Empty. and Walking.

In 2007 I choreographed our show Right Before You Fell - it was a piece that explored what might happen if all of the elephants-in-the-room, or things we don't manage to say, were physicalized. To serve all that is unsaid.....there needed to be an awkward love story (or two) wound in for good lack of communication.

One "love story" was a series of duets between a singer and a dancer to Crazy by Willie Nelson.
The internal narrative of the dance is a women walking the city to clear her mind of love...but she imagines hearing his voice and his kisses flying towards her on the air.


While I was building the piece with Zoe, my Grandfather (Poppy) passed away.


I came back to the studio knowing deeply that this dance was not just about a break up, but also the intense sense of presence and forever that now fully immersed my Grandmother.

Poppy was gone, but Nanny was feeling him around every corner, and waiting patiently (most of the time) for him to show up, laugh and help her make some sauce.

It didn't happen. Until now. Yesterday my Grandmother passed away. Quietly ushered into death with words of love from my Mom, Dad and me.

And when we celebrate her life tomorrow and Tuesday these new dances about emptiness and fulfillment will begin to be filled with the wisdom of loss, the joy of finding home, and the bubbling laughter that we all can't help but equate with Nanny.

She has always been a wise voice and good listener. She had the strength of love in her actions and words. She will be missed in body here - but her loving ways and advice are part of all of us and will never be lost or forgotten.
Theresa Cerone Sanducci 1926-2009

A Recipe...or, Commission if you Will.....

Take the same text - Kinesis Project's "Standing Room"
The concept of being in the same place at the same time and riffing on it.
Use dancers and/or non-dancers to see what answers come with the request of
understanding.
Is this a commission? I believe it is.
I ask the world-wide creative community to Play....
Here is the text:

This.
This is what I'm saying:
If I stayed here, and you
Came here
Then we would be standing in the same spot
at the same moment.
This one.
And that would be
Lack of distance
Covered by bodies -
and I wouldn't have to miss you,
or
Think I missed you.

This is how we do it:

In progress

I'm teaching a workshop next week to high school students in connection to this.

Andrew said yes to the new exploration of an idea we were throwing around in 2001. (July 29-Aug 2)

Our site-specific performance in Battery Park's has officially been "ok'd" for the Bosque Garden (Sept. 1, 2007)

Right Before You Fell is going to the Philly Fringe (anytime between Aug. 31 and Sept 15)

Estrogenius/Women In Motion is happening Sept 29.

Odin's Aviary review of Right Before You Fell

I am still searching for official paper reviews...but in the meantime true friends review friends.

A small snippet from Jeff's thoughts about the show:

"Read about the inspiration for the show here, March 15. Some would have hated it. If I had gone looking for pin-point-perfect technique, or classical movement, or really anything conventional at all, I would have been disappointed. Instead I was uplifted by vignettes about trying to get along with and without people. Between dances, open doorways and closed doors were moved about on rollers by dancers dressed like nuevo gypsies, as they held a kind of movement dialogue with one another. Each had what seemed to be their own character, informing their choices and scenarios. Melissa's acrobalance experience shone through at certain points, particularly to a number choreographed to Tom Waits' "The Piano Has Been Drinking," a piece I was lucky enough to get a preview of at the Kinesis benefit in December (see 12/25/06 for a photo). That section, too, is a good example of one of the best aspects of Right Before You Fell: its sense of humor. I've known Melissa for a while now, so her brand of humor is about as familiar to me as anyone's. RBYF was a great manifestation of unbounded joy for living, and unabashed moments of the surreal."