Kate Weare Company
Saturday, July 11
Schaeffer Theatre, 8 p.m.
$20/$12 (Students & Seniors)
 |
| Kate Weare - photo by Christopher Duggan |
Fresh from their New York City season, Kate Weare Company presents the Maine premiere of Lean-to. Developed in collaboration with Weare’s long time artistic colleagues composer, Michel Galante, scenic designer/sculptor, Kurt Perschke, and lighting designer, Brian Jones, and performed by three stunning dancers, Lean-to, explores the physical manifestation of trust. Also on the program, Bridge of Sighs, an ardent and unusual quartet for two women and two men, looks at the instincts – both reckless and wise – that drive us upstream toward love. (Family friendly, appropriate for all ages.)
"Every dance by Weare that I've seen since she moved to New York eight years ago has stuck in my mind."
"Formally, the original Kate Weare is a minimalist...yet emotionally, she paints on a large scale, exploring love, power, and womanhood."
Please join us for a post-performance discussion with the artists immediately following the concert.
View the Work at: http://www.kateweare.com/videos.htm
Interview with Kate Weare
April 2009
What was the inspiration or starting point for Lean-to?
Lean-to started with the image of an enormous structure leaning out over the dancers' space - a form that my set designer, Kurt Perschke, saw in his mind over a year ago. The idea of leaning itself is what launched many associations in my mind for the dance from metaphor to physics to process itself. I want Lean-to to arise genuinely from the act of collaboration, from the conversation between my choreographic voice and the voices of the set, light and costume designers, the composer and, importantly, the dancers too. After many years of creating my work from a stance of control, I'm interested in creating a dance that doesn't stand by itself, but needs to lean into these other voices to be fully realized.
What was the process for creating the work?
Unlike past processes, this time I am working with aspects of the innate physicality of each of the dancers inhabiting this trio (Adrian Clark, Douglas Gillespie and Leslie Kraus, all company members.) For most of January, each dancer improvised solo without particular goals - essentially losing themselves in their own instincts - allowing me to observe, notice and respond. It was beautiful and touching for me to watch each of them dancing very much in their own way for an extended period - courageously allowing their habits, strengths, idiosyncrasies and inclinations to be seen. I'm still at the earliest stages of process with the composer for this project, Michel Galante, and, as for the other elements, we head into St. Mark's Church next week to mock-up the set structure for the first time, so that the dancers and I can feel the implications of this enormous object leaning over the space. I'm very excited about it!
What was the greatest challenge you faced in making this work?
I try to push myself and my company into a blind position at the start of each process to free us from the burden of what we already know. So, for me, in the beginning there is always this terrible, irrational fear that no logic will arise, that our choices will not cohere, or simply that we won't generate enough energy to be pulled forward. But I have developed tools over time: if I sense my logical mind too much in play in the beginning, I know I'm acting directly out of those fears. I try to calm down and trust again, letting go of the urge to control and make sense too early. Somehow the process for Lean-to is even more challenging in this way because the final meaning of the work depends so much on the collaborator's influences - a fact that is equally terrifying and thrilling.
Is there anything else you want to say about the work or its presentation at Bates?
I don't feel I get to show my work often enough to young people, so I'm very excited about that prospect and eager to hear what younger viewers experience.