Alma Reiss-Navarre
Grounds for Becoming
Grounds for Becoming is an evening length performance, involving twelve dancers, six musicians, and soft sculpture. It is an investigation into the relationship between the four main caverns of the heart, its outer lining, and the act of sustaining warmth.
Over the course of six months, I created mounds of paper grass, and explored its capacity for movement. In this work, the grass imaginatively travels through the tubes of a body as a fluid, nestles in caverns, and is molded by internal walls. This paper acts as a delicate, imperminant structure, in which oxygen and touch can thrive.
Inspired by constant re-birth in nature, and the ways in which people mimic grasses when they share space, I asked: How can we support each other, regeneratively? Where is the grief in unnatural movement? Where is its comedy?
It’s a grass party and you’re invited.
Choreography:
Alma Reiss-Navarre
Dancers:
Maddy Brock, Alexa Curran, Mia Dawson, Brogan Donston, Lucy Elliot, Mira Fowler, Christine Frye, Emily Heath, Koh Kozuru, Sadie Levinsohn, Nico Migdal, Alma Reiss-Navarre
Live music:
Jack Casey (drums), Sam DuPont (piano), Ethan Kelley (saxophone), Milo Lis (synthesizer), Gareth McCullough (bass), Lila Quigley (violin)
Recorded music:
Sadicc Gladdic; Wagon Christ, Witching Hour (feat. Ms Ray); Nat Home, composed by Nathanial Mason, No Thank You Mr. West (feat. Tigran Hamasyan, Larry Koonse, Darek Oles, & Nate Wood);
composed by Benjamin C. Wendel, The Morning Side of Love; Ego Ella May, composed by Chico Hamilton
Lighting design:
Emily Heath
Sound Design:
Kumi Ishizawa
Costume:
Richard MacPike
Video:
Ahmed Shuwehdi
Martha Hill Dance Theater, Bennington College
April 19th & 20th, 2024
Alma Reiss-Navarre
Dancers:
Maddy Brock, Alexa Curran, Mia Dawson, Brogan Donston, Lucy Elliot, Mira Fowler, Christine Frye, Emily Heath, Koh Kozuru, Sadie Levinsohn, Nico Migdal, Alma Reiss-Navarre
Live music:
Jack Casey (drums), Sam DuPont (piano), Ethan Kelley (saxophone), Milo Lis (synthesizer), Gareth McCullough (bass), Lila Quigley (violin)
Recorded music:
Sadicc Gladdic; Wagon Christ, Witching Hour (feat. Ms Ray); Nat Home, composed by Nathanial Mason, No Thank You Mr. West (feat. Tigran Hamasyan, Larry Koonse, Darek Oles, & Nate Wood);
composed by Benjamin C. Wendel, The Morning Side of Love; Ego Ella May, composed by Chico Hamilton
Lighting design:
Emily Heath
Sound Design:
Kumi Ishizawa
Costume:
Richard MacPike
Video:
Ahmed Shuwehdi
Martha Hill Dance Theater, Bennington College
April 19th & 20th, 2024
Photos by Linn Miller