Recent Collaborations
• Quarryography
Quarryography was inspired by the dramatic setting of the Settlement Granite Quarry on Deer Isle, ME. The original idea was to bring quarry elements to life and provide something more fantastic than actual history.
“What do you get when you combine a 26-foot high puppet, an excavator, pink-hatted dancers, a steel pan band and the Stonington Quarry?” - The Working Waterfront
Quarryography involved collaboration with choreographer/puppeteer Mia Kanazawa; the local Atlantic Clarion Steel Drum band under the direction of Nigel Chase; Stonington Opera House Arts; the Island Heritage Trust; and Rick Weed and his performing excavator. And, of course, a whole lot of granite.
“Such a high level of professionalism, combined with something I think I had forgotten, fearless zeal, is the kind of thing that keeps me believing in people and in art. I saw absolute joy and absolute freedom in this performance, and this event, in a way I had not even anticipated. It was transforming.” - Carol Estey
• See also: Working Waterfront Review of Quarryography By Craig Idlebrook
• Lucid Dreams at Zankel Hall
Lucid Dreams explores the realm of imagined consciousness where the dreamer is aware of dreaming. Originally created for the American Composers Orchestra in 2005, Lucid Dreams premiered at Carnegie's Zankel Hall. Lucid Dreams was a collaboration with composer Ed Bilous, filmmaker Mirra Bank and designer Angelina Avallone.
“Lucid Dreams offers an artistic world where borders are permeable, imagination controls and is uncontrollable, and the subjects are transported by their unconscious will.” - Alison Chase
Mirra Bank's films are projected using the dancers as a landscape and dancers are suspended in a complex and emotional soundscape created by Ed Bilous. The intention is to twist the fabrics of time, identity, and imagination so that the audience is drawn into the landscape of lucid dreaming.
• See also: New York Times Review of Lucid Dreams By Anne Midgette (requires registration)
• Lucid Dreams at Southern Methodist University
In the fall of 2006 Lucid Dreams was restaged for Southern Methodist University with a cast of 6 couples. It used Ed Bilous' score and Angelina Avallone's designs. The film was re-shot and re-created for this version of Lucid Dreams.
• See also: Dallas Morning News Review of Lucid Dreams By Margaret Putnam
• Urban Nutcracker
Urban Nutcracker was a 5-year collaborative project between Alison Chase, Bill Wade, director of YARD (Youth at Risk Dancing) and a cast of 40 students from the Cleveland School of the Arts. The Urban Nutcracker was a modern revisioning of the Nutcracker with a street-smart edge which made it relevant to the troupe of teenage students who performed it. In the Urban Nutcracker both the characters and their dancing were street savvy.
• See also: TIME's Review of Urban Nutcracker