Baylor Residency May 18 -22

What a beautiful, fluid residency at BWCI in Delaware. This was our SIXTH year at BWCI and the groundwork Avodah has been laying for the last few years is really showing up. The women came in ready to dance and with a new level of maturity that allowed for a smooth, deep and light ride through the dance explorations. Avodah has noticed a SIX year mark at both institutions. It seems that after 6 years, the women have been exposed to enough of Avodah's work and the institution's administration and staff seem to grasp the value of what we're doing. Baylor has a newly constructed worship center which gives the entire Education department more space and the whole institution more light.

We worked in the gym for the whole week and the performance took place there as well. The women each interpreted the seasons both individually and as a part of a small group. We learned a dance that was built from their movement gestures that became the finale for the seasons dance. The women also performed their "name dance," warm up , a hip-hop dance and a blessing as part of the final performance on May 22nd. Audience members included other women inmates, BWCI staff, a few family members and friends of the performers, Sally Milbury -Steen and Mary White (from Pacem in Terris), and Warden Ryan.

Avodah performed some of Stephanie Miracle's choreography as part of the performance. The audience was truly responsive to the choreography and the entire event!

Avodah will return for a few visits in the summer. We hope to create some more material with the women so they can perform for more of their family and friends. We also look forward to creating new work collaborating with some of the women at Baylor and York for a showing in September at Dance New Amsterdam in NYC.

Baylor Residency -- Pre-visits

Pre-visit #1. Stephanie Miracle and I traveled to Baylor in Delaware. We led a warm-up and improvisations based on text from the women at York CI centered around the theme of the seasons. Stephanie led an exercise with drawing and music from Vivaldi. After the drawing, the women tried walking the drawings to see the elaborate pathways they had created. Then the women wrote about a season via a memory, scene or image. We sat in a circle and shared our observations. Then, we began building a phrase based on their spontaneous gestures. We tried the phrase to different music with some women sitting, some standing, and everyone exploring different timings. We finished by sending a blessing in movement across the circle.

Pre -visit #2. Today Newman Taylor Baker and I traveled to Baylor Correctional in Delaware. I led an improvisation based on text they had written during my last visit with Stephanie Miracle. The women created trees from different seasons as well as "Tree-o's" a trio representing a tree. Then we sat and were led by Newman on an extraordinary journey through his instruments and the lesson of sound and feeling. We explored how the quality of touch influences the sound of an instrument. The women got a chance to play the instruments with different qualities. Afterwards, the women worked with their writing and began creating movements that will be a part of our culminating performance on May 22nd, 2009. We finished with a review of our gesture phrase and a seated blessing "wave."