Category Archives: Expansion (80s and 90s)

Wesleyan University – Music and Dance Residency

Maida Withers and John Driscoll were guest artists for a music and dance residency at Wesleyan University, June 10 to June ?, 1980   Students and the guest artists created work at various site locations on campus  Students and guest artists ...

LEGACY: 50 Years Dance on the Edge

MAIDA WITHERS AND THE DANCE CONSTRUCTION COMPANY LEGACY: 50 Years   Dance on the Edge Corcoran School of Arts and Design, Corcoran Flagg Building Galleries 500 17th Street NW, Washington, DC LEGACY_Exhibition Booklet (click) HISTORY EXHIBITION - September 23 - October 23, 2022 Maida Withers and the ...

Dune

1992 View DUNE In Winds of Sand:  https://vimeocom/101621322 : (00:00:00 to 0:05:58) Also view DUNE in Earth Spirit Rising:  https://vimeocom/9360613 9  (0:09:13 to 0:16:53) Dune or Moving Earth Dune is created and performed by Maida  Withers that takes place with the full body mostly ...

Dance Construction Company 1974 – 2006

https://vimeocom/16188943 Dance Construction Company: 1974-2006 (31:23) "This video is part of the Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) Catalyst anniversary exhibition that highlights 35 years of WPA's history The WPA retrospective curated by JW Mahoney demonstrates the continuing uniqueness, resilience, and catalytic ...

K.A.C. Int’l Exchange: Dance Concert Improvisation (50 anniversary Taejon. Korea)

[embed]https://vimeocom/102128125[/embed] 1999 - Jey Young Kim, Korea, Mandy Yim, China, Sarah Slifer and Maida Withers, USA improvised in a concert performance November 15, 1999,  for the KAC International Exchange Modern Dance Festival in Taejon, Korea  Classical Korean musicians played for the ...

Hilda Thorpe Tribute – Artists’ Studio Performance

December 4, 1999 - Birthday tribute to Hilda Thorpe at her Artists' Studio in downtown Alexandria, Virginia Maida collaborated with Thorpe, a brilliant American painter and sculptor - part of the illustrious Washington Color School - on several projects engaging the ...

Spirit Figures

[embed]https://vimeocom/100934861[/embed] 1992 - Spirit Figures is  part of Dance for the Earth created in commemoration and for the United Nation's Earth Summer (Eco '92) in Brazil   Spirit figures were created from discarded items (trash, like plastic) that create horrific destruction to ...

Messenger Eagle (See Dance for the Earth)

1992 - In America, Native America, and many other cultures, the Eagle is admired and held in great reverence  When working on the red earth sites in the Southwestern United States it is always a glorious moment when the Eagle ...

Fascination – Improvisation in Concert

[embed]https://vimeocom/99629619[/embed] 1994 -Jey Young Kim and Maida Withers improvise in concert  in Washington, DC to a poem Fascination,  by Young Tai Kim, Korea, that "expresses our inner feelings-sometimes kin and on other occasions, cruel  As in life we go through a ...

Utah Project

  [embed]https://vimeocom/31371574[/embed] Maida Withers @ Bears Ears             Bruce Hucko, Photograph “In 1988, I returned to the land of my birth in Utah with a group of artists for a five-week experiment of living and dancing on selected land ...

Damned River

1993 - "Wind is power, the grass, people  When winds blow the grass bends"  Damned River is dedicated to Mariko, dance colleague in Kyoto, Japan A multimedia stage work for fourteen dancers that explores the dynamics of fascism in its subtle ...

Dance for the Earth

1992 - Title given to the evening-length performance that included the following six dances related to Maida's earth consciousness projects: Sky Cloud (1992), Prologue - Cowboys and Indian Play (1991), Messenger Eagle (1992), Still Rush (1991), Rolling Thunder "Transformation" (1992) Dance for the Earth was presented ...

Prologue – Cowboys and Indians Play by Maida Withers

[embed]http://vimeocom/100928731[/embed] 1992 - Short solo dance and written text spoken by Maida Withers - a view of the west as a cowgirl and the great granddaughter of pioneering settlers in Utah  Presents that wit that underlies many of Withers' works - ...

Catching Butterflies and Other Things That Move

[embed]https://vimeocom/91520288[/embed] Videos - Phase Tracing, Phase Tracing I, Phase Tracing II movement phrase materials related to creation of the complex choreography in Catching Butterflies and Other Things That Move References: https://maidadancecom/works/phase-tracing-movements-title/ https://vimeocom/90693028 https://vimeocom/90679290/ Catching Butterflies and Other Things That Move: 1979 - "Fast paced dance of ...

Woman See, Maida Withers Interview, PBS WETA-TV

1981 - an interview in Washington, DC on PBS, WETA-TV, regarding the making of Woman See - a feminist multimedia work in eight parts created by Maida Withers This work followed five years involvement by Maida and other Mormon women ...

Time Dance (1984)

1984 - Restaging choreography of 1976 version of Time Dance  for performance in Dorothy Betts Marvin Theatre  The square was adapted to a very large diamond rather than the original square space at Mt Vernon HandChapleand many other changes occurred  ...

Crossing the Edge

[embed]https://vimeocom/91535011[/embed] 1991 - A physically aggressive duet danced to a saxophone score The dancers establish a rapport on the ledge between Earth and Sky - dancers John Lancaster and Leah Kline Tabassi at Dance Place January 12 and 13, 1991 Crossing the ...

Sky Cloud

Stacy Palatt, David Bentley, Dana Tai Soon Burgess 1992 - Dance work created by Maida Withers, a collaboration with Hilda Thorpe, paper maker, sculptor, recognized Washington, DC female artist from the 1950s  Thorpe created an incredible large fabric installation (white gauze ...

In Earth’s Belly Deep – an emergence myth

"In Earth's Belly Deep" - Aerial Dance, Emergency Myth, 1990 Mark Thompson, Cecily Carsky-Miller & John Lancaster 1990 - "It is my desire to bring to life, through dance, music, and visual imagery, the extraordinary physical and spiritual powers experienced when visiting ...

Rolling Thunder – “Transformation”

[embed]https://vimeocom/101003244[/embed] Rolling Thunder, USA:  https://vimeocom/101003244  (14:18 minutes) Rolling Thunder, Brazil:  https://vimeocom/10232271 (7:35 minutes) 1992 - "Rolling Thunder intricately weaves rich and layered movement materials in a ritualistic contemporary dance narrative, a new world myth  The gift, the knowledge of the earth, is brought ...

Ancient Lands – Ancient Peoples

[embed]https://vimeocom/101619257[/embed] Maida performed Ancient Lands and Ancient Peoples in 1984 in Guangzhou, China (In Winds of Sand at the Hong Kong Academy on that tour) and then performed Ancient Lands - Ancient Peoples in Seoul, Korea In 1995 on another Asian ...

Seeing Jazz Move – Smithsonian International Gallery

https://vimeocom/519283804 1997 - Seeing Jazz Move - Dance and Music Improvisation performance inspired by the exhibition "Seeing Jazz"  presented by the Smithsonian International Gallery - S Dillon Ripley Center, Washington, DC, December 5, 1997 at 6:30 pm  FREE Dance and the event,  ...

Orbit (Film Short 3:30)

[embed]http://vimeocom/7691282[/embed] 1990 - Orbit, an intriguing duet danced by Greg Simione and Eddie Taketa, filmed during the early period framed by the HIV and AIDS crisis  The film is an excerpt, conceptually and in form, from the evening-length stage work, Obsession, ...

Families are Forever

1981 - Families Are Forever is a four-part multimedia narrative presented at the Renwick Gallery of Art, Division of Performing Arts, Smithsonian Institution during the Memorial Day weekend May 28 and 29, 1981 or ?3 as a tribute to families ...

State of the Art

1986 - State of the Art examines the conflict of art and the artist in American society The rapid development of arts management looms as a potential to independence and innovation by the artist Press Release:  State of the Art is ...

SandS CycleS

https://vimeocom/463079035 See the full 30:00 minute movie below 1991 - Dance and environment film shot on location at White Sands, New Mexico and Coral Dunes, Utah  by Verable Call Cluff and edited by Cluff refrencing the Hero's Journey described by Joseph Campbell, ...

Obsession – America’s Obsession with Sex

[embed]http://vimeocom/8054192[/embed] Performance in 2 parts:  Part I:  Elvis Pressley / religion impact - Gender transformation; Part II - AIDS  (See ORBIT film: https://vimeocom/7691282 1987 - This evening-length performance is a commentary on the sexual revolution starting with Elvis Presley "Made in the USA" ...

Laser Dance (Stage Performance Excerpts / Fairfax Cable, FCAC-TV)

1985 - Four-part evening-length space odyssey (Part I: Departure; Part II: Quest; Part III, Domain; Part IV, Rites/Skylight/and Departure) of choreography that takes place inside a large-scale installation of argon laser beams created by Rockne Krebs and Synclavier II music ...

Woman See

[embed]https://vimeocom/101667371[/embed] Woman See - Premiere Performance [embed]https://vimeocom/88378613[/embed] Woman See - Duet Part I Commencement (rehearsal; 04:36) [embed]https://vimeocom/75605276[/embed] Interview:  Woman See, PBS, WETA TV, DC (See separate page on maidadancecom) WOMAN SEE - 1980 and 1981 A politically charged feminist performance in eight distinct parts  with live music, ...

Stall. (Stage Performance)

[embed]https://vimeocom/64802075[/embed]   1981 - Stall an evening length collaborative performance of dance, sound sculpture, and music choreographed by Maida Withers; a rotating loudspeaker installation by John Driscoll, composer/sculptor, Phil Edelstein, rotating loudspeaker animation, with dancers from Maida Withers Dance Construction Company  Charmed ...