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2020; 2023 · Dance – stage work

Aurora Sad Magic

Amy Foley (Bellwether Dance Project)

A work for seven dancers about grief and how the natural world can help us understand loss, drawing on Alaskan folklore that describes the northern lights as the dancing souls of lost loved ones. It premiered alongside Foley's solo and a revival of 'Let Slip the Witches.'

Recollections

“I was so happy that we were able to bring this piece out of hibernation from Covid lockdown and finish it. It still feels really raw and liminal and unfinished.”

Ben

“When I started work on it again for this program, much had changed: Covid-19 had affected us all and I'd lost my father suddenly, in March. This piece, which deals with the grief we all experience and questions around how the natural world may help us understand ourselves in that state, took on a new meaning. We started over. We kept some things but changed a lot. Ben Juodvalkis composed a gorgeous score. It is new and raw and, I think, beautiful.”

Amy Foley, choreographer
Premiere
2023-09-14
Venue
ODC Theater (Bellwether Dance Project 2nd Home Season)
Where
San Francisco, CA
Performances
Run September 14–16, 2023. An earlier version (announced as 'My Aurora') was begun in 2019–2020 for Marika Brussel's shared show 'House of Names' at ODC Theater, April 17–19, 2020, which was cancelled due to COVID-19; the piece was shelved and largely remade in 2023.
Credits
Choreography: Amy Foley, with the dancers. Original music: Ben Juodvalkis. Dancers: Roseann Baker, Iva Dixson, Claire Fisher, Caitlin Hicks, Elena Martins, Olivia Caldeira Holston, Juliann Witt. Lighting: Del Medoff.

Photographs

Six dancers in rust, teal and blue costumes lift a seventh horizontally above their heads, against swirling green and blue light projected on the backdrop.

Steve Disenhof

The seven dancers travel across a dark stage in a staggered line, crouched forward with arms swinging, long skirts in blue and teal, a green glow overhead.

Steve Disenhof

Ephemera

Season poster: a posterized photo of a dancer in a dark dress twisting mid-step, with "Bellwether dance project season 2" across the top and "Aurora Sad Magic" curving beside her; along the bottom, "Sept 14/15/16 – 7:30 pm @ ODC Theater".
In a studio with dark wooden ceiling beams and a barre along a yellow wall, four dancers in rehearsal clothes lunge low in a row while another stands apart.

From a run-through two weeks before the show.

One dancer turns with arms flung out in the middle of the beamed studio while the others wait near the windows.
Four dancers stand close together in the beamed studio, lifting a fifth overhead on their raised hands.

The lift, in rehearsal.

The seven dancers stand in a line taking a bow in colourful tops and long skirts, a green and orange aurora projected on the backdrop above them.

Opening-night bow.

Jen Norris

Silhouette of the lift, from a run-through

  • An early improvisation we developed for the piece

Amy asking me to score her new piece.

Amy: Happy New Year to you! I am embarking on a new project and I wonder if you have availability to make some more fantastic music for me. I am looking to score a new work for a show on April 17-19, 2020. It will show in Marika Brussel's show at ODC Theater. My piece will be about 16-18 min long.

Ben: Yay! Let’s do it

Amy's invitation to the 2020 fundraiser showing.

Amy: A piece for five women, the dancers and I are exploring grief, peace and the Northern Lights.

Amy's text on closing night.

Amy: Willing to bow with us tonight?

Ben: I'm shy

Press

“Sounds of bubbling liquid and the distant voices of children intercede as composer Juodvalkis evokes the underwater quality of dreamscapes.”

“The boreal world of Aurora Sad Magic is brought to life with original music by Ben Juodvalkis and ethereal lighting design by Del Medoff.”

Elsewhere

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