SYDC Repertoire

Spinning Yarns Repertoire featured in its 2006 home season

·   Premiere Ongoing Journeys in Still Places (working title)– choreographed by Susan Donham with music by Annick Crawford  A portrait of an internal springtime, feeling the joy and momentum of a current that has been flowing for a long time.  The movement flows swiftly, whether the dancers are moving individually or in four-person partnering sequences, with occasional moments of suspended stillness. 

·   “…the mermaids, singing each to each” a light-hearted flirtatious conversation between three dancers and the musician/composer, co-choreographed by Susan Donham and Apryl Renee with composer Perry Spinali (2006, 7 minutes)

·   Traveling Companions  A meditation on the issue of faith, choice, and companionship based on the Book of Ruth.  Following a journey motif, each journey explores the choices made as the relationship to where the person is going, to where she has come from, and to her companion changes. (Music composed by Annick Crawford, recorded lyrics sung by Jennifer Gwirtz) (2006, 24 minutes)

·   Portraits  Two solos and a trio in which the choreographer and dancers explored personal metaphors for strength and beauty to create affirming images of women. (2005, 10 minutes)

Other Recent Spinning Yarns Repertoire

·   Dance with Orange  A fairytale about trying to find love and creating hope through imagination.  A boy finds and loses oranges, a newfound love, and a hero, and is left trying to recreate an orange from his memories. (Music:  3^rd movement of Gustav Mahler’s 1^st Symphony) (2005, 14 minutes)

·   Two Windows on a Pair is a duet for two women looking at two moments in time, one when the relationship is just beginning and one when they know each other well. (Music composed for the work by Annick Crawford.) (2004, 9 minutes)

·   Hatto the Hermit (visions of destruction and hope)  The dance, inspired by Selma Lagerlöf’s short story The Miracle of the Bird’s Nest, both tells the story of the hermit’s discovery of love through the birds and explores his visions of apocalypse and paradise. (Music composed by Daniel Combs) (2003, 12 minutes)

·   Brief Couplets in Dangerous Times  This trio began during the build-up to the Iraq war and the accompanying street protests.  The work became a brief movement poem about speaking, pain, and compassion, and my own dismay at how violent my internal dialogue became when my attempts to speak for peace were thwarted. (Music composed by Annick Crawford) (2003, 6 minutes)

·   Solace is a solo set by choreographer Jenice Acosta on Susan Donham to music by Paul Drescher, a brief portrait in quick strokes of a woman dealing with emotional pain. (2003, 4 minutes)

·   Gerrock, Herroon, and Saranaloo is the story of a curmudgeonly amphibian, an elegant, but self-deprecating bird, and an anxious squirrel, each thwarted in their myopic attempts to find contact and companionship.  (Music composed by Annick Crawford) (2002, 7 minutes)