Performance Documentary

Projected Installation:  Alex Caldiero, poet.  Anthony Gongora, film

(2012) December 7 & 8 Dorothy Betts Marvin Theatre, Washington, DC
A provocative dance theater work from associated memories, dreams, and nightmares, an off-beat yet delightful spectacle about the fiction and reality of LUV for the digital age.  This evening-length multimedia dance theater work about LUV for the digital age was conceived and directed by Maida Withers.  This real yet surreal evening-length performance by four extraordinary dance artists exposes the fragile and volatile nature of relationships through intricate and striking partnering performed with dramatic and forceful innuendo. The lush white-on-white stage setting provides a palette for the immersive electronic installation of vogue portraits of the dancers and paintings by Anthony Gongora (visual projection) featuring visual poetry and pillow talk by Alex Caldiero, poet, and penetrating and compelling electronic music by Steve Hilmy.  Dancers / Quartet:  Kelly Bond, Nate Bond, Anthony Gongora, Giselle Ruzany. Guest Dancers: Dylan Mont, Billy Andrews, Ian Ceccarelli, Kristi Cole, Sam Wong. Poet, Alissandru (Alex) Caldiero.  Visual Design, Anthony Gongora (See below).

Physical and symbolic meanings are derived from white pristine bed pillows that are incorporated into all scenes and dance episodes. These familiar objects of passion and pleasure provide dancers opportunity to configure/reconfigure the space constructing a sanctuary for intimacy and violence, humor, and even remorse. Pillows are embraced, shared, relayed, and taped to the body like appendages becoming an ever present friend and companion, a shield for protection, a burden, an instrument for violence, a suffocating handicap, a comfort needed for a soft landing.

Collision Course – a.k.a. Pillow Talk is at once bold and delicate, daring, loving and audacious. Pillows thrown, relationships caught! What dreams of love do nightmares bring? “At the end of the day we return to the pillow, the place where thoughts are shared and decisions are made. There’s pillow talk, then life happens!”

Video tapes by Maida Withers and the Dance Construction Company related to Collision Course and the involvement of PILLOWS in performance:
http://maidadance.com/works/collision-course-a-k-a-pillow-talk/
https://vimeo.com/58111383  (1:02:34)  (current performance video)
http://maidadance.com/works/collision-course-installation/  
http://vimeo.com/69312510  (44:21 installation film)
https://maidadance.com/works/collision-course-a-k-a-pillow-talk-film/  
https://vimeo.com/32204528 (07:23 film)

Collision Course – Gala Opening Smith center for Healing and the Arts, Washington, DC
https://maidadance.com/works/collision-course-gala-opening/

Collision Course – a.k.a. Pillow Talk – Artisphere performance, Arlington, Virginia
https://maidadance.com/works/collision-course-a-k-a-pillow-talk-artisphere-episode-1-2-3episode-1-2-3/

END DISPLAY #4

Collision Course Performances / National and International Tours
*Artisphere Dome Theatre, Arlington, VA, September 21, 2011 (early version)
*Premiere: Dorothy Betts Theatre, Washington, DC  December 12, 2012
*Tour Brazil:  Viseos Urbanas – Festival Internacional de Danca, Sao Paulo, BR, March 24, 2013
*Teatro Cacilda Becker, Rio de Janeiro, BR, March 28, 2013
*Tour Seattle and Portland:  Seattle International Dance Festival, June 21, 2013
*Conduit Performance Space, Portland, OR, June 22, 2013

PILLOW TALK: Photos by Shaun Schroth

Anthony Gongora, Giselle Ruzany (center), Kelly Bond, Nate BondGiselle Ruzany, Anthony GongoraNate Bond

Kelly Bond

Kelly Bond, Nate Bond

Giselle Ruzany, Nate Bond

Anthony Gongora
Giselle Ruzany

Giselle Ruzany
Billy Andrews, Kristy Cole, Ian Ceccarelli, Sammy Wong

Kelly Bond, Nate Bond, Giselle Ruzany, Anthony Gongora

Nate Bond, Anthony Gongora, Giselle Ruzany

Giselle Ruzany, Nate Bond, Alex Caldiero (poet/installation), Anthony Gongora

Nate Bond

Anthony Gongora, Nate Bond

Nate Bond

Anthony Gongora, Kelly Bond, Giselle Ruzany, Nate Bond

*All Photos by Shaun Schroth

Dance Construction Company Board of Directors:
Nancy Tartt, Alison Beesley, Aimee Fullman, Greg Hunter, Maida Withers

What the press is saying

The pillows feel like characters in the story too—there were moments in which they looked like a dancer’s lover, or when they seemed to represent something frightening, like a nightmare or a bad memory... Liz Maestri (see 2 page review)

A beautifully complex and thought provoking piece. Sure to have audiences thinking long after the lights go down. Rick Westerkamp

D.C. choreographer and George Washington University professor Maida Withers' new show features four dances and lots of pillows. "Collision Course—a.k.a. Pillow Talk" is a dance/theater work that tells stories of love for the digital age, with an electronic-music soundtrack. The show runs tonight and tomorrow only, and takes place on a white-on-white stage. According to a press release, pillows will be "embraced, shared, relayed, and taped to the body like appendages becoming an ever-present friend and companion, a shield for protection, a burden, an instrument for violence, a suffocating handicap, a comfort needed for a soft landing." Runs to Dec. 8 at the Marvin Theatre at George Washington University, 800 21st St. NW. $22 general admission, $17 for seniors and artists, $12 students. Katie Fiegenbaum

The movement sequences were most interesting when Withers explored what dancers could do with the pillows…” Could Nate Bond lift Giselle Ruzany while she was curled in a ball clutching three? (He could.) Could a trio of three guys waddle across the stage with pillows between their legs? (Yes; hysterically funny.) And an arabesque while clutching a pillow between two toes? (Awkward, but possible!) Rebecca Ritzel

"Perhaps because of the pillow element, the show had a certain intimacy to it, almost as though we were watching the dancers in their own bedrooms, where their most private of actions and emotions are carried out and expressed. This is the kind of intimacy that works well in theater, as was Withers' dramatic use of text. I particularly enjoyed the repetitive (and existential) nature of the line "Is this ... is this a story? Is this a story? and its echo, "Who cares?"... "Who cares?" throughout the entire episode." Liz Maestri

"The idea of an established dancer and choreographer like Maida Withers working to create theater is an exciting one." Liz Maestri