Title: Dances and Letters and Rhymes
Premiere: June 11 &12, 2010, Ann Arbor Dance Works 25th Anniversary concerts, Duderstadt Video Studio, Ann Arbor.
Duration: 12 minutes
Choreography and Text: Jessica Fogel
Digital Sound Collage: constructed by Jessica Fogel, including excerpts from The Unanswered Question, by Charles Ives (American Classics: Charles Ives, Northern Sinfonia, Naxos 2003); I Trill Tunes (an anagram portrait for Nurit Tilles) by David Borden; Vessel (an opera epic): Do You Be, by Meredith Monk (Meredith Monk: Do You Be, ECM Records 1987); Gotham Lullaby, by Meredith Monk (Dolmen Music, ECM Records 1981).
Costumes: Jessica Fogel, John Gutoskey, Patricia Plasko
Dancers: Jessica Fogel, Tehillah Frederick, Kalila Kingsford Smith, Briana Stuart, Katy Telfer, Susie Thiel
Choreographer’s program note: I have constructed a collage of a number of my solos performed on AADW concerts over the past 25 years. Framing the work is Chanticleer. First presented at Dance Theater Workshop in NYC in 1982, this was the solo I performed on AADW’s inaugural performance in the spring of 1985. Excerpts from other solos appear in this order: Perennial (1988), Woman with a Pearl Drop Earring (1986); Kaddish (1993); and Upswell (1996). Special thanks to Robin Wilson, Mary Cole, Martha Wiseman, and Aaron Gold for their generous feedback along the way, to Arthur Ridley of University Productions for the loan of the chairs; and especially to the dancers for richly embodying the works.
