anne carson has executed a gorgeous translation of Sappho’s fragments, “If Not, Winter.” They date back to 630 B.C. and today, I find them impossibly beautiful and moving. Of nine books of songs Sappho has said to have written, none of the music is extant, and only one poem exists in its entirety. The rest are fragments. Here are a couple. Brackets indicate missing or illegible sections.

4.

you burn me

76.

]
]might accomplish
]I want
]to hold
]said
]

45.

as long as you want

42.

their heart grew cold
they let their wings down

26.

]frequently
]for those
I treat well are the ones who most of all
]harm me
]crazy
]
]
]
]you, I want
]to suffer
]in myself i am
aware of this
]
]
]

Enjoy the weekend!

Material From Tuesday:

G & S- love a good pas de deux (working on making this one, all though the use of space can get a bit muddy):

and i think that his valse sentimentale in f minor is maybe the most beautiful thing. i had been listening to lots of chopin and prokofiev as of late, but oh my. now i want to make a waltz.

i’ve been thinking about classicism a lot lately. the rigor of it, and [...]

In February, I had the privilege of returning to Millikin University to collaborate with director Lori Bales and a cast of 22 exceptional college students on their ensemble-based production of Urinetown. I flew to Illinois a couple weeks ago to see it in its final incarnation. What beautiful, brave, and generous work! [...]

Choreographing the end of a piece is hard. It’s easy to just sum up everything that has happened in the previous 20 minutes, but I didn’t want to do that with this piece. throughout this process, I haven’t done a lot of work with just one dancer in the room. i decided [...]

We will be performing this segment and other excerpts from “Albedo” on May 29th at Dance New Amsterdam/Works in Progress. The showing is at 4:30 in the Theatre at DNA with a feedback discussion to follow. And the best part: It’s FREE! Come see this piece while we’re still working on it in rehearsal, [...]

I’m headed off to have Brunch in Bryant Park with my dancers (building ensemble!), but first, a brief weekly update:
We finished what will become Movement II of Albedo this week, and had the opportunity to put the pieces together, so it looks something like this:

We’ll dive into the opening movement this Thursday, and the Pas [...]

Footage from out first few rehearsals for albedo, premiering at Triskelion Arts Center this June. I’ve posted this mainly for the dancers, but feel free to have a look!