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SPRING TOGETHER
SPRING TOGETHER An evening of Dance, Music, Poetry, Visual Art, Theater & Film Directed by Janet Aisawa & Beth Soll with Elisa Decker, Carlos Fittante, Andrew Gurian, Jeff Platz, Raphael Simons & Gary Winter “Spring Together” is an evocative program of multi-disciplinary works made in response to two germinal pieces by master choreographer Beth Soll and trapeze artist extraordinaire Janet Aisawa. In the making of their solos, Soll and Aisawa have been influenced by each other’s work, and in turn they have invited artists from other fields to make their work in an open-ended reaction to the original solos. Responding to the dances by Ms. Aisawa and Ms. Soll will be visual artist Elisa Decker, Baroque Fusion choreographer Carlos Fittante, film artist Andrew Gurian, musician Jeff Platz, writer Raphael Simons, and playwright Gary Winter. Costumes by Sally Ann Parsons and lighting design by John Nichter. In choreographing “The Way Back”, Soll, now in her seventh decade, has been influenced by her sense of a life trajectory that, albeit full of dramatic, tragic, and joyous events, has been consistently shaped by her 60 years of commitment to dance. This new dance, while reflecting Soll’s poetic sensibility and her characteristically subtle and enigmatic qualities, is also based on the images of flight that are present in Aisawa’s aerial dance, “Dancing in Circles.” Soll’s dance is performed to the music of George Crumb, who is celebrating his 85th birthday this year. His reputation as a composer of hauntingly beautiful scores has made him one of America’s most important and frequently performed composers in today's musical world. Aisawa’s “Dancing in Circles” chronicles her twenty-year relationship with her trapeze. This dance captures the soaring freedom and love, the repetition, the feelings of being trapped, and the compromise that is inherent in all relationships. “Dancing in Circles” will be performed to live music by drummer, Dewey Emadoo. “Dancing in Circles” will be performed a second time with Raphael Simons’ reading of his new poem, “Philomela”, which is based on elements of the Greek myth. It is composed of both words and phonemes extracted from the words, creating a surreal landscape. “Dancing in Circles” and “The Way Back”, will each be performed twice, each time in a different sound and visual context as created by the other participating artists. Playwright Gary Winter premieres “The Blue Carp (or Fritzi Plays the Appalachian Bones)”, a monologue inspired by composer George Crumb’s quote, “I feel all music in the world is one thing.” The images are inspired by what Gary saw as he watched Beth and Janet dance, and explores the intersections of dance, nature, everyday gestures, and George Crumb’s Appalachian roots (and his beloved dogs). His second monologue, “The Clumsy Girls”, is a meditation on clumsiness that contrasts with the elegance of dance or can also be a comment on how clumsy one feels in the company of dancers. Both monologues will be directed by Meghan Finn and acted by Melissa Diaz. Elisa Decker, visual artist and photographer, usually concentrates on finding images reminiscent of abstract paintings, but because of her long association with the performing arts, she comes to this project with an insider's enthusiasm. In “The Other Side of the Mirror”, her new series for “Spring Together”, the dancers seem to hover between the real world and a place of memory and mystery. Carlos Fittante who specializes in Baroque, Balinese, and Spanish dance will dance “Chaconne de Phaeton” by Louis Pecour to music by Jean-Baptiste Lully and set by John Woodrow Kelley. The premiere of his dance “Icarus”, a Baroque fusion solo inspired by Pecour's masterpiece will be danced by Andrew Trego with music by Elias Guzman and set by Elisa Decker. Jeff Platz, will add an improvisational element to “Spring Together”. He is a composer, master improviser and guitarist of international renown. He will improvise with electric guitar and electronics, both independently and with others’ works throughout the concert. Film artist Andrew Gurian will project a video re-interpretation of Ms. Soll and Ms. Aisawa's solo dances. The video will transform solos into duets, non-movement into movement, and movement into stillness.
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 photo: Stephen Brian Phillips | Beth Soll directed her own company in Boston from 1977-1997 and in California from 1997-2000, and moved to New York in 2000. Often praised as “the most accomplished choreographer to have emerged from New England,” she is known for her enigmatic and powerfully expressive work. With her company, she has performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia and has worked with dance companies in the Midwest and in Boston and with many choreographers, including Janet Aisawa in “Generations,” Bill Evans, Ina Hahn, Rosalind Newman, Wendy Perron, and Mel Wong. Ms. Soll’s goal is to choreograph dances that evoke feelings, offer insights, and present the viewer with the familiar seen in a new light. Soll’s choreography has been supported by seven Choreography Fellowships and numerous Dance Company Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, many grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and other state and civic agencies, and funding from many private foundations and corporations, such as Jacob’s Pillow, the LEF Foundation, the Bank of Boston, the Polaroid Foundation, and the Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation. Ms. Soll, who has a Ph.D. Dance from the University Professors Program at Boston University, has been on the dance faculties of the University of Wisconsin, Boston University, the Harvard Summer Dance Center, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (where she directed the dance program for 20 years), UC Santa Barbara, Hofstra University, The New School, and numerous private organizations. She is currently performing and choreographing in New York City and is an adjunct faculty member in Dance at Manhattanville College. In addition, she teaches at the American Language Institute NYU. Soll's book, “Will Modern Dance Survive? Lessons to be Learned from the Pioneers and Unsung Visionaries of Modern Dance”, was published in 2002. “Soll works like a collector – showing us in varying lights the odd and/or beautiful discoveries, the everyday objects treasured for their private significance.” Deborah Jowitt in “The Village Voice.” |
Janet Aisawa directed “Generations, A Lifetime in Dance” in 2012, where she first worked with Beth Soll. She is a founding member of Julie Ludwick’s Fly-by-Night Dance Theater an aerial dance company where she has been performer, rehearsal director, and assistant director. She collaborated with Mary-Clare McKenna on an evening length piece, “The Nostalgic Body” (2003), at the Silver Whale Gallery in Jeffersonville, NY and at Chisenhale in London. She worked with Lee Nagrin for 20 years, as assistant director, dramaturge, and performer. She has also performed with Ollom Movement Art, Laura Shapiro, and Dan Froot. She was the 2006 National Amateur Theater Arts champion in ballroom dance. She will be dancing (on the ground) with Kristin Hatleberg at Green Space at the end of April. |
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 | George Crumb (b. 1929) is one of the most frequently performed composers in today's musical world. Crumb is the winner of Grammy and Pulitzer Prizes, and continues to compose new scores that enrich the lives of all who come in contact with his profoundly humanistic art. Crumb's music often juxtaposes contrasting musical styles, ranging from music of the western art-music tradition, to hymns and folk music, to non-Western musics. Many of Crumb's works include programmatic, symbolic, mystical and theatrical elements, which are often reflected in his beautiful and meticulously notated scores. A shy, yet warmly eloquent personality, Crumb retired from his teaching position at the University of Pennsylvania after more than 30 years of service. Honored by numerous institutions with honorary Doctorates, and the recipient of dozens of awards and prizes, Crumb makes his home in Pennsylvania, in the same house where he and his wife of more than 60 years raised their three children. George Crumb's music is published by C.F. Peters and an ongoing series of “Complete Crumb” recordings, supervised by the composer, is being issued on Bridge Records. |
Elisa Decker was originally a landscape painter. She used to photograph her subjects so she could finish her paintings in the studio if it started raining. Several boxes of photographs later she switched to photography. Although she usually concentrates on finding images reminiscent of abstract paintings in nature, Ms. Decker, daughter of a cantor and a Broadway actress, has had a long association with the performing arts. She managed the Haitian Vodou dance troupe of Frisner Augustin and Serge St. Juste after she got out of college and has been dancing to Haitian and Afro-Cuban rhythms ever since. Ms. Decker got her early art training at the Maryland Institute of Fine Art in Baltimore, and teaches writing-intensive drawing at BMCC-CUNY. |  photo: "The Other Side of the Mirror, no. 1" archival pigment print ©2015 Elisa Decker |
| Melissa Diaz (actress in Gary Winter’s monologue) is a New York and New Jersey based actor, singer, and educator. Previous credits include Off Broadway's “The Awesome 80s Prom,” “Daredevil” at The Brick in Brooklyn, “Mr. Splitfoot” (Piper Theater Company), “I Will Be Gone” (New Works Brooklyn), and the world premiere of “Happily Ever” (Brooklyn College.) Melissa holds an MFA in Acting from Brooklyn College and her Bachelor in Music from The Catholic University of America. | |
| Dewey Emadoo has been drumming for over 20 years. He played for Beth Soll in her solo “Adventure” (2012). He also composed and played for Elizabeth Disharoon’s dance, “Retreat” in 2012. |
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 | Meghan Finn (Director of Gary Winter’s monologue) Recent work includes “Daredevil” by Gary Winter (The Brick), “The Downtown Loop” by Ben Gassman (3LD), and “Take Me Home” by Alexandra Collier (set in a taxi cab). Other recent projects include “The Service Road” by Erin Courtney (Adhesive Theater), “Motel Cherry” by Peggy Stafford (HERE) and “3 2’s; or Afar” by Mac Wellman (Dixon Place). She has an MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College. |
| Carlos Fittante, choreographer/dancer specializes in Baroque, Balinese and Spanish Escuela Bolera dances and is the artistic director of BALAM Dance Theatre, a contemporary world dance company inspired by Balinese theatre. His performance credits include Boston Early Music Festival, where he is co-choreographer, Joan Miller and Dance Players, New York Theatre Ballet, to mention a few. He is a graduate from the School of American Ballet, has a Bachelors in Dance from Empire State College, and had has studied and performed in Bali, Indonesia with the acclaimed Semara Ratih Gamlan. He currently teaches dance at Queens College, New York. |  |
 | Andrew Gurian joined the TP Videospace Troupe in 1972 (founded by Shirley Clarke), participating in and directing live video workshops at The Kitchen, Flaherty Film Seminar, Anthology Film Archives, Young Filmakers/Video Arts, and SUNY. His video installations include “The Two Smallest Video Pieces in the World,” “Nijinsky’s Last Dance,” and “Grande Horizontale/Verticale,” “A Night at the Opera,” “Godliness/Cleanliness,” “The Castle Variations,” and, with Marjorie Gamso, “Topsy’s Lament.” Mr. Gurian provided video components for pieces by a slew of dancers, including Scott Caywood, Leslie Satin, Carolyn Lord, Laura Shapiro, and Yoshiko Chuma. Mr. Gurian is the resident video creator for “Subway Moon,” an on-going musical/video performing experience that combines the forces of professional jazz musicians and filmmakers with high-school music students from around the world. |
| Elias Guzman is a pianist, composer, theorist, and educator with extensive international performance experience in Central and South America, Spain, the Ukraine, and the United States. Local solo and chamber instrumental performances include The Juilliard Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and performances at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center's "Out of Doors" series, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and Madison Square Garden, among many others. The French Fédération "Des Anciens Combattants Français" awarded him a medal of honor for his musical contribution to The Cadets Lafayette. A personal assistant to the late American composer David Diamond, Elias Guzman studied composition and orchestration with Rebecca Scott, Lawrence Widdoes, Samuel Zyman, and Michael White at The Juilliard School. Elias Guzman is the director of The New York Music and Arts Center, faculty member at The Lycee Français de N.Y. and the JCC Thurnauer School of Music. |  |
 | John Woodrow Kelley (painter) is an artist whose entire life's work is devoted to creating a contemporary interpretation of the classical tradition in western civilization. This ambition is expressed through a series of paintings inspired by Greek mythology, as well as a study of the uniqueness of the human individual through the genre of portraiture. His attraction to Greek mythology is born of the belief that it embodies everything that is timeless about the human experience, and therefore is worthy of an interpretation expressing our own age. Mr. Kelley took a degree in art history from the University of Tennessee and a degree in architecture from Pratt Institute in New York before turning to the study of painting and drawing at the Art Students League and the New York Academy in New York. His principle teacher was Mr. Ted Jacobs, who presides over his own school in the south of France and teaches the precepts of the academic tradition, with its emphasis on accurate drawing and the study of anatomy. During the course of his career Mr. Kelley has received commissions from such institutions as the Morgan Library, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and Yale University. He has shown his work at, among others, the John Pence Gallery in San Francisco, CA., and Fischbach Gallery in New York, and is currently showing in the More Gallery in Philadelphia, Pa., and Pandora Old Masters in Milan, Italy. His work is represented in the private collections of the senior vice president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mr. Ashton Hawkins, and the writers, Mr. Reynolds Price and Mr. David Halberstam. His work has been published in the New York Times, the American Arts Quarterly, the Italian magazine,"Amica," and the architectural publication, "The Classicist." Mr. Kelley is a fellow of the Morgan Library, and a fellow of the Institute of Classical Architecture. He divides his time between his studios in New York City and Knoxville, Tennessee. |
| John Nichter (lighting designer) has 20 years of Theatrical, Industrial and Residential Lighting Design experience. He has designed lights for dance, musicals, plays, television, corporate venues and live concerts. He has been employed at Rockland Community College Cultural Arts Theater for over 13 years and is currently Technical Manager & Lighting Designer there. He is a licensed Private Pilot and a musician. He resides in Kingston NY. |  |
 | Jeff Platz, guitarist, composer, has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. He has performed in various music festivals worldwide such as New York City’s What is Jazz? festival, the Heidelberg jazz festival, Amsterdam's Crossing Borders festival, the Munster International Jazz festival in Munster Germany and most recently the Bia Jazz Festival in Milan Italy. The Berlin based music journalist Wolf Kampmann writes, “Platz’s music is generous although never accidental. The secret of its uninhibited quality lies more in Platz’s playful use of the familiar where intuition, feeling, and memory are the most important navigational instruments.” In July of 2010 Platz received a grant from the city of Muenster Germany for Werkstadt Tage, a multi media arts festival. Platz collaborated with visual artists to present a musical score for live improvisation and short film focusing on individual artists’ perspectives of the city of Muenster. In May of 2010 Jeff released his quartet CD Panoramic featuring New York City legend Daniel Carter on reeds and trumpet. Free Jazz.com writes, “The ensemble is a wonderful example of cohesive playing and total sound, full of lyricism.” In a recent live review Downbeat magazine said “Platz's group was truly amazing, on fire!” Currently Jeff has been working in Italy with ensembles featuring bassist Sylvia Bolognese, multi reeds player Achille Succi, pianist Giancarlo Tossani and alto saxophonist Fabio Delvo. www.jeffplatz.com |
| Sally Ann Parsons has a history of designing for dance. She began a collaboration of thirty plus years with Daniel Nagrin in 1967, creating the costumes for his landmark piece, “The Peloponnesian Wars,” going on to costume his many solo works as well as being part of his experiment in improvisation, The Work Group. She was a longtime collaborator with the downtown theater artist, Lee Nagrin designing costumes for many works including “Sky Fish,” “Whorl,” “Bird/Bear,” “Angel Elegy” as well as her final work with Basil Twist, “Behind the Lid.” She costumed Don Redlich’s company for many years, including a number of pieces choreographed by Hanya Holm, and designed many solo works for the performance artist Margaret Beals, including “Stings” based on the “Ariel” poems of Sylvia Plath and “The Teak Room” as well as music theater works for Eric Saltzman. She designed for Elina Mooney, Phoebe Neville, Irene Feigenheimer, Barbara Roan, Billy Siegenfeld, Lee Conner, and Lorn MacDougall. Most recently she has worked with playwright Karen Malpede on “Extreme Whether,” preceded by “Another Life and Prophecy.” She owns and is the creative director of Parsons-Meares, Ltd, theatrical costume shop established in 1980 with her husband, James Meares. It creates for Broadway shows, dance companies, operas, and spectacles including ice shows and circuses. | |
 | Raphael Simons is a surreal poet, published author, and occultist living in New York City. Originally a pianist and composer, having studied at Juilliard and in Rome with an Italian Government grant, Raphael taught at Princeton University and at Oberlin College before embarking on a new career in occult sciences and writing. |
| Andrew Trego (dancer) is currently living in New York City, and is a native Texan. At fourteen, he began his dance training at Houston’s High School for Performing & Visual Arts and Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy. While completing a BFA from The Boston Conservatory, Andrew performed lead roles in works by Jose Limon, Alwin Nikolais, Anna Sokolow, and Anthony Tudor. In Boston, he performed with notable opera companies Opera Boston and Boston Early Music Festival. Andrew came to New York City in 2011 to take a spot in the newly founded Peridance Contemporary Dance Company. In 2012, Andrew had the privilege to perform alongside the Paris Opera Ballet in Bejart’s “Bolero” during their summer season at Lincoln Center. Andrew now performs for The Metropolitan Opera, The People Movers Contemporary Dance Company, New York Baroque Dance Company, and makes his debut in the repertoire of BALAM Dance Theatre with this “Icarus” solo. Andrew is grateful to his family and friends for their unending love and support |
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 | Gary Winter is a playwright and was a member of OBIE-Award winning “13P.” His plays have been produced at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, P.S. 122, The Brick, The Flea, The Chocolate Factory, Defunkt Theater, HERE, and the Cherry Lane Alternative. Readings and workshops of his new plays have been presented at The New Group, Playwrights Horizons, Brave New World Rep, EST and The Jewish Play Project. Gary has received support from MacDowell, Goldberg Foundation, Puffin Foundation and SEG Voices. He received a Spielberg Righteous Person’s Fellowship to study Eastern European Jewry in Krakow, Poland. His play, “I Love Neil Labute” was published in “Shorter Faster Funnier: Comic Plays and Monologues” (Vintage, 2011). Gary helps organize “Pataphysics: Workshops for Playwrights, at the Flea Theater.” MFA-NYU. |
Haejin Han (Stage Manager) is a stage manager and a lighting designer. She was an assistant production manager for "Brigadoon" on Broadway; she also was an assistant technical director for the "Hero" at Lincoln Center, David H. Koch Theater. She stage managed at the BAM Harvey Theater for "Sweet Science Suite" and for "Horseplay Or, the Fickle Mistress: A Protean Picaresque" at LaMaMa Ellen Stewart Theatre. She also received the outstanding stage manager award at the New York Innovative Theater awards, 2014. She works with many dance companies, Elisa Monte, Nimbus Dance Works, ITE, Francesca Harper Dance Company, Life dance, etc. Currently, she is working at the TheaterLab as a technical director and at John Jay College as a production manager. She is touring with "Burq off" as stage manager/lighting designer in the US and UK. She is honored to work with these amazing people in "Spring Together". |  |
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