Mary’s Writing about her Piece.

Articulating what my work is about has always been hard for me. It is always so clear in my head, in my body, translating it to words always seems to result in canned imagery and never encapsulates the greatness of what I feel when I think about a piece I have created. But putting the embarrassment aside – here I go to put into words what I am feeling about this piece.

I created the piece wanting it to eventually tie into the last work I did, “Into The Current.” It was set to a Vivaldi piece with nine dancers, all wearing blue. The conceptual spine of this short piece was based on the feeling I get when I am on the brink of moving into something big, something greater than me. Right before you take that step that carries you all the way. That closed throat feeling of anticipation, barreling through obstacles until you feel the cool wash of relief as you head in the chosen direction.

“Into The Current” featured one dancer (referred to as “Lydia” throughout this writing) as a figure fighting through eight other dancers, those representing the “obstacles.” I envision eventually tying these two pieces together by having Lydia from “into the current” being one of the three members of this trio, and being left on the stage while the other two exit. In fact, that is how I see this piece ending – Natalie, you are the Lydia character that would carry through. Leave the exit open right now, once I have seen video of what you all have done, I will make a clear decision on the exit, and try to pick out Natalie as a more forward figure throughout the piece.

I have been working a lot with water imagery – streams, currents, eddies. For this piece have been working with the idea of an eddy:

1.	a current at variance with the main current in a stream of liquid or gas, esp. one having a rotary or whirling motion.

2.	a small whirlpool.

3.	any similar current, as of air, dust, or fog.

4.	a current or trend, as of opinion or events, running counter to the main current.

The three of you are figuratively, “in an eddy.” Your movement takes you back and forth through the space, there are moments of speed, moments of attempted escape, only to get tossed back in. Natalie, you do lots of climbing up and over things, you get stopped by Aaron.

The new title I’m working with is “The Dark Stream,” taken from the Yeats poem “An Image of a Past Life” – part of which is below:

Never until this night have I been stirred.
The elaborate starlight throws a reflection
On the dark stream,
Till all the eddies gleam;
And thereupon there comes that scream
From terrified, invisible beast or bird:
Image of poignant recollection.

The idea here for me is this: the work that is done in the subconscious, the stream of mind, it’s necessary work. A stream is a direction of energy. An eddy refines that work, that direction, the intention – until it finds the path outwards, into the current, traveling to the conscious where dreams/thoughts/ideas can be actualized.

Eventually, in this whole suite of ‘water works,’ I will be adding a solo before ‘The Dark Stream” for the Natalie/Lydia character – one in which the decision is made to jump into this process - another Yeats poem that I have been rereading for years I just now realize is driving this whole suite of works

THAT crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,

Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, ‘O sea-starved, hungry sea.’

Natalie/Lydia is that crazed girl.

That is all I have for now – I will be sending more soon.