Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Save the Date! WSDT in St Cloud Oct 11-14


Wicked Sister descends upon St Cloud for an evening of acrobatic danceworks, Oct 11-14 2007. Showtimes are 7:30 pm Th-Sat and 2:00 pm on Sunday. $16 general admission or $14 for students & seniors. Purchase tickets online at or call the Pioneer Place box office line at 320-203-1233.

Don't miss the chance to see Cathy (Stone) Werner during her pilgrimage back from Montana to join the Sisters for a "Best Of" collection of works from past productions of Phantasmagoria, Acromancia, Acrobatic Cafe and Lurid Thoughts & Lucid Visions. Cathy and I will premiere our new fabric duet, created while training with Elsie Smith and Nimble Arts in Vermont this past summer. David Harris and Angela Hasnedl are also scheming up a new piece that combines David's skill with briefcase manipulation and Angela's amazing ability to zip herself inside a suitcase. Arielah Moskow joins the company and performs on rope and harness with Jerome Bowden.

For those of you considering a trek up to St Cloud from the Twin Cities or beyond, Pioneer Place has a lovely wine bar called the Veranda for preshow festivities (they even let you take your drinks into the theater!). The Green Mill is a block away if you are interested in dinner, and Sawatdee Thai is just down the street. Please shoot me an email if you want more advice about restaurants or accomodations: david@wickedsisterdance.org

Thursday, August 9, 2007

David & Cathy in New York and Vermont








I am back in MN after 3 weeks on the East Coast! Cathy and I had an amazing time studying butoh with Maureen Fleming at her Pumpkin Hollow home and studio in upstate New York, and training on fabric with Elsie Smith and Nimble Arts in Brattleboro, VT.



The lowest picture is of a studio in the barn which housed part of the Dancing the Internal Body workshop with Maureen Fleming. We danced about 6 hours each day with a rich palette of butoh imagery, intense conditioning on elastic bands and partner massage drawing from shiatsu technique (yum!). Look at the natural light just streaming in through the walls of the barn . . . we were also joined by a few birds.



That's me posing by the nimble Arts sign outside Elsie and Serenity's main studio space at the old Cotton Mill in Brattleboro, VT. Cathy and I trained on fabric for 3 hours each morning with Elsie at their other studio (that's Cathy demonstrating the setup for a Full Monty drop and me stretching out in the Rebecca Splits), in addition to rehearsing a new duet that incorporates elements of butoh and new partnering vocabulary on fabric. We are very excited to premiere the new work as part of our show at Pioneer Place in St Cloud, October 11-14, 2007. I am also stoked to teach some intermediate/advanced fabric to our aerial students starting this fall.



A HUGE thank you goes out to the Jerome Foundation for supporting my investigation of butoh and aerial arts with a Travel & Study grant. I am certain this trip will stand out as one of my most treasured experiences for years to come . . .