VISION, FAITH, & DESIRE III Set for Pleasant Home This Weekend

Vision, Faith, & Desire III: Dancemakers Inspired by Martha Graham will be presented by Winifred Haun & Dancers in collaboration with Oak Park's Historic Pleasant Home this weekend, April 12 & 13. The program will feature work by: Randy Duncan, Winifred Haun, RE/Dance, Deborah Goodman, Yuriko and a film by Alex Springer and Xan Burley. The program will also include the premiere of a new "Lamentation Variation," choreographed by Winifred Haun, using the creative structure provided by The Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance.

Pleasant Home is a prairie style mansion designed in 1897 by George Maher. Each dance on the program will be presented in a different room in the house. Ticket price includes free drinks and snacks.

Randy Duncan will present his award winning solo "Love Not Me," choreographed in 1988 for Winifred Haun. Love Not Me is arguably Mr. Duncan's most Graham-like work. It features a woman on a chair expressing anger, grief and psychological despair to original music by composer Allan Segall. Mr. Duncan studied Graham technique with Graham master teacher Harriet Ross.

Deborah Goodman, former dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company, will perform the award winning solo "Cry," choreographed by Graham's long time principal dancer Yuriko. Cry was created in 1963 and expresses feelings of monumental loss and grief. Cry will be performed in the large entranceway of Pleasant Home.

Winifred Haun will re-stage her 2013 group work, "Don't Linger Too Long," in the dining room at Pleasant Home. Don't Linger is an episodic group work that traverses the expanses between Graham's dramatic modernism and the postmodern abstractions of Merce Cunningham. Straddling this boundary, Haun's work reveals the interpersonal relationships innate to any movement construction. Ms. Haun studied Graham technique with Graham master teacher Harriet Ross and Randy Duncan.

RE/Dance will present their critically acclaimed duet, "Abbot and Biv," in the circular porch area. Danced by RE/Dance Artistic Directors Lucy Riner and Michael Estanich, Abbot and Biv tells the story of heightened love and desire. The work conjures the outline of a story: a man and a woman trapped, blinded and invigorated by their love for each other. Ms. Riner studied Graham technique in the 1990's with Winifred Haun.

Alex Springer and Xan Burley will premiere their newest dance film, "Horse." Horse features 33 women traveling through a series of forgotten trails at the outer edges of Brooklyn, NY. The film is dedicated to the exquisite passage of a female mass through an ethereal site. Horse will be presented in the library. Ms. Springer and Mr. Burley were students of Graham principal dancer Peter Sparling.

In association with and using the creative structure provided by The Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Winifred Haun will choreograph a new Lamentation Variation. Begun in 2007 as a tribute to the victims of 9/11, the Lamentation Variation Project invites choreographers to create short works inspired by Graham's iconic 1930 solo Lamentation. Following the Graham Center's choreographic guidelines, Ms. Haun will create a short trio work exploring the grief and angst experienced by typical 11-13 year old children.

To post a comment, you must register and login.