Image by Jonathan Hsu

This weekend is a celebration. The 35^th Anniversary Gala brings together artists who have been integral to the festival’s trajectory, replenishing and reinventing the spirit of BDF summer after summer. The celebration centers on the pillars of BDF, Marcy Plavin and Laura Faure, the two women responsible for nurturing the festival into what it is today. These indomitable women pioneered a community bonded by a love for movement and a commitment to cherish the individual, together. To Marcy Plavin, the founder of the festival 35 years ago, we say goodbye, we lovingly reminisce. To Laura Faure, the director of the festival for the past 30 years, who we lovingly celebrate, we say good luck. To both, we extend our deepest gratitude in the best way we know how: moving together.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

It feels only right that Bebe Miller returns once again to the festival, as she is the artist Laura first brought thirty years ago. This weekend she performs “In A Rhythm,” an excerpt from a new work in process. Miller and longtime collaborator Angie Hauser come together for an intricately woven improvisatory duet that reads like a conversation. The two women navigate a relationship rooted in language and physicality, juggling who is speaking and who is moving with care and reactivity. Their presence is consuming, their focus palpable. They are firecrackers, astutely perceptive to each other and the audience, continually nourishing the experience of making and doing with the experience of being watched. It is a sophisticated game of freeze dance, one with malleable rules and a buoyant sound score. The tone of reactivity is set from the beginning, when the two women are revealed onstage, both listening to the same device. The audience cannot hear, only the performers can. We are privy to this mystery only when they speak, Bebe and Angie, when they are awoken from their own listening, speaking phrases one can only assume have just been placed in their ear. The duet, although from a new work, is heavy with history, performed from a deep place of knowing, making the unknowing so satisfying.

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A Maine native, Riley Watts makes his festival premiere alongside longtime festival musician, Carl Landa. “Tonight’s Pattern” comes and goes in a flicker, ever-shifting and constantly renegotiating. It is an improvisation reliant entirely on memory and the present moment, emphasizing surprise, recognizing the sensation of being watched, and remembering the night before. Watts responds to the moment, constantly folding in on himself, never collapsing but expanding outward. It is a stream of consciousness, a deeply inquisitive investigation of dance thinking rubbing up against performative circumstance, demonstrating a technical prowess and an agility of thought. Through his physicality, you recognize the power of his mind. Watts expands into a superhuman and flashes into a firefly, redefining the trajectory of his solo, entirely contingent on this stage and this night. It is in the doing that the idea comes. The first move starts a journey, a spiraling and paradoxical train of thought that can only be resolved through the body. Circumstantially intuitive and technically stunning, “Tonight’s Pattern” is all consuming; inescapable and fully intangible.

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The rest of the program is characterized by thought, play, and investigation. Larry Keigwin opens the show with a playful solo to lively music that invigorates the space. Patrik Widrig’s “…And Still Doing…” is dominated by a sense of urgency in physical intent accompanied by a strategic perplexity in spoken word. In “Dr. Pearson’s Guide to Loss and Fear” Sara Pearson sketches an autobiographical narrative emphasizing didactic textual impetus in a rooted bed of movement sensibility. She loses track and tracks her loss, her fear. Tania Isaac’s words vibrate through the theatre and white crumples hang from the ceiling as she navigates the space below, excavating herself between her words and her movement. Doug Varone’s poignant duet with Natalie Desch illuminates the facets of a deeply personal relationship. The evening closes with a group work created by Michael Foley on students of the festival, an intricate weaving of partnering and sensibility, a love letter to his mentor Marcy Plavin and friend Laura Faure.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

This show is full of love; love for dance and for this community. This incredible lineup of artists has come together to celebrate and honor this incredible world that has been created at the Bates Dance Festival. An evening of opulent and evocative work, these artists bring with them a history deeply influenced by the festival, by the two women who stand as pillars. Before, during, and after the show, we find ourselves returning to sentiments of gratitude. These sentiments live deeply within us, they always have; sentiments we sprinkle through the movement of our lives, reinvigorating the spirit of the Bates Dance Festival everywhere we go. For that, we have Marcy and Laura to thank.

This post was written by Phoebe Ballard. Phoebe is the BDF social media intern for the 2017 summer. 

Scofield’s choreography is heavily influenced by her ballet training, upholding the technical prowess necessary to accomplish such feats, but breaking down the elements to find rhythmic and physical variance. Scofield’s visionary choreographic choices enrapture the space, sending dancers spiraling in very intentional paths coming into contact with one another only to find themselves alone shortly after. Trust is emphasized, blindfolds are worn, community is encouraged. It is rigorous and precise, provoking thoughtful inquiries and deeper thinking, a moving picture of brain, body, and being.

The movement is just one element of this performative expedition, wholly important yet only a piece. Juniper Shuey’s visual design gives a notion of roundness, centralizing the dancers and giving them boundless space within the performance area, allowing them to be fully and uniquely seen. A circular band of strings dangle magnificently from the ceiling, and beneath it, a warm ring imprints the floor – making these disconnected entities one – as if the band of strings had left this imprint, or the strings had risen from it. Shuey’s work hones in on center, centralizing and dispelling energy to the space and the borders, etching this memory within it, a space filled with dancers and audience members alike.

Washing over and padding the theatre, the work becomes even more enriched with aural movement and transposition. The sound for the work comes from traditions of Sacred Harp Singing, as does much of the inspiration for the work itself. The singing is live and allows audiences the opportunity to participate, mirroring the traditions of Sacred Harp Singing – in which it is not a performative act, but a ritual of participation. Local Maine singers and recorded sounds become atmospheric and resonate differently with each audience member, dependent entirely on their seat. It is rich and provocative. This, layered with Evan Anderson’s new compositions, heavily influenced by the elements of death metal, support the work, creating yet another unique and necessary entry point in.

“Clear and Sweet” provides each viewer with a unique experience from their particular angle. It feels like a hollow abstraction teeming with life. The choreographic, visual, and sonic elements come together to create a unique experience, one that examines ritual, redemption, and community, while highlighting and providing shifting points of perspective. It allows audiences the opportunity to be alone, together; filling a porous container that is constantly collapsing in and expanding out.

This post was written by Phoebe Ballard. Phoebe is the BDF Social Media intern for the 2017 summer. All images by Jonathan Hsu.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

“Aroundtown” is alive, constantly shifting, collectively together. It leaves a pit in your stomach, a yearning for more, a desire to go there, to do that. Grandiose movement phrases and daring feats of physical stamina mirror the sweeping tone of the work, finding beauty and intimacy in the mundane, determining and defining a sublime way of existing in the world. The music, new compositions by Liz de Lise, Sam Crawford, Zeb Gould, and Jeff Hudgins, are performed live and add yet another layer of robustly evocative humanity to this rich world. The process, which has spanned over two years, has been a constant practice of sorting through and seeing. This work, which is responsive to the current moment, thrives on a constant questioning of what the most important residue is, both within the company and within the world. The result is sensical and familiar, but all at once nonsensical and abandoned, presenting an honest exactness that is subject to change at any given moment.

Six dancers comprise the cast, the community. We see Kendra and Simon, Nik and Aya, Jordan and Jasmine. The work is contingent on them. We see these people, their whole being, not just their dancing body. Through the act of dancing they not only show themselves fully, they become themselves fully. The beauty comes with the togetherness of the dancers actively listening in the present moment, deeply sensing each other as humans above all else. Language is welcomed and necessary in this world, giving time and space to establish ideas and let them settle. Not just moving bodies, each dancer approaches the work from a deep place of truth, bringing with them their past and allowing it to mold their present. They support each other profoundly, sincerely, earnestly. Physical feats coupled with an unabashed outpouring of emotion create an emphatic world, wholly familiar and unfamiliar, sculpting a standard we, audience members and performers alike, relate to and strive for.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

The sense of community is palpable, a commonality in Dorfman’s work that is heavily amplified in “Aroundtown”. Impulsiveness stokes the dance, igniting performers and bringing them together, risking it all, physically and emotionally, individually as an entity. Touch is not just functional, it is an imprint left on each body, brought there physically and leaving a residue deeply infused with emotion. It is tender and it is human, it is all the things we cannot be alone. The work is constantly testing love and asking it to be real, not as a monumental or abstract idea, but as a glorious reality. “Aroundtown” functions as a real town, an enlivened community, the performers odd and model citizens. It is a thing everyone knows and recognizes; a folk dance we are all a part of and have different roles in.

This work is an astonishing and beautiful feat of humanity. “Aroundtown” is an alchemy of movement and language, calling upon familiarities evident in society to craft a world beautifully specific and universally recognized, held preciously in the bodies and spirits of the movers and in the hearts of the audience. It is something they (and we) do not get to realize unless we are together, and that doesn’t always mean in unison.

This post was written by Phoebe Ballard. Phoebe is the BDF social media intern for the 2017 summer. Special thanks to Kendra Portier and Simon Thomas-Train for their insightful words. 

Lida Winfield’s work, “In Search of Air,” has been performed across the U.S. over the past six years. This improvisational solo work falls within a tight structure with a set text, but still feels very much alive and malleable, as it shifts slightly with each performance, keeping the audience and Winfield curious and engaged. An embodied account of Winfield’s experience with dyslexia, “In Search of Air” recounts her journey and struggle, questioning and laying out how it happened that she did not learn to read until she was an adult. This work is a stark window into the educational system, a look at shame, and a heart-wrenching picture of humanity.

An artist and educator based out of Vermont, Winfield is a storyteller who uses words, movement, and performance. Throughout her creative process in relation to this work, she realized she could craft stories in her head without paper, saying them out loud in the woods, the shower, and the car, places she could talk out loud without feeling crazy. The stories were cemented in pacing, tone, volume, and emotion, and with each word, evocative movement ideas and qualities became apparent. The result is “In Search of Air,” a story that establishes dance as a lifeline, colored through the voice and body of a powerful artist; a vulnerable act not to be missed.

Following intermission, Betsy Miller and Matthew Cumbie take on whimsy in their duet, “The (still perfectly fine) Adventures of Unicorn Hair and Dragon Heartstring”. Miller, BDF’s current box office associate and house manager, has been a member of the BDF family for almost twelve years, and Cumbie, for five. Five years ago, the two came together to embark on their first process; which began here at the festival. It felt like the beginning, and in 2016, the two had the opportunity to return to the process to create this new work, building upon what was started five years ago at the Bates Dance Festival. Now, at very different points in their lives, they are returning; returning to a process and a relationship with a strong and enlivened residue that is still very much alive in their bodies and memories. The dichotomy of the two – the present and the memory – are put together in this duet, resulting in a lively investigation of their relationship, their selves, and how they interact with the world around them.

The whimsy of this duet lives in the performance, the props, and the artists, a performance reminiscent of the process. Wildly playful, Miller and Cumbie give themselves permission to be their most authentic selves, a rare practice which, in this case, is integral. The act of making is central to the work: the histories, the eccentricities, the returning. Returning to their childhoods, their relationship, and the place where it all began. The piece comes to life inside this. The “what if’s” which often live only in the studio, are part of the performative score, creating an experience rooted in fantasy and openness for performers and audiences alike. “The (still perfectly fine) Adventures of Unicorn Hair and Dragon Heartstring” conquers and cultivates ideals of openness and vulnerability, establishing standards of how we all should strive to exist in this world: together, with a touch of whimsy.

This performance is not to be missed, a gathering of artists vulnerably presenting original, complex, and imaginative work. This program runs only on Friday, July 7, at 7:30pm in the Schaeffer Theater, and promises to delight, entertain, and remind audiences of the reality of humanity and the art of existing in this world. We kick off our 2017 Performance Season with Lida Winfield, Betsy Miller, and Matthew Cumbie. We welcome you into this world.

This post was written by Phoebe Ballard. Phoebe is the social media intern for the 2017 summer.