December, 2007 Premiere - Extravagant Bodies Festival
Kontejner (Zagreb, Croatia)
www.kontejner.org

Choreographed/Created by:
Lisa Bufano, Sonsheree Giles and Jerry Smith

Performed by:
Lisa Bufano and Sonsheree Giles
of AXIS Dance Company

Music created and performed by:
Jerry Smith

"One Breath is an Ocean for a Wooden Heart"
Was commissioned in part by AXIS Dance Company,
In association with Alliger Arts.

One Breath is an Ocean for a Wooden Heart
is an unusual modern dance duet for a disabled dancer and an able-bodied dancer that continues to examine the relationship between physical transformation and identity. In this performance, the dancers wear 28" wooden stilts secured to their arms and legs. The stilts are constructed from familiar, every-day objects to create illusion and are a visually compelling tool of transformation. The queen-Anne style table legs enable the dancers to create a basic illusion of table and chair shape. Through the quality of their movement, the dancers are transformed through a wide range of imagery: animated furniture, magical toys, 8-legged insect, 4-legged gazelle, 2-legged birds. The affect is an eerie otherworldliness that may leave audiences with the idea that they can't trust how things appear. Two dramatically different bodies navigate a movement and sound landscape that is both enabled and constrained by their use of wooden stilts. The precarious nature of working on stilts equalizes the dancers' physical abilities; thereby opening a dialogue about relationships between disabled and non-disabled people.

More about Sonsheree Giles and Jerry Smith can be found at www.sonsmi.com.
Learn about AXIS Dance Co: www.axisdance.org

Supported, in part by CA$H, a grants program of Theatre Bay Area, in partnership with Dancers' Group.

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SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Jeremy Alliger, Judy Smith, Jason Karakehian, Franz Palank,
and Peter Couture of Next Step Orthodics and Prosthetics