Title: Mapping the River
Premiere: November 5, 6 ,&7, 2008, Ann Arbor Dance Works, Duderstadt Video Studio, Ann Arbor, MI. Subsequently performed Feb. 13 & 14, 2009, Duderstadt Video Studio. Revised, recast, and restaged in 2011 as “Mapping the River II” at the UM Museum of Art, Ann Arbor.
Duration: 25 minutes
Choreographer, in collaboration with the dancers: Jessica Fogel
Dancers: Amy Cova, Sarah Konner, Andrea Mathias, Stephanie Overton, Nadia Tykulsker
Poetry: Keith Taylor
Read by Evan Chambers 11/5; by Keith Taylor 11/6 & 11/7
Video editing and design: Christi Vedejs
Contributions to storyline and video: Sara Adlerstein, Doug Hesseltine, Evan Chambers, and Jessica Fogel
Photographic essays and graphic design: Doug Hesseltine
Costume design: Suzanne Young
Lighting design: Mary Cole
Music:
1. Water Percussion Quartet (2008), composed by Tan Dun
Katelynn Heasley, Sam Livingston, Fritz McGirr, and Neil Sisauyhoat, percussionists
2. Headwaters (2008) for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, 2 violins, viola, 'cello and bass – composed by Evan Chambers
Christopher Kendall, conductor 11/5; Evan Chambers, conductor 11/6
Elise Shope, flute; Andrew Parker, oboe; David Snyder, clarinet; Gabriel Pomerantz, bassoon; Paula Muldoon, Sophie Cash Goldwasser, violins; Tom Carter, viola; Jeremy Crosmer, 'cello; Cody Rex, bass
3. Rain interlude improvisation and mussels dance improvisation
Created and performed by Katelynn Heasley, Sam Livingston, Fritz McGirr, and Neil Sisauyhoat, percussionists
Excerpt from Electric Counterpoint #1 by Steve Reich, David Tannenbaum, guitarist. “Acoustic Counterpoint / David Tannenbaum” New Albion, 1995
Program note: The endless cycle of water -- rain to earth, to river, to lake, to ocean, to sky, to rain -- is the inspiration for this performance created by an interdisciplinary group of U-M faculty members and students. Our own Huron River provides a central narrative for the work. All members of the group contributed significant elements to the work and the result is a pooling of many perspectives. The group began work on the project in April 2008, and with some breaks for summer absences, continued to meet throughout the fall to draw the ideas together.
Description: I served as team leader and choreographer for a project commissioned for the Arts on Earth conference, “Arts and the Environment” that took place November 5-8, 2008. An interdisciplinary group of UM faculty members and students created the performance as well as a related multi-media installation and a video documentary. Collaborators included UM colleagues Sara Adlerstein, School of Natural Resources and Environment; Evan Chambers, composer, School of Music, Theatre & Dance; Joseph Gramley, percussionist, School of Music, Theatre & Dance; Doug Hesseltine, Graphic Designer, School of Art & Design; Keith Taylor, poet, MFA Writing Program, College of Literature, Science and the Arts; Christi Vedejs, Videographer, and several UM music and dance majors. Video showings of work aired at an arts and environment conference, Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Concepcion, Chile; at Instituto Espanol de Oceanografia (Balearic Oceanography Center), Mallorca, Spain; at the International Association for Great Lakes Research Conference, University of Toledo, Toledo. The work was subsequently revised and remounted as “Mapping the River II” in March 2011 for five dancers with new music by Evan Chambers, for an Arts and the Environment Symposium held at the UM Museum of Art as part of UM’s “Water Theme” Semester with support from the Office of the Vice President for Research.
Video documentation
Interview with Barbara Lucas on cable TV
MLive preview February 12, 2009
http://ns.umich.edu/podcast/video.php?id=725
http://ummedia04.rs.itd.umich.edu/~nis/huron_feb_09.mov
http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2009/02/mapping_the_river_back_for_enc.html
http://the-communicator.org/tag/jessica-fogel/
