Icarus: Tough, But Fun

We had a painstaking rehearsal of Icarus last night. I like what we created, but it seems incredible sometimes that it can take an hour to choreograph 5 seconds of material. This is just because I'm a perfectionist. If I didn't take so bloody long working and reworking the same 5 seconds, we would hardly need to rehearse at all.

The structure I've adopted for this piece is a heavy load. Not only does Amanda not touch the floor, but she must continually change her support between the three of us: Alex, Mary, and myself. Limbs become tangled as we switch from perch to perch. Smoothing out the transitions will be the primary achievement of the piece: it is essentially one long transition.

Yet it's undeniably fun! I remember sitting at jigsaw puzzles as a kid, whiling away summer afternoons plugging in pieces, rotating, searching, finding, testing again. This is my favorite part, even better than performing. I love the physical/mental challenge of fitting bodies together. I hope the rest of the group enjoys it as much!

Come check out the fruits of our labors: Wednesday March 23, 2011 at the Kennedy Center Millenium Stage, 6pm, free. Mark your calendar now for the completion of our Washington DC/Philadelphia Exchange with Anne-Marie Mulgrew and Dancers Co at Dance Place in DC, Saturday July 9 at 8pm and Sunday July 10 at 7pm. This is the second concert of our exchange: the first concert took place in May 2010 in Philly.

Photo by Bill Hebert.