Repertory

"The Fall of a Glass" (1996) 16:00

1 male and 1 female dancer

Choreographed by Ariane Anthony and Jackson Kent and set to a Villa Lobos string quartet, this work renders the blossoming and disintegration of a young couple in humorous and poignant scenes. The duet is shaped with cubist fragmentation and surreality. Full of whimsy and underlying tension, the man and woman become props, foils, mirrors and strangers to one another before our eyes in a journey that is at once hilarious and uncannily sad.

"Gasoline in the Street After Rain" (1997) 13:00

1 female dancer

A Chaplinesque hobo woman arrives on the scene upside-down. Taking a train, hiding from noises, arguing with her dress and hat, grabbing her big moment in the spotlight — the slightly bedraggled woman is a catalogue of slapstick tropes, but her uproarious story is also shockingly heartbreaking.

"Best Foot Forward" (1999) 15:00

1 female dancer

This compact solo to original music by Carolyn Lord uses abstract and pantomime movement to evoke the small universe of an officewoman who is trapped in a humdrum job, and is given a little taste of joy.

"Low Altitude" (1999) 15:00

3 female dancers

This trio set to music by John Stone is a madcap meditation on claustrophobia. Three doll-like women emerge from a cramped box and are catapulted through a series of adventures and misadventures linked by their sisterly gentility and sudden outbursts of hostility.

"A Chicken's Dream of Flight" (1999) 60:00

1 male and 4 female dancers, 1 puppeteer, and 1 soprano

Choreography by Ariane Anthony, original score by John Stone, puppets by Diane Bromberg, and a set of mobile walls and door frames by Peter Wahlberg. A fantastic and poetic journey through the dream life of an immigrant woman confined by her circumstances. "Charming, poignant, and full of imagination." Jennifer Dunning, (1999).

"Seeing I" (2000) 15:00

3 male dancers

In this evocation of Samuel Beckett's final work of prose, a man "sees himself rise and go." Anthony populates the spare set of three tables and chairs with a man in triplicate, moving simply about his small world, interrupted by occasional deadpan ridiculousness. The drama of this man's solitude unfolds to a contrastingly cheerful piano score by John Stone and an ingenious lighting plan by Sarah Sidman that allows the men to vanish, only to reappear elsewhere.

"Why Imagine Golden Birds?" (2000) 35:00

2 male and 5 female dancers

Drawing its title and inspiration from Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," the dance mirrors the stark, lyrical language of the poem. With its Asian-influenced score by John Stone and slide projections of winter skies and trees shot by Peter Wahlberg, the dancers inhabit a space that is at once charmingly specific to the milieu of Stevens' Connecticut and hauntingly, serenely abstract.

"Where is My Pumpkin?" (2001) 6:00

1 female dancer

Anthony inhabits a single character who appears in three stages: a naìve young girl, a very old woman, and a fashionable lady — all of them absurdly obsessed with their beloved lost pumpkin. With a melodramatic text and an explosively silly dance in search of the pumpkin, the tragicomic solo treats the universal issue of loss in ways that a child can appreciate but that will also ring poignantly true for adults.

"Do I Dare?" (to be premiered in 2004) 40:00

2 male and 4 female dancers

Drawing its inspiration from T.S. Eliot's beloved poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," this swirling and hypnotic dance introduces the self-conscious, middle-aged antihero, Prufrock, as a pair of tragicomically conflicted partners — the pathetic, passive man and his active (but imagined) counterpart. With puppets, masks, period-evoking photographs and sets, this is waltzing and searing portrayal of a man who would dare not "disturb the universe."