In collaboration with dancers: Isabel Bowser, Phillipe Coquet, Carole-Anne Cordero, Christine Josephine, Nathan Morrison, Idelle Packer, Rio Fiore, Travis Robb, Lane Wagner, Anne Wainer. Live original music by Elon DeHaro with Danny Blose, lighting and screen images by Josh Finck, and set design by Peter Belt
Saturday, November 17 – Monday, November 19 7:30pm nightly performances; Sunday 3pm and 7:30
Congregation Beth HaTephila Dave Family Social Hall, 43 N. Liberty at Broad Street, Asheville
TICKETS: https://etude22.bpt.me
Ticket purchase: Temple Beth HaTephila office, M-F 9am-4pm, Sundays 9am-noon, after Oct 15.
Tickets also sold pre-performance.
Open seating; $20
Idelle Packer, dancer and choreographer, working in collaboration with 10 dancers, presents choreography with mixed media of screen design and live music in a new work entitled: Etude 22: Meditation on the Aleph-Bet.
Original music by Elon DeHaro, lighting and screen graphics by Josh Finck and set construction by Peter Belt.
The foundation of Etude 22 is the interplay of gesture, movement and language. As clearly as breath meets mouth and tongue to form speech, so do limbs ride on the breath to form gesture. And, as a phrase can be turned verbally, so the movement of limbs, infused with breath, opens the syntactical meaning of gesture. Its ribboned connections, one letter to the next, expose a word’s meaning.
Packer offers this Etude or “study” as a new way to experience dance as language and to enliven the text through movement. When the letters are gestured, a somatic awakening leads to self-discovery. The letter, Dalet, was the “delet” or ‘door’ that opened this new vision for her.
After discovering the letter gestures of Stan Tenen’s work with the Meru Foundation, Packer moved the letter gestures into expressive movement creating moments of soulful geometry in dance. Her affinity for particular letters, tied to their meanings or mystical metaphors, propelled the unfolding choreographic process.
Wherever you have been and wherever you are going, from whatever tradition guides your path, Etude 22 invites you to enter the world of ancient memory evoked in the Hebrew letter gestures.
