Blue Hour
WELCOME
Blue Hour is an evening of contemporary dance at The Foundry West Stockbridge. The evening features a mixed bill of four world premieres created and performed by four female artists exploring themes of intimacy, aloneness, and evolution as both individual and collective. The four vignettes weave emotional depth, internal conflict, and shared cultural phenomena. Blue Hour leads both performers and audience on a bold, vulnerable and beautiful odyssey.
PROGRAM
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Performance and Choreography: Mio Ishikawa and Sayer Mansfield
Music: Vaporware 01 by Donato Dozzy, Greys by Ceeys, Nocturne by Ana Roxanne, IV by Andreas Werliin, Johan Berthling, Oren Ambarchi, Undertow by Richard Skelton
Program Note: Sayer and Mio met last summer in the Berkshires as performers in BODYSONNET’s production of please come alone. Although they only danced together for a brief moment they developed a curiosity to create together. where you end and the rest begins is a duet that lives in the spaces between. Part ritual, part elemental, this duet explores the ebb and flow between core and emotional self.
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Performance and Choreography: Moscelyne ParkeHarrison
Music: Dream Puppy by The Sweet Enoughs, Movement 1 - Live by Mika Vain, Ryoji Ikeda, alva noto, Adagio for Strings Opus 11 by Samuel Barber
Text: Moscelyne ParkeHarrison
Recording: Tracie Thompson
Dramaturg: Shana ParkeHarrison
Program Note: In May 2020, I made a short dance video entitled x dance. I searched 'regret' in my email inbox, and collected words from rejection emails I have received since 2013. Two years later I’m revisiting and expanding x dance to a solo that reckons with pity and meditates on melodrama and the transcendence of no.
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Performance and Choreography: Sayer Mansfield & Sydney McManus
Music:
Program Note:
“Blue moon
Now I'm no longer alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own”This is the first time Sayer and Sydney have created and danced together, an anticipated moment for them both. The piece, made in one week, stems from the many years and shades of their friendship.
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Performance and Choreography: Mio Ishikawa, Sayer Mansfield, Sydney McManus & Moscelyne ParkeHarrison
Music: In the Middle by DVS1
ARTISTS
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Sayer Mansfield is a movement artist, performer, choreographer and teacher. She has spent the past decade dancing with contemporary companies Pilobolus Dance Theater (NYC) and Compagnie Marie Chouinard (Montreal, QC) and is currently working as a freelance artist based in the Berkshires.
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Mio Ishikawa is a native of Tokyo, Japan. She received her BFA from The Juilliard School in 2019 and is currently based in New York City where dances with Company Stefanie Batten Bland and Sidra Bell Dance. Mio is a founding member, dancer and artistic associate of BODYSONNET.
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is a choreographer and dance artist from The Berkshires, MA. She is currently Resident Choreographer at Post:ballet, a freelance dancer, and co-director/founder of BODYSONNET.
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Sydney McManus is a multidisciplinary queer artist based in Montreal, Quebec. With a background in both dance and visual art, her practice aims to find the meeting point between these disciplines. After 5 seasons with contemporary dance company RUBBERBAND, she has returned to school to study design at Concordia University. She is focusing on developing her own practice and working as a freelance artist and collaborator.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to recognize the land on which we live, create, learn and commune is the original homelands of the Mohican and Schaghticoke people. We honor and respect the many indigenous peoples still connected to this land on which we make art and our new home. Visit native-land.ca to learn more about the land where you reside.
SPECIAL THANKS
Thank you to our Contemporary Level Sponsor:
Thank you do our donors:
Timothy Mansfield
Judith H. Whitney-Terry and Robert C. Terry
Lee Bank Foundation Arts Access Grant
Christopher Jones
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Special Thanks
Woodson Black
Justin Allen
Jordyn Cormier
Photo by Olga Rabetskaya