Hath Purest Wit: Anagrams for Eight Dancers and Thirteen Letters

Title: Hath Purest Wit: Anagrams for Eight Dancers and Thirteen Letters

Premiere: Premiere: May 5, 2011. Duderstadt Center Atrium, Ann Arbor, MI. Commissioned by Arts Engine for the University of Michigan conference “The Role of the Arts and Art-Making in the Research University.” Subsequently restaged for the Department of Dance’s Power Center concert “Translation”, February 7-13, 2013 and for the “Michigan Five” Concert, featuring works from five MI college dance departments, Berman Theater, West Bloomfield, MI, March 2013.

Duration: 15 minutes

Choreography: Jessica Fogel, in collaboration with the dancers
Scenic Design and Props: Kasia Mrozewska
Costume Design: Suzanne Young
Lighting Design: 2011 Duderstadt performance: Jacques Mersereau and Jeffrey Alder 2013 Power Center performance: Mary Cole
Music Collage & Text arrangement: Jessica Fogel

Music: “Hallelujah Junction” by John Adams, “Let’s Twist Again” by David Appell and Kal Mann
Text excerpts from: Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, The Puzzle Instinct: The Meaning of Puzzles in Human Life by Marcel Danesi

Narrator: Leigh Woods

Dancers: for 2011 premiere: Jessica Bonenfant, Shanna Daly, Andrea Davis, Jillian Hopper, Sean Hoskins, Amber Kao, GingerAnn Neslund, Susie Thiel. For 2013 Power Center and Berman Theater restaging: CJ Burroughs, Kristen Donovan, Ashley Manci, Jimi Nguyen, Catherine ‘Caty’ Raupp, Stefania Spadaro-Bliss, Alexis Turner, Cara Zonca Understudy: Lena Oren For the Berman Center performance: Jessica Fogel performed as the narrator; Kiri Chapman replaced Kristen Donovan, Lena Oren replaced Caty Raupp.

Choreographer’s Note, 2013 Power Center version: Commissioned by U-M’s Arts Engine for the conference “The Role of Art-Making and the Arts in the Research University” and premiered May 5, 2011, Hath Purest Wit was created for and performed in the Duderstadt Center atrium on North Campus. The dance sought to express a key neurocognitive element of the creative process – insight thinking. Making the dance and performing it were both akin to attempting to solve puzzles with many possible solutions.

Now, a new space, new puzzles to solve, and new insights have spurred another version of Hath Purest Wit. This time, at the Power Center, you are welcomed into the creative process. An interactive performance installation in the lobby invites you to translate what you see into words or sketches. What you see and interpret in the lobby is re-imagined onstage, not just through movement but also through music and text. Making and experiencing art form part of a buoyant, flexible, ongoing process.

DESCRIPTION for the 2011 version: Within this work, the dancers solve a series of anagrams, creating physical puns and enactments of verbal phrases, generating language both on the verbal and physical plane. The dancers embody the act of puzzle solving and insight thinking, central to the creative process. Taking place in an atrium space that celebrates vertical space, the dance moves throughout the lobby, incorporating the elevator and escalator. A wry, professorial narrator, played by actor Leigh Woods, comments on the action throughout. The performance was one of the closing events of a two-day conference.

Introductory talk for Power Center Showing, Betty Pease Studio Theater, 12/10/2012

Script and outline for 2011 performance

Script and outline for 2013 performance

Score for lobby event Power Center 2013

Lobby event sign for audience members

Program Berman Center March 2013

Flyer for “Translation” concert Power Center 2013 featuring photo of Hath Purest Wit

Press release for “Translation” 2013

Review

Preview

Choreographic notes

Inspiration from Danesi’s The Puzzle Instinct