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FLYNN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's March 16, 2001 Conceived and Directed by Peter DiMuro, Associate Artistic Director Vermont Project Team: Music Director: Robert Een Liz Lerman Dance Exchange Company: Funded in part by the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Audiences for the Performing Arts Network. Funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Philip Morris Companies Inc. Also funded in part by the Vermont Arts Council. The Flynn Center Dance Series is funded in port by Philip Morris Companies Inc. and Capezio /Ballet Makers Dance Foundation, Inc. TONIGHT'S PROGRAM From 1999 to 2002 a wide range of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange activities center on Hallelujah, a national initiative in praise, participation, and performance. In a spirit of celebration and recognition of hard times endured, this project conducts a series of residencies in which community members contribute to a series of dances "In Praise Of..." topics vital to them. Liz Lerman would like to acknowledge that the dances on this program are possible because of the artistic contributions of former and current company members. Both movement and text are developed through a collaborative process that draws upon personal experience, research, and experimentation. Act I HALLELUJAH IN PRAISE OF FERTILE FIELDS (2000) Text arranged by Liz Lerman and Martha Wittman from original sources. Reference consultation from Norton Owen, Jacob's Pillow Archivist and Berkshire Botanical Gardens. Commissioned by Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, In Praise of Fertile Fields is based in part on materials in the Festival's archives, including the 1942 diary of Jacob's Pillow cook Esther Miller and the choreographic notes by dance pioneer Ted Shown describing his dance Jacob's ladder: A Negro Spiritual. IN PRAISE OF ANIMALS AND THEIR PEOPLE (1999) Choreography by Liz Lerman in collaboration with the Dance Exchange Company Music Composed by: Mike Vargas; Giuseppe Jacchini (Sonata No.5); Edvard Grieg
("The Hall 6f the Mountain King"); Maurice Ravel (Bolero); John Cage;
Boston DJs ("Move Your Body"); Antonio Vivaldi (Trumpet Concerto in G minor);
Piotr Illych Tchaikovsky (Pas de deux from The Nutcracker and 1812
Overture) Sit Up I Bug Jar Procession Louis Story I Salamanders Snakes Louis Story II Wanna Biscuit? My Horse Louis Story III Hope Sit Up II Intermission Act II IN PRAISE OF CONSTANCY IN THE MIDST OF CHANGE A PROGRAM NOTE FROM LIZ LERMAN Welcome to the latest chapter of the Dance Exchange's Hallelujah project. We have had amazing experiences over the past four years here in Burlington, Montpelier, and St. Albans, as we have made short visits, met extraordinary people, then settled in for the longer residency that has led up to today. Our thanks to all the community groups we met for their great interest, their willingness to try new things, and for their open contributions to the project. We are especially grateful to the staff, administration, and crew of the Flynn for making us feel so welcome. Telos Whitfield has been an amazing accomplice, managing many people, schedules, and ideas. Having Telos and her family participate tonight is a wonderful token of her own belief in the power of this process. While I am thanking people, I would like to pay particular tribute to the Vermont Project Team: Margot Greenlee, Pene McCourty, Martha Wittman, with guest visits by Vincent Thomas and Thomas Dwyer. Each has contributed leadership, choreography, and planning that make all of this possible. Keeping score on a dance project isn't quite the same as keeping score on a card game, so depending on how you count this is either our fifth, sixth, or seventh stop on the Hallelujah trail. Each one has been delightful and exasperating, each one marking its success as much by the questions it raises as by the answers it finds. In the first half of this evening, you'll get a sense of some of these other Hallelujahs as we include "In Praise of Fertile Fields," a commission from Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, and "In Praise of Animals and Their People," a piece we made early in our own explorations of the theme of praise. The second act, "In Praise of Constancy in the Midst of Change," is built from material collected here in Vermont. From our first night in St. Albans four years ago when we were introduced the great local historian John Finn, we realized that we were entering a sacred territory. This was clearly a place of more stories, images, and remarkable characters than one piece could possibly hold. But all along the way we experienced performance moments, gatherings, and celebration, which I hope offered a little honor to the people and lives we were encountering. Perhaps tonight is just one more of these a somewhat larger gathering of people pausing long enough to watch, and listen to each other. I hope many more follow, to pay tribute to the constancy and change that help make this beautiful state. We hope you stay in touch with us, come visit us in our home in Takoma Park, Maryland ... and thanks for coming. —Liz Lerman |
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