Far and Near

Credits

Premiere
October 16, 2015
Allen Theater in Playhouse Square

Choreography
Kate Weare

Assistant to the Choreographer
Douglas Gillespie

Music
“Partita for 8 Voices” by Caroline Shaw, Recoreded by Roomful of Teeth
Partita: 1. Allemade
Partita: 2. Sarabande
“Timber: Part III” by Michael Gordon, recorded by Slagwerk Den Haag

Lighting Design
Dennis Dugan

Costume Design
Kristine L. Davies

Original Cast
Felise Bagley, Lauren Garson, Annika Sheaff, Damien Highfield, Michael Marquez

In 2015 we were fortunate to be able to collaborate again with guest artist Kate Weare. Her first work for the company, Inamorata was created in 2013 and with this second creation Far and Near, there was the feeling in the studio of being able to continue a creative relationship already set in motion, a level of understanding and a meeting place for ideas that at least for the dancers allowed for a wonderfully engaged and rewarding process.

David Shimotakahara
Founder/Executive Artistic Director

A Note about the Process from Kate Weare:

During the process of creating Far and Near for Groundworks Dance Theater, I sensed that both Caroline Shaw and Michael Gordon’s music offered me a portal to think about how movement might function as language does. I developed a base of short and specific movements and deployed them throughout the piece as a form of syntax, toying with and rearranging them, layering and contrasting them, to explore out loud how form can build toward feeling, as well as how form itself is meaning.

I’ve always loved the poem “Meaning” by Czeslaw Milosz, because it serves as a rationale for why we humans always have and always will make art. As I watched this new dance for Groundworks unfold, I realized I was exploring broad concepts: meaning and our urge for explanation; the many aspects of living we try to control and the inexorable forces that shape us anyway; our unceasing willfulness within a vast, revolving universe. Effort always moves me; I hope it will move you too.

Meaning by Czeslaw Milosz

When I die, I will see the lining of the world.
The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset,
The true meaning, ready to be decoded,
What never added up will add up,
What was incomprehensible will be comprehended.
And if there is no lining to the world?
If a thrush on a branch is not a sign,
But just a thrush on a branch?
If night and day make no sense following each other?
And on this earth there is nothing except this earth?
Even if that is so, there will remain
A word wakened by lips that perish,
A tireless messenger who runs and runs
Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies,
And calls out, protests, screams.