Valentine’s Day Dedication – Maida R. Withers
Maida on Maida in the Universe Concert
February 14-15, 2003
Washington, DC

These performances are dedicated to the many artists and others with whom I have collaborated to create and present work.  A life-time thank you to Brook Andrews, John Bailey, Verabel Cluff, John Driscoll, JoAnn Sellars, Dale Crittenberger, Iwona Olzowaska, Tania Fraga, Bob Boilen, Adam Peiperl, Paul Caffrey and all the dancers and artists: Doug Wheeler, Bill Warrell, and the supportive international presenters; Michael Kriegsman, Washington Post dance critic: Richard Lanier of the Trust for Mutual Understanding, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and other funders: and others too numerous to mention who have touched my life so deeply.  Thank you for guardian angels who kept me from falling off the cliffs in the Southwest and other canyons and precipices of my own making whose depths I have braved.

Creating new work has been the driving force in my life, resulting in over 75 dance works for stage, site, and video, many of them evening-length performances.  I have had an insatiable thirst for moving and a strong inclination to push the envelop and take risks, all the while being crawn to the power and challenge of live performance.

In the earliest stages, the dancing focused on improvisation and structural investigation.  This resulted in the creation of events and site performances with collaboration as a novel system of building work. These simple structures soon turned into large-scale productions requiring extensive research and technology.  Continued interest in social and political issues provided a means for more direct commentary, including the women’s movement.  Focus on the earth and ecology was, in many ways, a return to my early roots on the deserts of Utah.  And now we reach out to the universe, the place of our future.

As I was reviewing the photographs and the video archives, I often laughed aloud at myself and others as I remembered.  The lighthearted daring seems so innocent and the love of dance and each other so remarkable.

It is a great pleasure for me to share this evening with old and new friends.

Maida Rust Withers
February 14, 2003
Program for Maida on Maida in the Universe, One-Woman Show