In Winds of Sand
(center)         “the act of being, creating with the earth!”

                          Maida Withers – Evening-length Solo Concert
                Premiere:  Dorothy Betts Marvin Theatre, Washington, DC
     Tours:  France, Netherlands, Korea, Hong Kong, China, Venezuela

(Remove  bold type) (1993)  January 29 and 30   In Winds of Sand – the act of being, creating with the earth – a powerful, commanding solo by Maida Withers with a breathtaking visual installation that reveals the magic, beauty, and daring of Coral Dunes (Kanab, Utah) and white crystal quartz sand  (White Sands, New Mexico) coupled with the harsh realities in stark wilderness environments … embodied mysteries of change and survival.

                                                  Projected Installation
                               Sands Cycles – FILM  & “Dunes” SLIDES
             Verabel Cluff, Filmmaker /  Maida Withers – Dance artist

SandS Cycles’ Film: a visual poem – a poetic dance and dramatic art film of Withers improvising at Coral Dunes, Utah and White Sands, New Mexico – projected onto an elaborate stage set with ramps, platforms, fabric and backdrop screens to receive film and earth slide projections. Slides of sand dune formations are projected on the stage floor. Sands Cycles is a poetic dance and environment video, a landsite process of creating art with the earth and ecology.  SandS CycleS is the fruit of two women’s quest through the desert sands of Utah and New Mexico (Maida Withers and Verabel Cluff).

In Winds of Sand, stage work, parallels the structure of the SandS CycleS film which is based on the famous Hero’s Journey, concepts and characters defined  by Joseph Campbell, psychologist and mythological researcher, writer, and scholar.

In Hero’s Journey, Campbell reveals eight characters:  images of the Innocent, the Martyr, the Orphan, the Caretaker, the Warrior, the Destroyer, the Magician, and the Ruler are woven into the structure of Sands Cycles.   The video structure is also influenced by Carol S. Pearson and Maureen Murdock on the journey of self, the hero’s journey. The decision by Cluff to edit the film based on Campbell’s Hero’s Journey came after all site work and filming on Coral Dunes and White SandS was completed.  During the month of working on the dunes, Maida discovered varied scenarios during very long explorations in the deadly Sun, heat, and wind along with the challenge of moving in deep, hot sand and engaging with limited plants/bushes shadows – refuge from the Sun.  Sands Cycles is enhanced by the sand painting tapestries of New Mexico artist, Tea Schiano, revealing the movement of the sands, randomly and beautifully covering fabrics laid on the tops of the dunes creating a means for nature to speak through a language of dreaming images. Messages to the Gods written on fabric and  tied to Prayer Poles (tree limbs buried in the sand), created messages of hope and survival.

In Winds of Sand performance, January 29 and 30, 1993, is made possible by support of the George Washington University Department of Theatre and Dance, the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal Agency and the D.C. Commission for the Arts and Humanities, Maida Withers’ Dance Construction Company, GWU Diversity training Network, Allen’s Photo, Jack Morton Productions, Inc. and US Air.

Note:  Archive files contain 28 pages of hand-written choreography notes by Maida Withers about In Winds of Sand.

In Winds of Sand  – Photos

Sand flows freely from above creating a pyramid of sand

        “In Winds of Sand”  – International Tours / Presentations:
France, Netherlands, China, Korea, Kuala Lumpur, Venezuela

(1997) July 7 & 8  Paris, France – Teatro Dunois – In Winds of Sand
Choreography and Performance: Maida Withers; Music: Alex Caldiero;
Costume:  Schiano; Video:  Verabel Cluff
In Winds of Sand presented in a joint concert with Dance Construction Company and Cyrus Khambatta Phfft Dance Theatre Company (NYC, NY)

(1997) November 1  In Winds of Sand – Aula Magna Theater, Central University of Caracas, Venezuela – SandS Cycles film projection.

(1996) July 9 – 21 Amsterdam, The Netherlands School for New Dance Development:  Bodies of Influence – celebrating “a decade of new dance development.” Maida Withers: (1) concert performance (2) group Improvisation performance (3) create site specific event with dancers (4) panel participant.
July 17  In Winds of Sand – solo concert performance by Maida Withers choreographer and dancer; In Winds of Sand, video installation projection; Alex Caldiero, recorded music; USA.

(1995) April 26-29 Guest Artist:  ART – CULTURE -NATURE- Salisbury State University – Lecture/discussion:  “Dance and video performance:  In Winds of Sand – Environmental Consciousness through body Consciousness and Creative Process in Movement and Dance.” Full program in archive.

(1994) Maida Withers 1994 Asia tour – residencies and performance
Performance: In Winds of Sand and/or Ancient Lands/Ancient Peoples
< Seoul, Korea – May 2-5 13th Int’l Korean Dance Festival, Munye Theatre
< Hong Kong |- May 6-12 – Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts
< Guangzhou, China – May 15-22 – Guandong Dance Academy 
< Kula Lumpur, Malaysia – May 22-29 choreography residency – perform & create new work – Kuala Lumpur Dance Theatre

(1993) (Date TBD) In Winds of Sand  Hokkaido, Japan – rehearsing for performance  for an environment conference taking place in Hokkaido.  Below: photos for promotion. Maida Withers performs a  version of In Winds of Sand that is a transition version moving toward solo performance titled Ancient Lands / Ancient Peoples.

Maida Withers and the Dance Construction Company are members of an international invitational congress for Artists for Nature.  The Company travelled to Brazil for six weeks, May 6 – June 15, 1992 to participate with the Brazilian Movement of Artists for Nature, performing Dance for the Earth / Rolling Thunder, and also exhibiting the dance video, SandS CycleS, and participating in the dialogue at the United Nation’s Conference for Environment and Development, Earth Summit ’92.

What the press is saying

As solar rays eclipse a desert turret, birds of prey, wings outstretched inflight, emerge in silhouette against a rocky ledge. These however are not natural canyon country sky dwellers. They are members of the Maida Withers Dance Construction Company creating new dimensions in environmental expression. In some instances, the dancers perform on cliffs 1,000 feet in the air. The Company is aat work in San Juan County producing two projects: an experimental dance video for television broadcast and background footage for a stage presentation to premier in Washington, DC. The stage production will be available for tour in Utah next year. Jody Bailey, San Juan Record, Southern Utah

Withers, a professor at George Washington University, is project director and choreographer. The cast, will Moreau, Tim Harling, Emily Ojala and Christine Lamb, are professional dancers with extensive and varied backgrounds in stage and film production both in the United States and in Europe. Jody Bailey, San Juan Record

During the five-week stay in San Juan, the dance troupe- chosen for their outdoor experience and interest in the project - have hiked, camped, rehearsed and performed on location. Several sites in the county were selected for natural props. Arches, cliffs, alcoves, monuments and aspen grooves became implements in an interpretive portrayal of the environment and the cultural aspects inherent in the landscape. Jody Bailey, San Juan Record

San Juan County was chosen for the project because of its primitive nature. Withers, a native of Southern Utah says she feels, "There is a basic national ignorance of Utah." She wants to explore the "tremendous amount of artist wealth in the area." Along with that, her desire is to capture the cultural essence of the region."
She explains, "we feel a connection with the history of the area. I think there's a very powerful spiritual thing in this land. When one finds holes carved out where people have climbed or wagon tracks worn in the rocks, there's a sense of physical struggle...a feeling of participation in something bigger than self.
The project, funded in part by a grant from George Washington University, has received much local support. Hardy and Sunny Redd of Monticello opened their home to the dancers for use as a base camp. Dr. Kay Shumway of the College of Eastern Utah, San Juan Center, helped establish the dancers into the area. Joe Pachak of the White Mesa institute provided assistance with site location and background information.
San Juan School District allowed the use of Mexican Hat Elementary to recharge equipment. The LDS churches in Blanding and Monticello were utilized for rehearsals and local merchants willingly acquired special foods for the dancers vegetarian diets. Withers stated that the non-cash donations, the generosity, enthusiasm and trust of the people in the area helped make the project possible.
Copies of the finished video will be sent to Blanding and Monticello at a later date. Jody Bailey, San Juan Record

"In Winds of Sand" is the latest in an ongoing series of works by Withers about environment. Its genius was a trip (by Withers and a group of movement, visual, and musical artists) to the sandy mesas of Four Corners in the Southwest. Pamela Squires - Washington Post

"Cloth draped mesas stretched across the stage. Projected over these and up the bac wall was a film of Withers trudging across vast sand dunes ("Sand Cycles" shot by filmmaker Verabel Call Cluff). Withers danced with Withers. Shadows fluttered and fabric flapped in sculpted wilderness that was neither silent nor still. Wind blew and a shaft of sand poured from the ceiling." Pamela Squires - Washington Post

Wither's projected image loomed large, shrinking her presence just as huge cliffs shrink the presence of people. Her live self was merely one small aspect of this vast painting." Pamela Squires - Washington Post

"The audience was swept away insto the look and feel of a vast desert. They peered through Withers's eyes into the timelessness of this landscape, a place in which the artist felt she could conjure up the spiritual presence of both ancestors and child not born. Perhaps this place was transmuted in the work through the absence of a clear beginning or end. "In Winds of Sand" was structurally akin to a camera capturing a random 50 minutes moment of time.:" Pamela Squires - Washington Post

"Maida Withers is empowered with an imagination as large as her big-boned frame. The long-time local choreographer is still one of the most masterly dance makers in Washington. Her latest concert which she shared with Korean modern dance choreographer Je Young Kim at Marvin Center Theatre, was flawed but fetching." 2nd Version - Pamela Squires

"Wisely, Withers has ditched the spoken text, stuck to a white-on-white design (at one point she had danced in a red nylon nightie and got rid of the fabricated dunes that dominated the stage." 2nd version - Pamela Squires