Title: The Path Between

Premiere: Premiered in excerpted form (14 minute duration) for Ann Arbor Dance Works’s 5th Anniversary Concert, McIntosh Theater, University of Michigan, November 30-December 3, 1989. Subsequently performed in its entirety (30 minute duration) May 17-20, 1990, McIntosh Theater. The project received support from The Grant Program for Interdisciplinary Artists, a program administered by Randolph Street Gallery and funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation, with additional support from the Michigan Council for the Arts and Randolph Street Gallery. For the full version, additional grant support was received from UM’s Office of the Vice President for Research.

Video conception: Jessica Fogel

Video production: Michael Knight

Costume design: Patricia Bova and Jessica Fogel

Lighting design: Mary Cole

Duration: 14 minutes

Music: I. Franz Schubert, Das Wandern

"Oh wandering, wandering, my only joy"

Pianist: Steve Gathman

II. Franz Liszt, Transcendental Etude No. 4, Mazzeppa

Pianist: Claudio Arrau

III. Hugo Wolf, Ganymede

"Where to? Upward draws it, upward!"

Pianist: Stephen Rush

Performers: Jessica Fogel, dancer and Stephen Hurley, baritone

Description:

Three excerpts were included for this performance that integrated live performance and pre-recorded video. The first section was a kind of mapping duet, in which a line was drawn like a route on a map on the video backdrop, while the two performers chalked a similar path on the floor of the stage. In the second excerpt, the video pictured me (Jessica) doing static rock climbing shapes on a moving escalator, filmed in the Taubman Center of the UM Hospital. On stage, I did similar combinations of rock climbing shapes, then exited the stage and gripped along the ledge overhang of the downstage, hanging upside down. Then I climbed the steps into the audience and climbed through the audience over the backs and armrests of the audience chairs, planting a flag on the ledge of a wall audience left in the seating area. In the third section, the baritone, Stephen Hurley, was immersed in building a model airplane at a table downstage left. Meanwhile, stage right, I sat on a chair on an oriental rug, reading a newspaper. I turned on a fan behind me and with that action, the video backdrop began to depict me moving on a magic carpet, while I performed the identical movements below on the stage.

This is how I described the work in a grant proposal to OVPR:

”Jessica Fogel is requesting funds to facilitate her continuing work on The Path Between, a performance piece which combines pre-recorded video with live dance/theater, text and song. When completed, the work will be 30-40 minutes in duration. The performance revolves around the concept of transport, both literal and metaphorical, tracing the journey taken over a varied terrain by two live performers, (dancer/choreographer Jessica Fogel and singer/actor Stephen Hurley.) The title suggests some of the themes of the work--it is about the path between two people, the path between illusion and reality, the path between the live stage action and the video projection, the path between wandering and settling, the path between two extremes or dualities.

Jessica Fogel has been working on this project in collaboration with video producer Michael Knight, using the facilities of the Center for Performing Arts Technology (CPAT) at the School of Music. A primary aim of the project is to find a dialogue between the mediums of live dance performance and video projection, one in which neither element competes with the other, but rather, in which each voice deepens the expression of the other. At times, the video image takes precedence over the live performers, and vice versa; at other times, a balance between stage and screen is struck, forming a congruent visual entity; at yet other times, the stage and screen images contrast sharply, juxtaposing disparate imagery. The tenuous line between reality (the time and space of the stage) and illusion ( the video image's expansive space, free of gravity, along with the video's ability to distort time) creates an evocative tension and amplifies meanings.

Intrigued by the potential for creating images of dramatic and visual impact with the impressive resources available at CPAT (in particular, the Fairlight computer, which can generate 99 special video effects, and the Talaria projector, which can project a video image as large as 20 x 30 feet), Ms. Fogel began exploring the combination of video and dance last year. She and Michael Knight collaborated on a highly successful dance/video project in February 1989, Pastorale, which was performed at Power Center on the Viva Stravinsky! program produced by the U of M Dance Department. In addition, Knight and Fogel taught a class for the first time, Video Dance Composition, to a group of twelve dance majors. The video created in the course, directed by Fogel, produced by Knight and conceived by the students in the course, won an Award of Excellence in the National Fine Arts Video Competition. Encouraged by the success of these projects, and eager to further explore the possibilities, Fogel applied to the Grant Program for Interdisciplinary Artists (GPIA) for funds to create an evening-length work combining dance and video, The Path Between. She was awarded a grant by the GPIA (funded by the NEA, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Michigan Council for the Arts), which only covered part of the expenses ($2000). She accepted the award on the understanding that she would apply for other funds in order to complete the project. She subsequently did receive some additional funding from a Michigan Council for the Arts project support grant awarded to Ann Arbor Dance Works ($1000), and from the Arts Foundation of Michigan ($300).

She began work on the project during the summer of 1989, and presented "Excerpts from The Path Between ," a 14 minute segment of the work in progress, on the Ann Arbor Dance Works 5th Anniversary Concert season at the McIntosh Theater at the School of Music, November 30- December 3 , 1989. The work met with enthusiastic popular and critical acclaim. There is still over half of the performance to be completed. The premiere of the work, in its entirety, has been scheduled for May 17- 20, 1990 at the McIntosh Theater. In order to continue work on the project, more funding is necessary. The video component of the work has turned out to be much more time consuming, and thus much more expensive, than had been at first expected. It is a sincere hope that this project will be worthy of your funding.”

Review by Joann McNamara, The Ann Arbor News

Program May 1990

Poster May 1990