Thresholds Crossed: Solo  (2003) or Duet (2003) are NOT related specifically in concept or content to Thresholds Crossed (Stage Performance – American & Russian dancers, 2006). Both dances are concerned with “thresholds that are crossed” but not the same reference/topic.

Note:   Due to the lights going on and off when Katia goes into the casket, the video taping is hampered.

(2003) Part I: Thresholds Crossed: Solo, Katia emerges from and returns to a red standing casket.  When the casket door opens a bright diagonal light, a pathway, comes on and when the casket door closes the light, path, is gone.  Each time Katia emerges from the casket she has removed more and more of the white suite and satin blue-green blouse inside the casket. This is a highly charged emotional work with many symbolic references.

The red scarf, interestingly, played an important role in the evening-length political work,  Thresholds Crossed 2006. (Russian reference to “RED” communism).

(2003) Part II: Thresholds Crossed: DUET,  Katia and Maida performed an improvised version of Katia’s SOLO as a duet for the DC 9th International Improvisation Plus Festival in Dorothy Betts Marvin Theatre in the Fall of 2003. Katia continues to perform her SOLO with her vertical casket and Maida interacts with Katia in and around the reclining casket. Death became a  substantive content in Part II – punishment, pain, and death.

(2006) Movement themes (red tie pulling at the throat, others) from Thresholds Crossed Part I Solo appear in Threshold Crossed (2006) — specifically in Part II Gulag/Art Angar duet by Maida Withers and Anthony Gongora, as part of the final evening-length version of Thresholds Crossed (2006 Russia – American Project) that refers to Guantanamo Bay and the Russian Gulag – punishment/terror.

(2003) DUET:  Katia and Maida performed an improvised version of this solo as a duet for the DC 9th International Improvisation Plus Festival in Dorothy Betts Marvin Theatre in the Fall of 2003. Katia continues to perform her SOLO with her vertical casket and Maida interacts with Katia and the reclining casket – implications of “death” are shared by the 2003 and 2006 works.

2003 DUET:  Maida Withers and Katia Chupashko

What the press is saying

"Dance offers a high unequalled by any other experience I have known. It is the most immediate way to access every fiber of my being. The wanderer in me wants to see the world, and dancing my way around the world is a passport to living. It gives me a forum in which I can encounter others. Making dances and performing dances documents all aspect of our lives, charts our past, and predicts our future. Dancing is what I know how to do. My heart keeps making me do it." Maida Withers