I feel like I’m sitting at the top of a mountain with a 360 degree view that lets me see my life from every angle – back, forward and around. I have found that when you travel a road, especially by foot or bike, the same road looks very different when you turn around and come back. I imagine being on that mountaintop or walking on that road with people who have been important in my life – remembering the past, savoring the present, and dreaming the future. We’ll all remember, see and dream different things, but also the same things in different ways.
These ideas inspired me to send out sixty letters to friends, family, and colleagues asking for an idea for a dance. I will use fifteen or twenty of these ideas to create three- to four-minute sections of a sixty-minute dance. More than one idea might be overlaid in one section. I have fantastic dancers working with me – Elise Knudson, Eun Jung Gonzalez, Paul Singh, Luke Gutgsell and Gabriel Forestieri. There will be some guest performers too.
We’ll continue building this piece over the winter and spring and will present the finished work next fall. During the year we’ll show sections of the piece as works-in-progress at several different venues (see schedule of upcoming events). I’ll also keep this page of our website current with news, pictures and video clips of the piece as it develops. Hope you can join us and watch it grow.
There are photos from a showing on Oct 2 at The Flea Theater. We showed four sections. The first, The Long Haul, is based on a phrase in a letter sent to me by a former dancer. Heatwave is based on the popular sixties hit that has always been a favorite of mine. My children sent me the CD along with the printed lyrics. I was struck by the over-the-top drama of teen romance and realized that in the realm of romance, we never stop being teens. Reading Aloud, a trio for me, Vicky Shick, and a book, is based on a story sent by a friend. She and her best friend spent her 20th birthday sitting at the grave of Thomas Wolfe reading aloud from Look Homeward Angel. Then there’s Still, a solo for me that combines movement from the three previous sections.
We’re currently working on two new sections: an instruction I received to make a dance with sixty beginnings, and a big, dense section with Ellen Maddow’s touching, funny song, Red Bikini. I hope to have both of these ready for our showing at the 92nd St Y on Nov 30. Check back for more Sixty news soon.
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