Written On The Wind

The homestretch begins. So today all of the dancers are gathered. Heather is in from Vegas. And Askar Kettebekov, our replacement guy is with us. We knew that we were going to have to replace Ryan, due to a planned foot surgery. So Askar K. (not to be confused with Askar A.) has been joining us on the weekends. But today, we are ALL HERE! Hooray!!!

Last night, I attended an event at Tiffany & Co. it was to announce the Gold Star Honoree for the San Diego Performing Arts League's Star Awards. The Gold Star is a member of the community whothrough philanthropy AND volunteerism has given above and beyond to the arts community. The actual awards are given in June. This was a kick off event. As I am the artistic director of the event I had to be there. Unfortunately, I had not taken a change of clothes and was in my regular fleecewear (sweats) inspired wardrobe (for which I am quite well known), but thanks to Macy's and a charge card, I was suitably attired in less than 20 minutes. Today, I will be off to a marketing meeting for SDPAL. Since we are doing strategic planning and I am the chair of Membership and it is a member organization, I need to make sure our members interests are being dealt with at these meetings.

So more Sonnets. We now have a brief group dance . I had stated before that the Indian and sign language sections were a bit more literal and the ballet sections were more abstract.



Well, this tiny section is a bridge between the two. It is pretty much just a little bit of suggestive mime. It is done in three groups of three, But all groups do the same thing.

Offer a hand. Offer a hand.
Take a hand. Take a hand.
Pull away.
Call to the audience.
Call to a higher audience.
Reach into space.
Scribe a thought into the air.
Put a period on it.

The only difference in this year's staging of this is that I have added Leila (who will later dance a solo) to the foreground. She watches and then joins the girls, doing alne what the do in unison. I put Leila there to let the audience know that the girls were being conscious of being observed as the did their movements.



As the music stops, and Gail finishes the poem she was reading, Noriko expoldes forward. The music becomes aggitated and the other girls rush offstage. This leave Noriko and Leila to execute two complimentary solos at the same time. The solos are being done to different aspects of the music. They could be performed seperately. But I wanted to throw the audience off balance for a moment before we get to the next section.

Not so coincidentally, the solos contain many off balance elements. The dancers are like leaves beig buffeted by the wind.

As the solos are danced, Abby enters from the opposite side of the stage and slowly crosses straight downstage.



Now, here is an example of our open door policy. Leila Gardner had danced with is in seasons past. At the beging of the last season, she had moved to the east coast. We began working on SONNETS at the start of our season. Midway through the season, Leila came back to San Diego. Although SONNETS was halfway done, it was not completed in my mind. So when Leila asked if she could dance with us. I found a place for her in the piece. Now things don't always workout like this, But in this case, they did.

At the end, of this quick interlude, Leila and Noiko leave Abby onstage alone. Ready for one of the more convoluted sections (dramatically, choreographicaly and historicaly) of the ballet.