Photo: Naomi RamirezDear Friends and Colleagues,
I hope the first month of this New Year and its big changes have brought you joy! Here’s my wintertime news:
November 2008 saw the revival of Desert Island (1986) at Judson Memorial Church. It was a pleasure to dance in this TBDSalon alongside recent and current members of the Trisha Brown Dance Company. I’ll reprise Desert Island on the Swarthmore College Faculty Concert, Feb. 14 at 8pm, this time with live feed overhead video.
Eva Karczag and Vicky Shick were back in Philadelphia in December for a second period of work on Red Thread, our collaboration inspired by women’s quilting circles. We each began to take more initiative as individual ‘authors’ of the work. This residency completed the phase of work supported by my 2008 Independence Foundation and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships. Research continues now in rehearsals with Meg Foley, developing “stitching” and “stories and spaces” and ways of supporting in improvisation. The whole piece will contain disparate elements like multi-colored scraps in a quilt which form a cohesive pattern when assembled all together.
On April 5 we all invite you to “Windows on the Work,” the first open in-progress showing of Red Thread, at Swarthmore College in the Lang Performing Arts Center, Troy dance studio, 4 pm. Also showing will be Cynthia Lee and Lenny Seidman.
On other fronts, I’m keeping my hand in as a writer with pieces for Dance Magazine on the new Martha Clarke piece for Jeanne Ruddy, for the Philadelphia Inquirer on PA Ballet and Ballet Boyz, and for the Dance Advance archive on the pioneering black ballerina and ballet mistress Delores Browne. I’m putting together what should be an exceptional next season for the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series to open the newly renovated Goodhart Hall. On February 13 we look forward to presenting Ballet X and Miro Dance Theater in alternative spaces including renowned architect Louis Kahn’s Erdman Hall. And there’s a late-February Dance Advance professional development trip planned to Cambodia and Hong Kong. I can’t wait; I look forward to it as a way to continue contemplating the connections of dance and spirituality.
Please share your news! With all best wishes,
Lisa
