half-way back, a semi-retrospective

dances from 2004-2005

Originating cast members join DDD Alums and current company members for a truly special evening. Features iconic works Lightbulb Theory, Impending Joy, and Approaching Some Calm.

Lightbulb Theory sprang from two questions: 1) What is the mechanism for letting go of a loved one; do we hang on too long sometimes; and how do we honor our departed? And 2) how and why do we sustain celebration in our daily life? When is hyper-celebration a way of hiding other thoughts and emotions? Lightbulb Theory was a stab in the dark at the notion of "sweet, non-irony" which has stayed with me for theis past two decades up to the present. How can we create something that we feel is beautiful - perhaps more so than "cool" or "hip" - and - how can we slow down to see and feel each other more intimately?

Impending Joy  initially was a reaction to the softer feel of Lightbulb Theory. It was purposely meant to have harder lines and a more harsh, direct feel - almost warrior-like. The white pickets were employed to represent a home or homeland and to be an extension of the body, the arms specifically. The dance came to feel like a questioning of 'who does what for whom", and a conjuring of multiple answers to the open-ended statement, "This is where .............." And iIt seems to take place on a mythical but non-existent battlefield.
As Jennifer Dunning wrote for The New York Times in 2004, “the title Impending Joy says it all. Someone was always painfully isolated from the others in a quartet for storm-tossed rag dolls that drew on the dancers’ impressively subtle acting skills.”

Approaching Some Calm is a duet between Dorfman and his dance/life partner, Lisa Race. This work was a 10-year follow up from Approaching No Calm and sought to capture the moment in time where their friendship turned into a marriage, plus a four year old son. To accordionist Guy Klucevsek’s brilliant take on Burt Bacharach classics, it’s as if the two elders are dancing with and for each other in their living room, and we get to watch!