Please join us for the upcoming concert "...me so much nearer home," featuring choreography by faculty member and Dance Program Director, Anna Leo. The concert has three performances from September 25-27. Please see our website and click on the Events link for more details. One of the unique features of this concert is that each dance will be introduced by a poem. The post below is written by Lynn Thompson, who composed one of these poems.
Writing the Poem “Voice”
by Lynne Thompson
When Anna Leo invited me to compose a poem for a solo dance entitled Warrior Woman Pantoum, I assumed the Malayan form (originally, pantun) would provide the structure for the poem. When I received the DVD of a rehearsal of the piece, however, it struck me that Anna’s choreography and Steve Everett’s feral musical score had fractured the regularized expectations that are a necessary aspect of that form. Traditionally, the pantoum is comprised of repeated, rhyming lines that create an echo in the listener’s ear; a feeling of taking four steps forward, then two back. However, Anna’s Warrior Woman earns her status by eschewing this expectation; by exploring the previously-unexplored so as to discover and establish her own way in the world. Thus, in writing "Voice," I wanted to develop a pattern by repeating the active verb say while marrying that repetition to the dancer’s unpredictable curiosity and insistence on becoming.
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