Title: Dance for Ten with Woman at Window
Premiere: November 30 & December 1,1984, Todd Theater, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY. Subsequently revised and performed by University of Michigan students and faculty April 19 & 20, 1985, in a production entitled “An Evening of Dance Theater with Susan Creitz & Jessica Fogel,” Studio A Theater (later named the Betty Pease Studio Theater), Dance Building, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
Duration: 15 minutes
Performers: At the Univ. of Rochester premiere, dancers included Lisa Ambegaokar, Catlin Cobb, and Christine Fendley, among others. At University of Michigan in 1985: Alison Alexander, Giles Brown, Susan Creitz, Gay Delanghe, Jeanette Duane, Betsy Glenn, Linda Goodrich-Johnson, Jeff Krestik, JoLea Maffei, Steven Mann, Julie Winokur.
Music: The Continuing Story of Counterpoint Part Four by David Borden
Costumes: At University of Michigan: Barbara Mostaghim
Lighting Design: At University of Michigan: Mary Cole
Description: I was at a party at University of Rochester in early fall 1984, and on the coffee table was a book of Vermeer paintings. I paged through it and was completely taken with the images. I decided to create a dance inspired by Vermeer paintings for a concert I was preparing for the end of the fall 1984 semester. It was performed by dancers from University of Rochester, the Eastman School of Music, as well as by guest artist Catlin Cobb, with whom I shared the evening of works. I recall celebrating my 30th birthday in the lobby with the dancers and audience members after the performance on November 30. I built movement materials based both upon the form and the content of the paintings and did not do much research for this dance beyond closely studying the paintings. I was most drawn to the paintings of women writing or receiving letters, and t of women caught in contemplative moments. I also incorporated paintings of couples making music and drinking wine. I decided to work with another David Borden score, and felt his Continuing Story of Counterpoint Part 4 was particularly apt for this work. I liked the formal construction of the music, the electronic sheen that evoked the qualities of light found in the Vermeers, and I loved the liquid lyric soprano voices throughout the score. When I remounted this work at University of Michigan in 1985, one of the dancers, Linda Goodrich, sang along with the soprano line at one point in the dance. Throughout the dance, a soloist reads a letter by the window, and receives a letter and writes a letter at the table,. At the end of the dance, she delivers her letter to the group, who pass it from one dancer to the other in a swirling exit from the stage. The dancers also use their bodies to spell “Vermeer.”
I do not think a video of this work exists, but there are some snapshots from a rehearsal of the Rochester performance. I built on several of its ideas in my later work, Vermeer Variations. In fact, this was the first of a series of three works inspired by Vermeer, and of many more works inspired by painters. The review of the premiere at University of Rochester (link below) provides a detailed description of the work.
The set was constructed at University of Rochester by Bill Biddle, designed by George Loudon. It was a folding flat wall that included a reconstruction of a paned window based on the window in Vermeer’s Woman Reading a Letter at an Open Window. There was also a table covered with an oriental rug, a bowl of fruit, several wine glasses, pitchers and bowls.
Program University of Rochester 1984
Program, University of Michigan 1985
Preview article Ann Arbor News 1985
Reviews:
These were rehearsal photos at the University of Rochester, taken by an unknown photographer. Here the lifted dancer becomes a human pitcher, poured into the human bowl formed by the arced arms of the kneeling dancer, while upstage a dancer pours a pitcher of water into a real bowl.
