are saying. The piece has taken on a life of it's own which is very exciting and the dancers are beginning to understand the entirety of their part in it.Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-23065696793161578642009-07-17T13:34:00.001-04:002009-07-17T13:36:17.926-04:00Daniel Charon '09 CPF - Week 2Week two at Summer Stages was eventful. We had a good rhythm to creating the piece as we continued to rehearse. I had to concentrate on staying focused. It’s so easy to settle for something that seems right but doesn’t make sense in the context of the work. I find that it is about stripping away at the movement, often making more subtle choices... always focused on the context and how it fits into the piece as a whole. This is easily said but hard to accomplish. I see the ideas in my mind, imagining the piece and what I will try at the next rehearsal. So often, it doesn’t quite work and I have to keep playing. We shape timing, trying things faster then slower. The material changes. Then it changes again. A solo becomes a trio which becomes a quintet which becomes a solo again. Again, trying to always remember the greater context. I’m at a crossroads in the piece now. A very challenging moment. I think it’s a moment that defines the rest of the piece. I have to make sense of where I’m headed and I have to make sense of making sense about it. I have to earn where I’m headed. There has to be a progression. So I go into tonight with ideas, hopes, and thoughts. I will give it a shot with my focused and ever eager dancers and we’ll see what happens. I thought about skipping to the end but I wonder how I can presume what that will be, having not gotten there. We’ll see what happens, maybe I’ll work on the end!<br /><br />I also need a title which is always most challenging...<br /><br />The drama of the week was one of my passionate dancers cracked her chin on the floor and needed a few stitches. She was a trooper and appeared to take it very well. My assistant Meredith handled the situation quite well as I am not the best at those kind of things. Also, the fabulous interns stepped up and took her to the ER. She has already gotten them out and has seemed to move on. It was a good rallying moment I think. Perhaps she will always have a tiny scar that will remind her of her summer at Summerstages and being involved in this piece.Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-8370256986159377932009-07-16T16:24:00.004-04:002009-07-16T16:28:43.764-04:00Kelli Edwards, 09 CPF, Week 2The showing on Sunday afternoon was very helpful and a little excruciating. After a week of rehearsals I had a lot of stuff--messy, disjointed stuff. After helpful feedback I realized that I needed to work on the quality of my movement with the dancers so that I could start to see what they would look like doing it. Up to this point, I had been solely focused on making and manipulating material, waiting to work on quality later. Well, later is now. I took a deeper look at the accumulation phrase. It was either fix it or chuck it and I chose to stick with the challenge of making it work. Taking it down to eight dancers and keeping a strict formation, it is starting to build more gradually and take shape. It is also starting to have a tension that it didn’t have before. I also think I have found some music (Branca, thanks, Richard) that will work nicely with it, propelling the dancers into more visceral energy which it needs. Last night I started to put all of the pieces together into an order. It was helpful to see material strung together but right now it just seems like a string and I want more of a weave. The dancers were excited by the music (Nico Muhly) that I tried with it. I still don’t have a definitive take on the music, but the Muhly was great because it doesn’t dominate but it provides energy and flow and a frame for the dance. We’ll see. I have been wanting to see an image in this piece and just today I began to understand one way to do it. The image is of two people dance partially hidden by trees. I have come up with a gestural phrase that can be performed extremely slowly and I think having all the dancers standing scattered like a forest doing this phrase will be a nice frame for duet material. I feel like this dance is unfolding slowly, that the movement material is leading me down a certain path rather than my choosing a path to take. I discovered a nice moment with Marissa and Mitch in their duet material in which Marissa tries to grab at Mitch’s head while it bobs and I want to find more moments like that, surprising human moments.Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-82651044328980845932009-07-16T12:56:00.003-04:002009-07-16T16:31:24.791-04:00Ian Spencer Bell, 09 CPF, Week 2In rehearsal, my dancers and I listen and watch carefully. We are perfectly still. We practice filling space with color.<br /><br />Risa Steinberg’s class is beautiful and humbling. I have so much more to learn as a dancer.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">One Art</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">by Elizabeth Bishop</span><br /><br />The art of losing isn't hard to master;<br />so many things seem filled with the intent<br />to be lost that their loss is no disaster.<br /><br />Lose something every day. Accept the fluster<br />of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.<br />The art of losing isn't hard to master.<br /><br />Then practice losing farther, losing faster:<br />places, and names, and where it was you meant<br />to travel. None of these will bring disaster.<br /><br />I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or<br />next-to-last, of three loved houses went.<br />The art of losing isn't hard to master.<br /><br />I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,<br />some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.<br />I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.<br /><br />--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture<br />I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident<br />the art of losing's not too hard to master<br />though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-55224037020347738062009-07-10T16:18:00.001-04:002009-07-10T16:22:49.514-04:00Kelli Edwards, '09 Choreographers' Project Fellow - Week 1I have begun this process of making a new piece having absolutely no idea what I’m going to do. I have no music and no idea or theme with which to begin. This is unusual for me, but I’m glad that I am trying something new. I make a phrase on Sunday for the audition. It’s a pretty good audition phrase, a little idiosyncratic but not too hard to pick up, and incorporates a couple of different movement ideas. Monday night was our first rehearsal in the Gym. I make a phrase earlier that day with the sprawling space of the gym, and the depth of our future stage, in mind. It’s an accumulation phrase based on running forward that back, downstage and upstage. It’s not my favorite thing in the world, but it has some nice little nuggets in it and it is somewhat structurally satisfying. So for the first rehearsal we review the audition phrase and I teach them the accumulation phrase. It’s a fair amount of disjointed material. Still no music, but the beginnings of movement ideas have begun to emerge.<br /><br />I am writing this after the second rehearsal, and a very entertaining one it was. We began by taking the accumulation phrase and extracting all of the running, ending up with a softer, gestural phrase. My assistant, John, and I had worked out a duet based on this new gestural phrase earlier in the day, so we taught most of that. I like it because the two dancers are mostly relating to the audience, even though they are dancing together and in close proximity. The feeling is simple, sensual and intimate, but there is something emotionally disconnected about it. The entertaining part of the rehearsal came next when I asked the dancers to make a movement phrase of their own writing their names with their butts. We played around with this for quite awhile as it was most amusing and interesting. I placed dancers in different groupings based on whether or not their phrase traveled and we tried these groupings with different music. First a Russian tango from the 1930’s, then a 1950’s style all girl Japanese surf band, and finally a Bach cello suite. It’s the 6th suite, my favorite, and I’ve been listening to it consistently for a number of years. It is the music I turn on when I need to lose myself and just move. It worked nicely and I think I will pursue, at least for tomorrow, developing a bigger moving butt phrase to this music.<br /><br />My third rehearsal is surprisingly productive given that I’ve started to feel sick. My skin hurts and aches are taking over my body. John and I taught the new material and then I started to make a quartet (it may eventually be bigger) based on the slow duet material, layering in two other dancers one at a time. It’s only a beginning but I like it. I am beginning to feel that the music might not work. Because I have started with movement, and it has it’s own value in time and space, it is difficult to fit it to music in a way that makes sense to me. But it is only the third rehearsal. I think for tonight’s rehearsal I will give the dancers more movement assignments and see what they come up with. I have given them quite a bit of material to learn, which they have done quickly, but now I need to watch more and start to play with fitting it together.Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2537259346632108712.post-5011267638159069162009-07-10T16:15:00.001-04:002009-07-10T16:18:27.908-04:00Ian Spencer Bell, '09 Choreographers' Project Fellow -- Week 1I found a couple of hours Wednesday afternoon to feel lost. I was at 51 Walden. I love that space that is like a barn or a church or the Met rehearsal hall. I made a solo.<br />I feel I must keep busy making work. Alexis, the dancer I work with from New York, keeps me on track. I want to choreograph something beautiful for her and my eight wonderful dancers.<br />I’ve been reading the Elizabeth Bishop poem posted below. I admire the invention, the color, the language, the opposition, and the sense of space.<br /><br />Electrical Storm<br />by Elizabeth Bishop<br />Dawn an unsympathetic yellow. <br />Cra-aack!—dry and light. <br />The house was really struck. <br />Crack! A tinny sound, like a dropped tumbler. <br />Tobias jumped in the window, got in bed—<br />silent, his eyes bleached white, his fur on end. <br />Personal and spiteful as neighbor's child, <br />thunder began to bang and bump the roof. <br />One pink flash; <br />then hail, the biggest size of artificial pearls. <br />Dead-white, wax-white, cold—<br />diplomats' wives' favors <br />from an old moon party—<br />they lay in melting windrows <br />on the red ground until well after sunrise. <br />We got up to find the wiring fused, <br />no lights, a smell of saltpetre, <br />and the telephone dead. <br /><br />The cat stayed in the warm sheets. <br />The Lent trees had shed all their petals: <br />wet, stuck, purple, among the dead-eye pearls.Summer Stageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05718496796672079892noreply@blogger.com0