The wild goose chase/the landing becomes reality this summer – not in ways that I originally imagined – nevertheless real, now. Look for Maine-based creative and educational activities to show up on this calendar site – soon!

We just got an invitation, yesterday, to perform on the {254} Dance-Fest in Waco again this fall. It’s such a fun festival – very family oriented, part of a larger city-wide festival along the Brazos River. Laura will perform the newly (re-worked) Pale Moon, for first time in five years. Festival dates are September 26 (5 pm) and September 27 (2 pm). www.outonalimbdance.com  This is not a photo from Pale Moon – we’ll tackle that later. It’s a photo of Laura – ever lovely, ever dynamic – taken by Katie Williford.

Hannah and I are still working on the duet.  It does have a title now: Neither Here Nor There. It’s complex working with text for the details of recording, balancing, constructing it. Jalen Monday – a young composer at TCU – is working on putting it together.  Don likes this photo because I look like an Avenger with the long-fingered left hand…..

Laura and I have started to re-construct Moonfall, a solo we made in 2009. We’ve been working for the last several weeks to bring it back and to fine-tune it.  In the process, I’ve renamed the work Pale Moon with the hope of arriving at a more abstract connection between the dance and its title.

Today was the first day of rehearsal with Ying Zhu. Ying and I met in France; we’ve converged in Florida to jump-start a new solo for her. She is dancing in a grid of orange string that flies diagonally off the floor, from downstage to upstage. It serves as both container and score for this work.

I’ve started a new dance with Hannah. I am laughingly calling it Hannah’s duet because my plan is to create a solo with and for Hannah, through which I hover in the background. I’m working with a friend, Tom Watters – poet and sly wit – to craft text. After working primarily with music for several years, I find I am returning to my love of text as both point of departure for action and abstraction, and as a means of filling the space.

Domingo was in town. He was kind enough to share his 30^th birthday in the studio with us, re-filming the new sections of Spine for archival purposes. Click this link to see excerpts (blackouts are intentional).

Spine3.4

[Photo: Matt Sachs, Agility Images]

After premiering Spine at the Brazos Collective Dance Festival in 2013, I returned in 2014 as a the festival’s guest teacher and choreographer. In addition to showing Distant Songs – this time with dancer Josie Baldree taking over for Hannah – I taught a master class for festival participants and area dancers.

[Photo: Danielle Brestel]

wild goose chase dance performed Distant Songs a second time as part of the {254} Dance-Fest in Waco. Organized by Brooke Schlecte www.outonalimbdance.com, the festival was a rich mix of artists and community members in events that ranged from concerts that showcased choreographers and dancers from across the state to master classes to exchanges between choreographers and area studios and dance programs.

[Photo: Danielle Brestel]