March 2, 2018. . . Water and Fire

Rehearsing Tidal Pools and Flicker this week, the Water and Fire sections of Air-Earth-Fire-Water for the GASP! Festival. The text and movement is coming together, with the actors finding connections between the four scripts and all of the dancers contributing movement ideas, Helen keeping an eye on the overall picture and Paula making small fine-tunings.

Helen’s husband Jon coached the actors and dancers on maneuvering the parachutes, as the one person among us who’s jumped out of a plane with one. The parachutes are real, thanks to Helen’s para-rescue friend, military-grade and a wonderful blue, which means our original idea of using them just for Chris flying in Airborne has grown into beautiful blue waves around Eugenie for Tidal Pools.

We add an extra rehearsal for Flicker, since Chris is acting in a play by Mark Leib that’s opening at The Studio@620 and couldn’t make our Tuesday time. Quantum physics and fire – Chris is hilarious and poignant and our dancers and our actors create movement that’s meaningful and visually arresting, inspired by the words he’s speaking.

Helen has a wonderful piece of driftwood that’s shaped like a pile of firewood, and when Paula drapes it in the flamboyant red and orange cloth we’ve used as a volcano, a sandstorm and flames in other projects together, it looks like a lovely campfire.