(1989) Path   May 9 to 21  Creative Residency, Yellow Springs Institute, Philadelphia, PA.  Maida Withers and the Dance Construction Company were selected for a two-week creative residency at the prestigious Yellow Springs Institute located outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – an international center for art and ideas.  Other artist were in residence as well. Path was created and performed during the residency.

Yellow Springs Institute supported the Company with living quarters, technical facilities, and space to begin to create a new work. During the 2-week resident Withers created Path with dancers James Murphey, John Lancaster, Cristy Lamb, Anne McDonald, and Maida Withers. Live music was created and performed “live” by William Eaton, composer/musician, Arizona.  Visual projection included Utah earth video shot by James Byrne, NYC, during the first company summer residency in Utah.  The installation also included photos of earth photographer, Bruce Hucko, Moab, Utah.

Six years of Utah research residencies and Path established content (earth), pattern (indigenous influence), style (primal with body and voice), other, for many earth works to come including the Shaman solos by Maida Withers.  Maida’s Earth Works,  in a curious way, was/is also related to Maida’s activism in feminism as well as the distinctive life and family history in Southern Utah (1900 –  1941). Maida was born in Kanab, Utah, the eighth child of Woodruff and Isabel Martina Luke.

The Yelow Spring residency occurred one year after Maida began her 6/7-year odyssey of visits to Utah and the Four Corner’s area with filmmaker, Verabel Cluff, to reconnect to the place of her birth and her family’s roots and the ultimate relationship of humans to planet earth – a deep philosophy of values / origin / and, yes, survival of the human race as we know it!

Path, a multifaceted work created at Yellow Springs was the inspiration for choreography: Spirit Path / Migration,  Earth Spirit Rising,  Dunes, and other earth works created from 1989 through the premiere of Utah * Spirit Place * Spirit Planet * Tukuhnikivatz at Lincoln Center, 1996. https://vimeo.com/106386860

For further development of concept and choreography, please view on https://maidadance.com:  Spirit Path / Migration; Spirit Path / Migration / Remains; Crossing the Edge; Still Rush; Ancient Lands, Ancient Peoples;  Utah: Spirit Place –
Spirit Planet – Tukuhnikivatz, others.

What the press is saying

"Two works in progress are presented in this program, along with a post-performance discussion in which the choreographers answer audience questions about their works. The work presented by Maida Withers was a segment of a larger project called Migrations, with collaborators William Eaton, Michael Willis, James Byrne and Bruce Hucko, concerning the relationship between humans and land in the Southwest."