A Symbol of Me (A Dream Project) was developed with the students of ACES Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven, CT. The nine performers and co-creators, grades 9 – 12, built an atmosphere of interest, agency, and trust. At the beginning of the work, the students crossed the four-sided stage and individually gave each person in the front row a piece of fabric with words ranging from “reach” to “dinosaur.” Alternating between movement sequences, the students took turns threading the fabric swatches onto a thin elastic that eventually completed the perimeter of the audience. Once the both ends of the elastic met, they were connected and pulled away from the audience and used by the performers. This co-collaborative process, both in performance and in the making of the work, generated material from the dancers personal goals and aspirations resulting in 11-minutes of attention and visibility.
Photos by Paul Duda. Lighting by Seth Harris. Educational Center for the Arts Department Chair Mariane Banar-Fountain.
Performances:
March 2017 – Educational Center for the Arts
May 2017 – String Theory—a version of the work—was performed with the students of Choate Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, CT in 2017.
