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CANCELLED Letters You Wrote

Presented by Dancepatheatre at The Artery

December 4, 2009

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Dancepatheatre has cancelled its performance of Letters You Wrote this weekend, both on December 4th and on the rain date, December 6th, due to strong forecasts of very cold precipitation and wind all weekend. The performance had been scheduled at The Artery, an outdoor garden theater. The project is a collaboration between Dancepatheatre and Foundation for Modern Music. Paypal ticket purchases made through the Dancepatheatre website will be cheerfully refunded. Fans are advised to check the websites of those two organizations in early 2010 for news of a rescheduled performance of Letters You Wrote. They are www.dancepath.com  and www.modernmusic.org.  

Dancepatheatre premieres Letters you Wrote in a very special evening garden-theater performance at The Artery. Collaborative partner Foundation for Modern Music provides improvisational musical accompaniment for the new work choregraphed by Sara Draper, Artistic Director of Dancepatheatre.

The new work is based on letters written in the Baby Boom years, postwar 1945-1965, that were saved by their families and recently collected by Draper for this work. Draper says, "With the art of writing letters nearly lost from our present age, simply reading a letter becomes a nostalgic act. These Baby Boom letters reveal bits of lost attidudes, of passe' discoveries, of our collective history, and of a time when lifestyles were simpler but relationships were not."

Draper has created Letters You Wrote to be a mutable performance piece. Its presentation at The Artery will be a unique one, with letters read aloud by actors Richard Jason Lyders and Mossie Burcham, and improvisational music performed by Nicholas Leh Baker, resident conductor of FMM. The choreography has been tailored to fit the modestly sized, oddly shaped stage at The Artery, a charming setting that includes a tree jutting into the stage floor on one edge. In future performances of Letters You Wrote, the choreography may expand in space and the sound accompaniment may be quite different. The work is designed so that it can continually mutate to fit the setting of a particular venue or event.

Draper employs dancers who are comfortable with this post-modern approach and who do not have to attach themselves to a single musical piece in order to perform the choreography and the character beautifully. Catalina Molnari, Leah Bauer, and Cassandra Shaffer join Draper in performing the new work of mostly solo dances. In some cases a dancer portrays the writer of the letter, and in others, the reader. In every case, a personality from the past is brought back to life through dance.

Post-war occupation, Lyndon Johnson's election, caring for the old family cook, a middle aged newly-wed, a New Orleans family, and contributions to the Baby Boom by a minister and his wife...these are some of the topics that pop up in these letters. Vintage clothing as costumes and sensuous, surprising movement spiced with humor bring new life to these old letters.

Letters You Wrote, a Dancepatheatre Arts Project, is funded in part by a grant from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Please note that The Artery is a garden theater, so be advised to dress according to the weather. Reception is indoors. Rain date is Sunday, December 6th.