2015 | GOING FORWARD... SOME DIGRESSIONS

The 2015 Concert featured the following pieces…

Tiny Giant Series - Adriane Brayton
Speak II - William McLaughlin
"and there a stillness fell upon them" - James Morrow
Bed Stories - Erica Schwartz
Field - Peter DiMuro
Hot Flashback - Lynn Modell

Tiny Giant Series - Adriane Brayton 

A dance in 3 parts, interspersed throughout the evening — each with a different soloist.

CHOREOGRAPHY Adriane Brayton in collaboration with the dancers. 

MUSIC The Silk Road Ensemble. 

DANCERS Mayra Hernandez, Imani Mclaurin, Fernadina Chan

“Microbes are invisible. They’re everywhere. And they rule.” —Nathan Wolfe

My work for Across the Ages Dance has stemmed from an examination of dance as it relates to the human microbiome. This work, developed through a partnership with the TERC Organization, is inquiring about the bacteria that live in us and on us as humans and their role in our lives. I am drawing movement and motifs from specific words related to the material: community, ecosystem, mutualist, pathogen etc. While we may think we are alone, each human is surrounded by their human microbiome.

“We’re not individuals. We’re colonies of creatures.” —Brue Birren

Speak II - William McLaughlin

CHOREOGRAPHY William McLaughlin 

DANCERS Kalia Bing, Erica Harris, Christopher Henry, Nadia Issa, Kareem Lewis, Miguel Lilly, Olivia Link, Emma Mulvey-Welsh, Meri Quirazi, Frangeli Ramirez, Britney Rodriguez, Genesis Rodriguez, Nashaya Wornum 

COSTUMES Penney Pinette 

SOUND 

SECTION I Recording: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — Excerpt from speech delivered on 3 April, 1968, Mason Temple, Memphis, TN, in support of the striking sanitation workers 

SECTION II Recording: Robert F. Kennedy — Remarks on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on 4 April 1968, Indianapolis, IN 

SECTION III Music by Daniel Bernard Romaine

SPEAK, originally choreographed in 2009, was conceived as an exploration of the male experience in our current culture. Research for this piece involved accessing the experiences of the original cast members through embodied research and shaping those experiences into movement through improvisational exercises. 

And There A Stillness Fell Upon Them - James Morrow

CHOREOGRAPHY James Morrow 

DANCERS Andrea Blesso Albuquerqui, Elizabeth Epsen, Edie Hettinger, Karen Klein, Rozann Kraus, Mary McCarthy, Imani McLaurin, Eliza Mallouk, Marcie Mitler, Julia Norman, Eva Steinitz, Ashley Zhang 

MUSIC Real Quiet (playing the music of Marc Mellits), Antony and The Johnsons

Morrow, with the help of Across The Ages Dance Project, explores the convergence of public and private reality. “To transgress we must move past boundaries, we must push against to go forward. Nothing changes in the world if no one is willing to make this movement. All this talk does nothing to change the reality that there are so many barriers blocking the paths that would lead us to any space of fulfillment that it is impossible to go forward if one lacks the will to transgress.” —Bell Hooks, Art on My Mind

BED STORIES- Erica Schwartz

CHOREOGRAPHY Erica Schwartz 

DANCERS Marissa Molinar, Andy Taylor-Blenis, Tony Tucker, Tony Williams 

MUSIC Lou Harrison, Julia Kent, Thomas Newman, Hilary Hahn and Hauschka 

VIDEO Simona Schneider

“Everyone in the world wants to be with someone … tonight, together in the dark, with the sweet warmth of a hip or a foot or a bare expanse of shoulder within reach. … Whatever our age, [we] never lose the longing.” —Roger Angell

Field - Peter DiMuro

CHOREOGRAPHY Peter DiMuro, Director. Movement developed by the performers 

DANCERS Ann Brown Allen, Debra Candreva, Ann Fonte, Carolyn Jepsen, Karen Klein, Eliza Mallouk, Marcie Mitler, Eva Steinitz, Fatou-Carol Sylla 

MUSIC Peter Whitehead

Dances are like children: As a parent/dancemaker, you see something you conceived, fed and nurtured grow into its own being, with a mind of its own. At a certain point, what you intended for your child is abandoned and you let go, allowing him/her to transform into what is to be.

Hot Flashback - Lynn Modell

CHOREOGRAPHY Lynn Modell 

DANCERS Ann Brown Allen, Renee Caso, Yael Evelyn, Ann Fonte, Edie Hettinger, Ruth Benson Levin, Eliza Mallouk, Imani McLaurin, Marcie Mitler, Cheri Opperman, Margot Parsons. 

MUSIC You Were On My Mind by the We Five, (They Long to Be) Close to You by The Carpenters, Shake Your Groove Thing by Peaches and Herb

Many of us danced in our bedrooms as children, dreaming of the day when we would perform onstage in front of an audience. When I was growing up I loved to dance to the 45s I played on my suitcase record player. Even though I went to ballet class five times a week, which I loved, my most enjoyable dancing moments were when I was making up my own movement. My father had mounted a full length mirror on one wall of the basement family room and I spent many hours dancing alone or with friends in front of that mirror. This went on for a long time until one day I did not respond quickly enough to my father’s repeated calls to “TURN IT DOWN!” A sad day for me and that record player.