Title: The Only Way Around

Premiere: Ann Arbor Dance Works, 1991, Studio A Theater, Dance Building, Ann Arbor. Subsequently set on and performed by dancers at Albion College.

Duration: 12 minutes

Music: Stephen Rush

Video backdrop: Jessica Fogel

Lighting Design: Mary Cole

Dancers: Amy Drum, David Genson, Christine Knight, Lynn Neuman, Matthew Rose,

Description: A multi-media work with music, dance, text and video projection. The title comes from a poem of the same title by Archie Ammons, found in his collection Lake Effect Country. The dancers seek multiple ways of making it through, both literally and metaphorically, while in the backdrop, a video depicts a pileated woodpecker banging its beak into a tree trunk. I videotaped the bird with my then new video camera at the Interlochen Arts Center where I was teaching that summer. This was one of my early explorations of combining dance with video backdrop. I, and each of the dancers in the work, had struggled with relationships and the dance reflected some of this. It also explored my interest in developing choreography through caligraphy, spelling things out, breaking words down, building them back up.

Dance Magazine review

Albion College article in Io Triumphe, Vol. LVI, No. 3, Winter 1991 “Gotta Dance!” by Jennifer Smith

Notes