Alison Chase Performance

Alison Chase, who was Founding Artistic Director of Pilobolus Dance Theater, now heads her own company that combines new professional dancers and veteran dancers who have worked with her before.  The troupe is devoted to interdisciplinary works, including film, projections and puppetry.

Its current booking repertory includes:

• Ben's Admonition is a duet for two men in confinement, performed to music composed Paul Sullivan.  It opens with the men suspended by their ankles in a tight cell and is about the tension and dynamic relationship that develops out of their "unchosen proximity."  (The suspension uses circus rigging.)

• Lucid dreams is about being in the permeable border 'twixt sleep and wake.  The score by Ed Bolous was originally performed live at Zankel Hall; it is now being re-adapted for venues without a live orchestra. A layering of live projections now replaces the film that the piece was originally designed for. There are a live singer and recorded music. 

• Star-Cross'd sprang from Romeo and Juliet.  It uses circus silks as set and props.  Involves suspension.  It's a blend of non-traditional weight bearing partnering and "taking it off the ground." 

• Tsu Ku Tsu was named for a Japanese Taiko rhythm by its composer, Leonard Eto.  It grew out of a collaboration between Eto with a Japanese Taiko drummer.  (The word has no literal meaning.)

• Uno, Dos, Tray  is semi-narrative.  It's about two sailors and a waitress.  The waitress holds a red tray throughout, thus the title: the tray is a character.  Music is by Paul Sullivan.

The company is developing new work a giant quarry (350' wide and 250' deep) on the coast of Maine.  What is developed in the quarry is reconfigured for theaters.  "Some things live and breathe in the quarry," says Chase.  "In a quarry, you use found light and you are inventive about scale."  One tool that entered her creative process is a front end loader operated by a local quarrier named Rick Weeds.  This machine, which reminded Chase of a dinosaur, has inspired a 25' puppet designed by Mia Kanazawa, which will be used in a future piece.  Says Chase, "I know there's a proscenium life in this."  She adds, "It's a way of not putting borders on your imagination."

Chase also rehearses in a very large gymnasium in Stonington and then takes the work outside to see how it looks off the polished wood floor. 

She says, "When you are a performing choreographer, it's hard to step out and get the long view.  In a way, I have been liberated by not being confined to what my body will produce in terms of vocabulary."