Saturday July 23, 2011 - Choreographer Laura Ward (Kokyat's portrait, above) is creating a new work for the FringeNYC Festival 2011. Entitled THE DREAMING, the work could be viewed as a sequel to Laura's Echoes and Dreams, with which it shares certain motifs. Echoes and Dreams was presented by her Company (Octavia Cup) in May 2010 at The Secret Theater.
Kokyat and I dropped in at the wonderful Gibney Dance Center this afternoon to see what Laura has been working on. It was a swelteringly hot day but the studio was surprisingly comfortable. The dancers (all women) were just about to do a complete run-thru of the piece which, with typically subtle Laura Ward wit, runs the gamut from toe shoes to hooker heels.
Michel Ayello's score allows for a range of moods from pensive, sisterly partnering to high-kicking chorus line. As in any dream, the fragments of various strands of memory entwine and evolve without rhyme or reason - the girls change swiftly from pointe to pumps - but the overall impression is cohesive.
We knew some of the dancers from previous performances and it was nice seeing them again. Jen Barrer-Gall (above), who we've met thru her work with Columbia Ballet Collaborative and with choreographer Emery LeCrone at PS-1.
Jen, Laura, Cassie Roberts, Natalia Wodnicka
Cindy Bernier, Jen Barrer-Gall, Georgina Aragon, Laura Ward, Nana Hitomi, Cassie Roberts
Jann Barrer-Gall
Nana Hitomi
All photos by Kokyat.
Performance Information:
The Dreaming
Laura Ward/Octavia Cup Dance Theatre
Writer: Sheila Ward and Octavia Cup, Music by Michel Ayello
Choreographer: Laura Ward
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.
www.octaviacup.org
VENUE #12: 4th Street Theatre 
Sat 13 @ 5:45 Thu 18 @ 8:15 Fri 19 @ 10 Sun 21 @ 8:30 Mon 22 @ 3:15 Wed 24 @ 2