betsy miller dance projects
I create works for the stage and spaces far beyond, as well as the occasional film. Here are some. This page itself is a work in progress. Come back later for more!
photo: Nikki Lee
|
The (still perfectly fine) Adventures of Unicorn Hair + Dragon Heartstring
combines the whimsy of fairytales, wacky games and stories, virtuosic contemporary dance, and an improvisational framework to explore the potential of play and imagination in allowing us to show up more whole, more present, and more ready to face challenge in a world of uncertainty. Created and performed with Matthew Cumbie, this dance theatre duet was originally commissioned by AS220 for the Modern Movements Festival in Providence, RI; it has since been revisited for performances at the SomDance Fest, with support from the Somerville Arts Council: Bates Dance Festival, with support from the New England Foundation for the Arts: and in Derby Square, the outdoor town square in Salem, MA, with support from the Salem Arts Council. Through this work, and the support of the Somerville Arts Council, we also received mentorship by internationally-renowned dancemaker John Jasperse. Unicorn Hair + Dragon Heartstring TELL THE TRUTH a sequel to the work, premiered at The Never Before Never Again Improv Festival at Triskelion in Brooklyn, NY in February 2020. In this work, we explore both the potential and the peril in blurring the boundary of reality and fiction. We eat snacks, plunder our deepest insecurities for content, and ask each other and our audiences some pretty big questions about lying. We reveal ourselves through the dances we share and the stories we tell, both those true and false. |
no stories about mermaids (2017)
Created in collaboration with dancers Audrey MacLean and Sasha Peterson. Premiere: Route 95 Dances, The Dance Complex, Cambridge, MA. |
|
|
|
between (2019)
Woah... wait. (2011) These two collaborations with Shawn Hove, created eight years apart, use the same movement material with strikingly different musical scores to explore possibilities in non-narrative dramatic partnering.
|
Coloratura (2014)
A coloratura is an elaborate melody with runs, trills, wide leaps, or similar virtuoso-like material. Set to a collage of Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau, Mozart and Purcell, this intricate, athletic, and thoroughly musical work functions as a celebration of the full human experience, from delight to despair. Premiere: AS220, Providence, RI. Dancer collaborators Jamie Arnold, Shura Baryshnkiov, Myah Shein and Steph Turner. 
I've Come of Age! (2016)
Brain vs. body. Social self vs. authentic self. Youth vs. Adult. Boy vs. Girl. Confusion vs. Clarity. Comedy vs. tragedy. Impulse vs. restraint. This short solo, created in collaboration with dancer Meghan Carmichael, premiered at AS220 in Providence, RI. |
everything my tortured heart ever wanted. (2015)
Within a shifting soundscape of whirring heartbeat monitors, music boxes, scratchy old records, and film soundtracks, this evening-length work evokes both cheerful and dark glimpses at personal and cultural past. It blends, in kaleidoscopic form, the fervent desires and tragic absurdities of adolescence and womanhood. Collaborators include Jamie Arnold, Shura Baryshnikov, Ali Kenner Brodsky, Meghan Carmichael, and Steph Turner. 
Slipcast (2015)
is a three-part structured improvisational solo for conventional and tiny dance formats set to an excerpt of Bach's "Goldberg Variations." Slipcast draws its inspiration from the ceramic forming technique of the same name which makes possible the creation of complicated lines. |
Ladyfinger (2013)
Premiered at Providence College Bowab Theatre and also performed in 2016 at AS220's 95 Empire in Providence, RI. This emotionally-driven work paints a distinctly tense and unrelenting landscape in which women are repeatedly cast into ill-fitting two-dimensional feminine archetypes. Dancer collaborators Jamie Arnold, Shura Baryshnikov, Ali Kenner Brodsky, Audrey MacLean and Steph Turner. 
Two (2014)
Created in collaboration with Ali Kenner Brodsky and Kathryn McNamara and premiered at AS220's 95 Empire, this short duet functions as a contemplation of the mirror-image of ourselves we might sometimes glimpse in one-another. |
|
|
Episodes (2013)
This pair of short, lighthearted works was created in collaboration with Jessika Davis and premiered at Providence College's Bowab Theatre. |
Just Me, Circe (2013)
Given the choice, most women would feel safer alone in the woods with a bear than a man. This solo focuses on the famed sorceress of the Odyssey, reconsidered through a feminist lens. Music by Michael Wall. |
Dominion (2007)
A whimsical satire on corporate culture. Dominion premiered at the Merce Cunningham Studio Theatre in New York City, and was later performed at several venues throughout NYC, and re-set on students at Providence College in 2013. |
tiny dances: I have created and performed many solos and duets for tiny stage performances at Salem Arts Festival, Crossing Waters Festival, PVD Fest, Tiny and Short at the Dance Complex, and other events.
|
|
|
|
|
|