Title: Downriver
Premiere: June 26, 1987.Commissioned by the Detroit Chamber Winds and the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, performed by Ann Arbor Dance Works, Power Center, Ann Arbor, MI. Subsequently performed at the Wallace Smith Theatre, Farmington Hills, MI and on other Ann Arbor Dance Works concerts.
Performers: Bill DeYoung, Jessica Fogel, Marsha Pabalis, James Moreno. Subsequent performances Peter Sparling replaced James Moreno
Duration: 12 minutes
Music: Summer Music, by Samuel Barber, played live by the Detroit Chamber Winds
Costumes: Patricia Plasko
Set Design: Marcia Polenberg
Lighting Design: Mary Cole
Description: This work was commissioned by the Ann Arbor Summer Festival in conjunction with the Detroit Chamber Winds. The main work on the concert was L’Histoire Du Soldat, choreographed by Peter Sparling. To round out the program, I contributed Downriver. The music choice was determined in discussion with the Detroit Chamber Winds, who supplied a list of possible repertory to choose from. Taking my cues from the Barber’s title, not to mention its structure and content, the dance featured two male/female couples. The set design by Marcia Polenberg featured three colorfully died silk panels that hung across the back wall, and and a lushly painted canoe and paddles placed upstage left. Images of canoeing and porting the canoe were interwoven into the dance. The dancers were costumed in white silk tops and bottoms. The work, conveying a summer idyll on a river, was a somewhat romantic music visualization. It closely followed the melodic flow, harmonic tensions, and rhythmic structures of the music, which was given a beautiful live performance by the Detroit Chamber Winds.
Program Ann Arbor Summer Festival premiere
Rehearsal photo below: Downriver. Jessica Fogel and James Moreno, foreground. Marsha Pabalis and Bill DeYoung, background.
