The choreographty also made use of a front curtain that, when closed, allowed performance on the apron area in front of the drapery, and when opened fully allowed mainstage action. I also created sequences for which the curtain was only partially opened / partially closed, with the effect that each viewer could only see part of the dancing behind the curtain, each with a different partial view depending on their seating location. This dance clearly reflected my obsession with theatrical stagecraft, and the notion of performance itself.
Branches, Swords, Flowers, Spears, Ribbons was divided into two sections, separated by a brief pause, each half a mirror of the other. The first section contains several sequences from of a preliminary draft of the work I made the previous year for students at Purchase College, and the second section is primarily a quartet. A recurring choreographic strategy can be found in the solo for Christopher Batenhorst in which he performs the same sequence of movement first without holding any props, then holding branches, and finally slicing the air with swords. (I inserted that same solo for Christopher within Not-About-AIDS-Dance (1994).) Certainly the effects are different, but even so - what might any of it mean? For me the meaningfulness lay less in what he was doing and more in that he was doing it.
Premiered at Dance Theater Workshop on April 25, 1990.
Credits
Choreography: Neil Greenberg
Performed by: Christopher Batenhorst, Matthew Carmody, Maya Ciarrochi, Neil Greenberg, Sondra Loring, Elizabeth Maxwell (for Kristy Santimyer), Jean McDade
Lighting Design: Rhonda Rubinson
Production Design: Christopher Batenhorst & Neil Greenberg
Costume Construction: Mary Beth McCabe, Denise Mitchell
Curtain Construction: Christopher Batenhorst & Sondra Loring
Thanks to Kristy Santimyer, who participated in the choreographic process for BSFSR, and who performed in preview performances of Section II of BSFSR in Portland, Maine earlier in 1990.
Videography by Character Generators at Dance Theater Workshop on April 29, 1990
Camera: Mark Robison
Support
Commissioned by DTW’s FIRST LIGHT Project with funding provided by the Jerome Foundation, St. Paul, MN.
National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship
New York Foundation for the Arts Choreography Fellowship
New York State Council on the Arts
Press
Burt Supree, Village Voice, 1990
Jennifer Dunning, New York Times, 1988
L-R: Christopher Batenhorst, Kristy Santimyer, Neil Greenberg, Sondra Loring
© Paula Court, 1990 Studio Shot
L-R: Christopher Batenhorst, Sondra Loring, Neil Greenberg, Kristy Santimyer,
© Paula Court, 1990 Studio Shot
L-R: Christopher Batenhorst, Sondra Loring, Kristy Santimyer, Neil Greenberg,
© Paula Court, 1990 Studio Shot
Neil Greenberg
© Tom Brazil