Terrain

Terrain, choreography by Rebecca Lazier, premieres two dance installations at Joyce SoHo, 155 Mercer Street (between Houston and Prince) January 29th – 31st, 2009. The evening, created in collaboration with composer Gregory Spears, lighting designer Aaron Copp, costume designers Mary Jo Mecca and Heidi Barr, and the performers Jennifer Lafferty, Rommel Salveron, Emily Stone, Storme Sundberg, and Christopher Williams, is conceived as a way to encourage audience reaction and discourse. There will be a reception after each performance. Terrain is presented in association with Joyce SoHo.
The first act is entitled Terminal. Shifting dramatically between the dreamlike and the recognizable, between a sensory environment that is overwhelming and one that is subtle, Terminal attempts to recall for the audience long-forgotten and vaguely remembered moments in their individual pasts. Audience members are enclosed in the same sound and light environment as the dancers, giving them a more immediate, visceral experience of the moment of remembering.

The second act, Serenade, is performed to Tchiakovsky’s "Serenade in C." The dance builds steadily from the intimate to the grandiose, rearranging the shape and format of the theater as it goes. Serenade asks "what is good?" And do you contradict yourself when what you believe to be ‘good’ turns out to be unattainable or if you decide later that it is undesirable?

The final act is a discussion between the audience and the performers and choreographer. Rebecca is committed to offering the audience an opportunity to ask questions, and ultimately to validate their individual experiences of the work. She is also seeking to create more avenues for ‘peer review’ of finished choreography and performance within the dance community.