current

Performed as a solo in silence, current happens in a mutable light stream, somewhere in a current of time.

Though the pull, or push, of this time current is directional, the eddies that swirl around certain moments counter this flow, create pools, and perhaps briefly suspend this sense of time.

The resulting score, propelled by the interweaving of movement and light, washes through multiple scenarios: moments are revealed and then recede, as with mist.

Bits of actions, thoughts, and memories are retrieved, reconsidered, and reconfigured before moving along, never to be remembered exactly, but understood as it all happens.

–Dana Reitz, 2023           

Performance – Dana Reitz
Movement & Light Score – Dana Reitz
Lighting – Dana Reitz in collaboration with Rick Martin
Costume – Charles Schoonmaker
Costume Fabrication – Richard MacPike

A livestream from Night 2 is archived for future viewing. Watch below or on YouTube.

Dana Reitz, choreographer, dancer and visual artist, often uses silence as a means to reveal the musical nuance of movement itself. On her own and in her collaborations with lighting artists, she has pioneered the use of light as a physical partner. Her woven movement and light scores — essential, spare and fleeting — create a continually shifting perception of time and space. Early on, her collaborators included Beverly Emmons, David Finn, Rick Martin, James Turrell, and Jennifer Tipton. For her more recent work, Latitude, she designed a mutable light field at moments altered and punctuated by the presence of several wooden sticks.

Her performance projects include Necessary Weather, a work with Tipton and dancer Sara Rudner, Unspoken Territory, a solo she created for Mikhail Baryshnikov, Shoreline, Private Collection, Lichttontanz, Suspect Terrain, Circumstantial Evidence, Severe Clear, and Field Papers. She and Baryshnikov toured together with a program of solos; she later created Cantata for Two, a duet for Baryshnikov and Kabuki master Tamasaburo Bando (Tokyo). Latitude, performed by Reitz with Elena Demyanenko and Yanan Yu, was produced and presented by Lumberyard Contemporary Performing Arts at New York Live Arts in February, 2018.

Reitz has toured, as a performer and mentor, throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the US. Since 1973, she has been commissioned/produced by multiple venues internationally including The Festival d’Automne (Paris), The Hebbel Theater (Berlin), The Gulbenkian Foundation (Portugal), The Dance Umbrella (London), BAM’s Next Wave Festival, and the Lincoln Center White Light Festival (New York). She teaches at Bennington College. Reitz  is the recipient of two Bessies, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and multiple awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, including one as part of American Masterpieces, sponsored by the Flynn Center (Vermont).

Reitz will be celebrating her 75th birthday during this run of performances.

Rick Martin is a Lighting & Scenic Designer who has been creating visual works for theater, opera, dance and other live events for over twenty years. His work has been seen across the USA and throughout Europe and South America. Long-time collaborator with the Bordeaux-based company Clarac-Delœuil > le lab, he has created works with Le Lab in the United States, France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina and elsewhere. Founding member of the San Francisco based theater collective Thick Description, Rick has designed the premiers of many new works including by playwrights Octavio Solis, Brighde Mullins, Eric Ehn and composer David Conte.

For Charles Fee, producing artistic director of Great Lakes Theater and the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, he has designed over 100 productions over the course of his career. Rick has designed many original works, including premieres by playwrights Christopher Durang, Chiori Miyagawa, Will Power and Neena Beber. He has advised architects and designers on the creation of new performance spaces in New York, California, Ohio, Nevada and Idaho and has taught Lighting and Spatial Design at Bennington College, Fordham University and Carnegie Mellon. Rick’s work has appeared in many publications, including Lighting & Sound America and The Norton Anthology of Drama.

Charles Schoonmaker (costume design) Design for dance include projects with Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Limon, BAM, Atlanta Ballet, Nevada Ballet Theatre, Richmond Ballet, and Nashville Ballet. In the realm of classical music Charles has designed works for the Cincinnati Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Music of the Baroque (Chicago), and Boston Baroque, He is the recipient of four Daytime Emmy Awards for his work in television. Regional theatre credits include the Huntington Theatre, the Berkshire Theatre Group, Dorset Theatre Festival, Chester Theatre Company, Weston Playhouse, Northern Stage, Bay Street, and seven seasons as the resident costume designer at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Television credits include All My Children, As the World Turns, and Another World.