Title: Save Changes Before Quitting
Premiere: University Dance Company, Power Center, Ann Arbor, MI, February 1995.
Duration: 15 minutes
Music: Stephen Rush
Dancers: Emily Berry, Emma Cotter, Kelly J. Crandall, Jason Marchant, Aimée McDonald, Tara Munger, Tim Smola, Markus Van Zwoll, Darby Wilde, LeAndrea Williams, Josef Woodson, with Christina Gee and Laurah Klepinger
Costumes: Erika Furey
Set Design: Heeson Ko
Video Backdrop: A MacIntosh screensaver was used and projected that broke up words into floating geometric shapes pieces. (Likely the screensaver used was “Punch Out” from Apple’s After Dark screensavers series, which were very popular at the time.) Fogel supplied the list of words, all of which were terms associated with cyberspace.
Lighting Design: Mary Cole
Description: This work grew out of my solo improvisational performance, Dark Matter, performed a few months earlier at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Duderstadt Center. Like Dark Matter, Save Changes Before Quitting was inspired by words associated with the internet, which was at this time a newer phenomenon. This is the program note I wrote for the dance: “This dance comes from a collage of ideas about the Internet and the computing world. I'm interested in finding ways to embody the disembodied world of cyberspace. I've created the movement based upon the new vocabulary this realm has engendered, working with a generic list of terms to generate movement. Many of the words or phrases used to describe cyberspace activities are pregnant with verbal or visual puns. In the context of this dance, for example, the human body becomes "portable software"--something with a soft texture that can be carried through space. The movement is also based on communication styles in cyberspace.”
Here is a fuller description of the ideas behind the dance, written to myself in an email while making the work.
Fogel notes on Power 1995 dance
List of words which inspired the movement materials and also appeared in the video backdrop
Performance video
Program
Review