Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Oa48yvmaQ
Excerpt from “Umlaut”, Choreography by Eva Stone, Artistic Director of The Stone Dance Collective, for Chop Shop: Bodies of Work, A Contemporary Dance Festival, Bellevue, 2009
The text for this piece is taken from an interview with what I call a ‘reluctant immigrant’ from Poland to the US. Interviews like this one are found on a cd compilation called “Crossing the Boulevard” and I was particularly drawn to this piece for both its honesty and its lies. The young woman speaking had no desire to permanently leave her homeland when her parents lead her to believe she was visiting the US for vacation.
Approaching the text from a choreographic perspective provided an exploratory foray into the creative experience. Utilizing two dancers to portray one voice allowed me to highlight and emphasize more than one singular meaning within the language of the story. Both dancers are red-heads (coincidental) and similarly dressed (not coincidental.) A common choreographic tool is the use of unison, which tells the viewer that the dancers are really ‘one.’ Here, unison is used often, but then the unison begins to separate by one movement. This gives more of an echo effect, as is used in the manipulation of the recording of the text. This slight separation mirrors the story itself and further challenges the disillusionment of the situation, both verbally and physically. Sometimes the gestures are literal, more often they are abstract, but as the story unfolds in our ears, it also unfolds on stage and at times holds the viewer responsible for her extreme discomfort and sense of betrayal. This story of immigration is one not often told and my goal was to keep the text and the story in the forefront of the work and the dance as merely a support to this young woman’s journey.
Eva Stone, Producer
Chop Shop: Bodies of Work
www.chopshopdance.org