(2001) Subterfuge

Description

Subterfuge, defined as “an evasive plan or tactic used to avoid capture or confrontation”, illustrates for me the essence of a work that initially began as a response to living in a generation which has not known war first hand. While war is waged on a daily basis in other parts of the world, the closest it has ever felt to me was during the Gulf War in 1991. It later occurred to me that was seems to be at the very nature of war is the desire for freedom. On a relative scale, each of us struggle with the confines of our daily lives, things we wish to be free of which oppresses us on any number of levels, and ultimately relate us in a universal struggle to live “in the absence of restraint”. Things break down, we love we hate, we reconcile or we don’t all in the name of escaping the “ties that bind” in the multitude of way which essentially makes us all human.

Production

Choreography: Peter Sciscioli
Sound Design: Chris J. Johnson
Lighting Design: Margaret L. Nelson

Cast

Mei-Kuang Chen, Sarah Ebert, Matthew Hollis, Peter Sciscioli, Lisa Wymore

Performance(s)

In the Absence of Restraint: dances of dependence and desire
April 6-7, 2001
Athenaeum Theater
Chicago

Special Thanks

The dancers contributed greatly to the development of the material for this piece. Thanks to Juan Estrada for understudying and to Christopher Loubsky for his support.