1977 (dates)  HALDA: A Mound of Waste  An evening-length site performance commissioned by Slaski Teatre Tanca for the 1997 International Dance Conference and Festival in Bytom, Poland.  “It was an honor to be invited by Jacek Luminski, dancer, choreographer and manager of the Silesian Dance Theatre in Bytom, Poland, to teach and create work in Poland.” Maida Withers.

Maida, a guest artist for the Festival, was commissioned to create a new dance work with four brilliant dancers.  An out of doors site work was created, by Maida, with four brilliant  Polish dancers from the Eksperymentalne Studio Tanca in Kracow, Poland.  The work was inspired by myths related to the mines and the devastation to the local environment of the Silesian region in Poland due to pollution and damage to the earth by digging coal mines directly under the city of Bytom.  Many of the buildings showed street fractures/ large cracks and other alterations to the building above the mines. The four dancers engaged in mythologies related to four horses who were blind and living totally under the earth. The Fivenotten Group (visual artists) from the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, Poland created an installation of grass and a balanced pole (moving set) used by the dancers during the three performances in three cities in Poland. Original music was created by and performed by (name ???? for Halda. (Please locate the name of the Polish composer/musician for the site work – was it performed live???;s locate the names of the four dancers with correct spelling).

Premiere performances in three cities as part of the 1997 International Dance Conference and Festival:

(1) Bytom, Poland, Plac Kosciuszki
(2) Katowice, Poland, Plac Sejmu Slaskiego
(3) Krakow, Poland; Kazimierz, ul. Szeroka

 “It was a great honor for me to work with such talented artists in Poland…..such beautiful and gracious women dancers.”  Maida Withers

“Iwona Olszowsky continued working with Maida Withers and the Dance Construction Company on Dance of the Auroras – Fire in the Sky in St. Petersburg, Russia, in Washington, DC and on tour in Russia, performing in Moscow and Krasnoyarsk.”