December 27, 2007

Not The Center of Attention

During the fall some of the dancers in The PlayGround went up to Baltimore to perform at the Maryland Art Place as part of their annual  gala. One the dancers, Christine Stone Martin, has written a short bit about the experience:

Recently we were invited to perform at MAP (Maryland Art Place) in Baltimore during their annual gala. It is quite a different experience performing in a gallery, verses performing in a theater. Last year we performed at Transformer and (so far) was my favorite showing of My ocean is never blue. Because Transformer was a good experience our expectations were high as we drove to the MAP event. This time however, because of the venue, we were not the main attraction, but rather part of the art or entertainment. Along side the art work displayed for the silent auction and a film projected on the wall we danced among the people, around the tables and next to a towering stack of martini glasses. For some viewers we were just a snap shot, others paused to watch when we caught their eye. One group even socialized in what we had defined as the dance space. The lines between audience and dancer are quickly blurred since there was no stage to determine dancer and viewer. So perhaps we had invaded what they had determined was their chatting before dinner space. It was a challenging evening behind the scenes too. Our dressing room was a closet, we shared a sandwich for dinner, we could not hear the music over the chatter, there were long periods of time we had to wait between performances and most people did not stand around to watch us. Well, we were rock stars and kept dancing! Looking back, I do not think it was our best performance, but we rose to the occasion. We added texture to the evening and the director of MAP told us someone from the Hirshhorn was present that evening and liked our performance. Perhaps we caught the right eye.

Photo by unknown


Posted by Daniel Burkholder on December 27, 2007 1:01 PM

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