Performance Projects
| ANGELS AND
ACCORDIONS (in conjunction with openhousenewyork's annual celebration of New York City architecture and design) 2004-ongoing Created and Directed by Martha Bowers in collaboration with Green-Wood Historian Jeff Richman Music by Todd Reynolds (2004), Bob Goldberg (2004-06) and Guy Klucevsek (2006-07) Assistant Directors: Robert Martin (04-06) Elin Lindqvist (07) Visual Installation: Alexander Heilner A site-specific performance/walking tour of Green-Wood Cemetery. Produced by Dance Theatre Etcetera and the Green-Wood Historic Fund in conjunction with openhousenewyork. A cast of 30 angels, 10 accordions and a classical music ensemble guide visitors through Brooklyn's historic Green-Wood Cemetery. www.Green-Wood.com, www.OHNY.org VIEW ANGELS AND ACCORDIANS VIDEO: click here. Quicktime required for video. |
| RED HOOK
WATERFRONT ARTS FESTIVAL 2000 - ongoing Producer: Martha Bowers Project Coordinator: Robert Martin Annually May/June Red Hook, Brooklyn |
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| Watch the VIDEO from our 2007 Red Hook Waterfront Arts Festival | ||||||||||
| This open-air festival on the newly refurbished Red Hook
Waterfront features live music, dance, and spoken word performances by
world-renowned artists as well as local youth. Includes the Red Hook
Youth Film Festival, held in
cooperation with the BWAC Pier Show, which screens films produced by
young
New York City filmmakers. Free cultural workshops, delicious food,
maritime activities and great views of the water (and the only spot in NYC with a frontal view of the Statue of Liberty). |
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| THE DREAM LIFE
OF BRICKS 2002 Conceived, written and directed by Martha Bowers Music: Philip Hamilton Set Design: Ed King Lighting Design: Larry Smallwood Production Manager: Larry Smallwood Commissioned by MASS MoCA with support from the Rockefeller M.A.P Fund and the Mary Flagler Cary Live Music for Dance Program. Produced by Dance/Theatre/Etcetera in collaboration with MASS MoCA. In 2001, Martha Bowers received Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA)'s first performing arts commission to create THE DREAM LIFE OF BRICKS. The work was performed at MASS MoCA in June 2002. If a building could dream, what would those dreams look like? Martha Bowers' visionary choreographic historyscape of the MASS MoCA mill-turned-museum posed this question, and explored the site as the repository of 200 years of the community's collective aspirations and imaginings. This project was a collaboration with lauded musician Philip Hamilton and the members of the North Adams community. For more information, contact us. MEDIA: To download photos for editorial use, click here. |
SAFE HARBOUR/CORK 2001 Conceived and Directed by Martha Bowers with Michael O'Byrne Music: Tiye Giraud Produced in collaboration with The Institute for Choreography and Dance (ICD) at Firkin Crane and the Cork Midsummer Festival. |
 SAFE
HARBOR, first performed in 1998 on the Red Hook Brooklyn waterfront,
looked at New York's immigrant history from the perspective of this
blue collar waterfront community. After two years of project
development in Ireland, SAFE HARBOR was successfully transplanted to
Cork, the ancestral home of many Red Hook Irish immigrants. A unique
blend of pageant, procession and performance, SAFE HARBOUR/CORK
celebrated the historic neighborhood of Shandon in Cork City. An
afternoon of street based entertainment brought local musicians,
story-tellers, clowns and youth theatre groups together with American
dancers and musicians. The festivities commenced with a procession lead
by a giant replica of the famed Goldie Fish, a much beloved Shandon
landmark. The event concluded with a sold-out, evening dance
performance in the theatre at ICD. This sister project to SAFE
HARBOR/RED HOOK- explored the impact years of emigration has had on the
Shandon community and how it is changing as a racially diverse wave of
new immigrants have arrived, many seeking asylum from political
repression in their native countries.To read a review click here. |
HOME WISDOM 2000 Conceived and Directed by Martha Bowers Sound Design and Musical Direction: Mark McCoin Produced in collaboration with Deborah Reshotko and SPEAKING OF DANCE. Funded by Artists and Communities: America Creates for the Milennium, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. Denver history fused with the city's present-day scene through the unlikely bedfellows of local architecture and contemporary dance. Choreographer Martha Bowers explored the changing values of the West by interviewing local residents about their dreams and fears of change, and translated these vignettes into a site-specific performance under the common theme of HOME WISDOM. Looking for a metaphor for transmitting values, knowledge, and experiences across generations, Bowers and Speaking of Dance Artistic Director, Deborah Reshotko, decided to base the HOME WISDOM performance in a house with a colorful history. HOME WISDOM combined a conventional tour of a turn-of-the-century mansion, the Grant-Humphreys Mansion, with performances in various rooms of the house. Victorian Grande Dames led tours of the Mansion. As the tours went from room to room, the audience experienced site-specific scenes, popping up like dreams among the formal surroundings. The main floor reception room was devoted to "Brides Descending a Staircase," in which brides paraded up, and sometimes fell down, the house's main staircase. A local livestock auctioneer called out bids for wedding values such as loyalty and trust. In the dining room, a grizzly bear shared a meal with a Victorian woman. Upstairs in the nursery, with pillows strewn on the floor for the audience to relax on, a nanny read a bedtime story and offered a lullaby. Denver composer, Mark McCoin was the musical director and sound designer for the event. Two nights of sold-out performances took place in October 2000. |
SAFE HARBOR 1998-1999 Conceived and Directed by Martha Bowers Music by Tiye Giraud
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OASIS 1997 Commissioned by Dancing in the Streets On-Site New York City program Produced by Dance/Theatre/Etcetera Conceived and Directed by Martha Bowers Music by Ralph Denzer
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BLUE TRAIN 1997 Conceived and Directed by Martha Bowers and John King Music by John King Co-produced by Dance/Theatre/Etcetera and the Wagon Train Project in Lincoln, Nebraska.  BLUE TRAIN was a site-specific event
which began in
the Wagon Train Performance Loft and proceeded to take audience members
on a tour of the adjacent rail yards in Lincoln, Nebraska. This evening length work explored the impact of the trains on diverse sectors of Lincoln's population. Over a two year period, Dance/Theatre/Etcetera members traveled to Lincoln to conduct workshops and research the history of the region. The cast of the final production included traditional drummers and singers from the Omaha Tribe, dancers from the Lakota Sioux tribe, retired railroad workers, local artists and youth as well as the professional dancers from Dance/Theatre/Etcetera. To read a review, click here! A documentary about the making of BLUE TRAIN was created by Lincoln filmmaker John Spence and Martha Bowers. BLUE TRAIN: MAKING HISTORY DANCE was broadcast on Nebraska Public Television and was selected as a featured film in the 2000 Dance on Camera Film Festival in New York City. To order, click here! |