Title: Where the Book Falls Open
Part One:
Premiere: Presented by Ann Arbor Dance Works, June 9, 10, 11, 2005, Duderstadt Video Studio, Ann Arbor, MI.
Duration: 2005:15 minutes
Set Design: Kasia Mrozewska
Mirrored revolving doors/set piece: Satoru Takehashi
Poem: “Where the Book Falls Open” written and performed by Martha Graham Wiseman
Music: Double Portrait, by David Borden
Costumes and Props: Jessica Fogel
Projections: Shawn Bible
Dancers: Younger Woman: Julie Leppelmeier Older Woman: Susannah Windell
Narrator/Poet: 2005: Martha Graham Wiseman
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Part Two:
Premiere: Presented by Ann Arbor Dance Works, June 5, 6, 7, 2008, Duderstadt Video Studio, Ann Arbor, MI.
Poet and Speakers: Martha Graham Wiseman and Jessica Fogel
Dancers:
Pt 1: Younger woman: Marly Spieser-Schneider; Older woman: Amy Chavasse
Pt. II: Amy Chavasse, Jessica Fogel, Marly Spieser-Schneider, Tomoko Takedani
Sound Design: Michelle Chamuel
Set Design: Kasia Mrowzewska
Mirrored revolving doors/set piece: Satoru Takehashi
Costumes: Lynn Holbrook
Projections: Jessica Fogel and Tomoko Takedani
Texts: Virginia Woolf (excerpts from Orlando), Martha Graham Wiseman, and Jessica Fogel
Music:
Pt. I: Double Portrait, by David Borden.
Pt. II: De Feestmars from the album Authentic Holland Folk Songs Played on the Dutch Barrel Organ, Legacy International 2006; excerpt from Suite for Percussion, II. Slow by Lou Harrison; excerpt from I Hear the Mermaids Singing by Tina Davidson; excerpt from Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, by Felix Mendelssohn; excerpt from Modern Love Waltz by Philip Glass, performed by Eric Moe; Jazz Suite No. 1, I. Waltz, by Dmitri Shostakovich Program
Funding: Institute for Research on Women and Gender
Description: A celebration of women in midlife, the work is a collaboration with poet and retired Skidmore College faculty member Martha Graham Wiseman. It was constructed in two parts over the course of three years. Part one, premiered in 2005 is a duet depicting a woman’s younger and older selves, tracing their intertwining paths as they discover each within the other. It is choreographed to Cornell University composer David Borden’s Double Portrait and features a set of mirrored revolving doors designed by UM Art Professor Satoru Takahashi, with projections of words and images by Shawn T. Bible. Part Two, premiered in 2008 was presented along with Part One, and followed it directly without pause on the program. Part Two continues an exploration of women in midlife as they reconcile past, present, and future selves, negotiating the elasticity of time. Moments from the past are newly framed in the present within a tapestry of words, movement, digital image and sound.
Poem: “Where the Book Falls Open” by Martha Wiseman
PowerPoint projections for Pt 1 & 2
Choreographic journal 2005
Choreographic journal 2008
Review
