Title: In the House

Premiere: January 31, Feb 1, 2, 3, 2008. University Dance Company. Power Center, Ann Arbor, MI. Part of an evening of dance entitled “Stravinsky Revisited”
Duration:  17 minutes
Music:  Stephen Rush
Sound design and editing: Michelle Chamuel

Video design: Russ Kuhner
Set and costume design:  Kasia Mrowzewska
Lighting Design:  Mary Cole

Dancers: Valerie Barnes, Halie Bojovic, Betsy Busald, Cristina Calvar, Marlee Cook-Parrott, Trina Mannino, Sarah Pelc, Kimberly Sable, Austin Selden, Thayer Jonutz, Marly Spieser-Schneider, Tomoko Takedani, Sophie Torok, Nadia Tykulsker, Abigail Zeitvogel

Description: This was the note included in the program: “In this dance, fragments from 18 of my earlier works, dating from 1974-2007, are arranged into a new mosaic. The dance explores the ways in which we look back and experience the layering, resurgence, and alternation of memories, crossing thresholds between past and present.  Rush’s score embeds two Stravinsky fragments--one from the third movement of Symphony of Psalms (1930), and the other from a 1907 Stravinsky work entitled Pastorale; these musical fragments have appeared in my earlier dances—the former within a sound collage for my dance Beast (1980), and the latter in another collaboration with Rush, in a dance which takes its title from the music, Pastorale (1989). In addition to the aforementioned dances, In the House contains excerpts from: Departures (1974); Twofold (1979); Enfield in Winter (1983); Vermeer Variations (1986); People in the Sun (1987); Perennial (1988); Connoisseurs of Chaos (1990); The Only Way Around (1991); Dig, a Dance in 21 Parts (1991); Dance for Eighteen (1993); Save Changes Before Quitting (1994); Unfold/Entwine (1998); Routines and Reveries (2001); Brave Souls (2002); Red Trail to Open Field (2003); Identified Flying Objects/1-800-COSMOS (2005).”

I had attended a retrospective exhibit of visual artist Kiki Smith, and was enamored of the experience of moving from room to room in the Whitney Museum, taking in the evolution of her works over several decades. I wanted to find a way to do that with this dance. At the same time, using archival video footage of my earlier dances in the rehearsal process was advantageous, ahead of a hip replacement surgery I had a few months later.

Program

Review

Choreographic journal

Photos below by Peter Smith, taken on two different evenings, January 28th dress rehearsal and January 29th dress rehearsal.