Event

Economies of Effort

"Economies of Effort: 1" is an evening-length dance exploring the virtues of self-reliance and the creative impulse. Choreographed by Cid Pearlman, "Economies of Effort: 1" opens Thursday, February 5, 2015 at the Joe Goode Annex in San Francisco, followed by performances at Motion Pacific in Santa Cruz and Pieter Performance Space in Los Angeles. This new work is created with and performed by Julia Daniel, Collette Kollewe, Claire Melbourne, Cynthia Strauss, and Chelsea Zamora

This interdisciplinary collaboration is the first installment in a planned triptych of performances by Pearlman on the theme of "economy." Performed in the round, and featuring a set designed by visual artist Robbie Schoen that the dancers build each night as part of the choreography, Economies of Effort: 1 aims to generate questions about the differences between creating something with bodies (theoretically intangible) and building something that has a solid shape (with the illusion of permanence).

Bessie Award-winning composer Albert Mathias will create an original score for Economies of Effort: 1. Just as the dancers take an active part in constructing the set each night, so too will they operate the music on two turntables and a laptop. In a radical act of self-sufficiency and self-containment of economy, if you will the dancers control all of the technical aspects of the production from the set to the sound and lighting.

Also on the program is the revival of "Drowning Poems" (2011), a trio for three women. Restaged in the round, Drowning Poems draws its imagery from the writings of poets Carrie Powers, Stevie Smith and Emily Dickinson.

Costumes for both of the evening's performances are by award winning artist Rose Sellery.

Photos: Beau Saunders