Up Until Now, premiere 1/29/09 Toronto Dance Theatre

photo:Christopher House and Deborah Hay
Christopher House, artistic director of Toronto Dance Theatre commissioned a new work for his 11- member dance company. I will begin work with the company on January 5. The dance, titled Up Until Now, will premiere on January 29, 2009 at the Winchester Street Theatre in Toronto.

Up Until Now is based on material from I’ll Crane For You, the solo I taught at the 2008 Solo Performance Commissioning Project. The title I’ll Crane For You is the last line of a spontaneous song I sang and recorded in a field of snow in Stowe,VT , February 28, 2007.
“I think through far
I pray for you
I think for you
I’ll go and then I’ll crane for you “

During the 2008 SPCP I realized that “I’ll crane for you” is also a metaphor for the performer/audience relationship.

Christopher learned I’ll Crane For You at the 2008 SPCP so I asked him to teach his company the solo material, including the questions used to challenge the dancer’s attachment to known material. Because Christopher and I have worked together in an earlier SPCP, I felt confident in asking him to set the stage for my brief tenure with his company.

How I Practice Relationship

July 30, 2008
Outside of the studio I assume I am in relationship to the world, but I do not pay attention to how I am being altered by it. Call it self-protective or call it loss.

I have come to realize that dance is how I actually exercise my relationship to the world. As I perform in the studio or on stage, I try, like a dog, to notice and balance concurrent perceptual experiences:
a) my relationship to the feedback from my whole body at once;
b) my relationship to the entire space in which I am dancing;
c) my relationship to each moment as it unfolds;
d) my relationship to the other people with whom I am dancing; and,
e) my relationship to the audience.

Found Music, premiere, Marfa, TX

July 19, 2008 premiere Found Music, at Goode Crowley Theater, Marfa, TX
dancers: Cydney Wilkes and Mike Barber