get set, go

Three women, seasoned, coming together to dig deep and find shared form. One a Bessie-winning New York choreographer and performer, one a Netherlands-based dance adventurer and gifted transmitter of body knowledge, the third a slow-cooking Philly teacher, writer, choreographer and presenter. All imprinted by the legacy of dancing with Trisha Brown.

The first time I saw Eva Karczag was when she was dancing for Remy Charlip. She crawled from one end of DTW to the other balancing on rubber balls, kicking one ball forward and placing a hand on it each time she took another feline step. I had never witnessed such liquid simplicity. I thought she was the most beautiful dancer I’d ever seen.

The first time I saw Vicky Shick was at the 1977 Contact Improvisation gathering in Putney, Vermont. We met through a mutual friend, Richard Colton, on whom I had choreographed my first dance at age 13. We shared that watershed dance moment when attention to feeling and touch were transforming how we all moved.

All together in Brown’s Glacial Decoy, Line Up, Locus, Son of Gone Fishin’, going to the limits of strength and complexity. Witnessing the unfolding of genius and sometimes the drudgery of maintaining exactitude.

Fast forward nearly thirty years. A decade shared with Eva at European Dance Development Center in the Netherlands. Grown or nearly grown children, graying mates. Continuous activity in the dance world, both humble and heralded. Now - a rehearsal studio.

What will we find? What matters today? In a post-Judson, post-9/11, post-oil boom world, how does dance making continue as an eloquent medium for us?

Beginnings, with their limitless possibility, are so simple. Hopefully maturity will aid us in drilling down into the heart of what we find and sticking with the faint currents of unfamiliar direction. We will share our findings here. (Lisa Kraus)