Columbia Ballet Collaborative Show this weekend

Just had tech/dress with Columbia Ballet Collaborative. Kokyat was there too, shooting, shooting, shooting! I went a little early so I would have some idea of the space and lighting possibilities. I watched a few of the other choreographer's techs. After seeing their pieces I had some doubts about my own work, thankfully my doubts eased up when I saw my piece with lights. Production values are so important!

It was challenging putting this piece together with only one 2 hour rehearsal per week and sometimes missing dancers. I had planned to do three movements. There are two. Not enough time to get it all done... alas. Well, we have 8 minutes. I am using music that Michel Ayello made; She Said Wait and Okla-Home the first is a song Michel made while watching me dance in Ella Condon's L'Empreinte video (http://vimeo.com/27892955). He used a poem I had written while listening to his Lawson (http://thelugglab.bandcamp.com/album/lawson ) album for the first time. Okla-Home is on Michel's album Dust Bowls it is the first movement.

I have enjoyed working with the CBC dancers. Thank you Jen Barrer-Gall! (She danced with Octavia Cup in the Dreaming this year at the FringeNYC and we await her return)

Here is the link to the show this weekend!

http://www.columbiaballetcollaborative.com/Welcome.html

Laura Ward/Octavia Cup Dance Theatre

&

The Secret Theatre

Present

Red & Black: Dances from the Past and the Future

“There is nothing like dream to create the future. Utopia to-day flesh and blood, tomorrow”- Victor Hugo

Secret Theatre in Long Island City

Thursday October 20, 2011 at 8pm

Friday October 21, 2011 at 8pm

Tickets are $10

For tickets got to www.secrettheatre.com

For more info about the company go to www.octaviacup.org

To see videos go to www.octaviacup.org/videos.php

Laura Ward/Octavia Cup Dance Theatre will present Red & Black: Dances from the Past and the Future on October 20, 21 2011 at the Secret Theatre in Long Island City. Within the spectrum of Red and Black we move from passion to joy, from caprice to constant, from dreamlands to harsh realities in an evening of original expressionistic contemporary ballet en pointe. Included in the program is She Said Wait a new work in progress by Laura Ward featuring the Columbia Ballet Collaborative with original music by French composer Michel Ayello, and Chicanery, choreographed by Jaime Thompson. Octavic Cup is revisiting Dumbarton Oaks Celebration (2009) to Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks, L’Aigle Noir (The Black Eagle 2002) and excerpts from their recent FringeNYC show The Dreaming (2011) with an original score from Michel Ayello.

‪Secret Theatre‬‬ ‎
‪4402 23rd Street‬‬‬
‪Long Island City, NY 11101-5000‬‬‬
‪(718) 392-0722‬‬‬


7 to 45th Rd/Courthouse* or
E,M & G to 23rd St/Ely.**
Close to N,W & R Trains at Queensboro Plaza
Walk north on 23rd to green gates on the left side of street.

The eleventh hour- FRINGE NYC ay-yi-yi

We had our venue prep yesterday. Serious highs and lows on my own personal roller coaster. Why is is that technology and the struggle between analogue and digital can bring me to tears? Just start talking cable connections and transformers and I begin to panic. A feeling most easily equated with sitting in the dentists chair. Insert Ativan here. Just kidding. Not really. Yes, I am...
Needless to say, while dancing, directing, choreographing and overseeing takes a toll, it also is hugely rewarding.
I saw the Stormy Pow Wow projections from Anna Hovhannessian for the first time last night. They knocked my argyle socks right off! (i was wearing argyle socks for venue prep- earlier in the day I was stopped by a street fashion blogger-in my grubby work outfit- Yes it was pink and black and red and matched my helmet, backpack and bike...)
Back to the good stuff. I also got to hear how Jason Greenspan's supreme allied commander sound design was going to work with Michel Ayello's score- and can I say SCORE!!!! WE WIN!!! I am so pleased about the sound in the space. Jason mixed a bunch of dream texts into the music. David Gordon, Cassie Roberts, Georgina Aragon, Nana Hitomi, Michel Ayello, Jay himself and I all spent several recording sessions working hard to create a diverse vocal and emotional range for the texts. We have some French, some Spanish, even some Japanese. The texts came from my mom, David Gordon, Michel Ayello, and me. We recalled dreams from the distant and immediate past. A full plate of madness if you please.
And Thank You Peri Schlossberg for being the super trouper of the day!!!

’If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time’’ Marcel Proust

For Immediate Release


Laura Ward/Octavia Cup Dance Theatre
Presents
The Dreaming
In The New York International Fringe Festival

August 13, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24 2011

‘’If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time’’  Marcel Proust

Enter the Dream Machine with Octavia Cup.  Fall into a shifting world where dance leads you into a dream so vivid your only escape is a pinch from a friend. High heels and pointe shoes cloud stomp through the subconscious borderlands between waking and sleeping in The Dreaming, an expressionistic trip on a mare of the night.
Abandon the rational mind in a crazy labyrinth of images, words and patterns. Experience dreamscapes morphing, twisting and emerging through reflections of movement, sound and words. Let go...  Let's go...
Every great dream begins with a dreamer, Laura Ward with her modern/ballet company Octavia Cup teams up with French composer, Michel Ayello (LUGG) to bring a spectacle of free flowing expressionism to the stage. Texts from 3 generations of women are mashed up and blending into the mix with loops, samples and curls fusing new sounds with echoes from the past. The company spans 5 decades including dancers in their 20’s to their 60’s.

Conceived and Choreographed by Laura Ward in collaboration with Octavia Cup 
Original Score by LUGG-Michel Ayello (listen to or download the music at www.lugg.bandcamp.com)
Projections by Anna Hovannessian and Ella Condon
Sound Design by Jason Greenspan
Text by Laura Ward, Sheila Ward, MIchel Ayello, David Gordon
Performers: Georgina Aragon, Jen Barrer-Gall, Cindy Bernier, Nana Hitomi, Cassie Roberts, Laura Ward

VENUE #12: 4th Street Theatre; 83 East 4th Street (Bowery/2nd Ave)
SAT 13 @ 5:45pm
THU 18 @ 8:15pm
FRI 19 @ 10pm
SUN 21 @ 8:30pm
MON 22 @ 3:15pm
WED 24 @ 2pm
www.octaviacup.org
www.fringeNYC.org
http://www.fringenyc.org/basic_page.php?ltr=D#TheDre

At Venue #12 
4th Street Theatre
83 East 4th St between Bowery and 2nd Ave

Tickets are $15 advance purchase $18 at door 
buy online  at fringenyc.org or 866.468.7619

Inquiries- 646-241-8254, octaviacup@yahoo.com

Made possible by funding from LeRoy Neiman Foundation, Sheila Ward, Fred and Diana Elghanayan, Ruth Simmons, and other private benefactors.