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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced withwith permissionpermission of thethe copyrightcopyright owner. owner. Further Further reproduction reproduction prohibited prohibited without without permission. permission. DANCE IN LIGHT: A CAREER DOCUMENTATION OF CHOREOGRAPHER DANA REITZ by Timothy J. Willmot submitted to the Faculty of the Department of Performing Arts of American University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Performing Arts: Arts Management

Chair: ^ ^ " ■ Wv-?

Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

2 0 /9 Date

1996 American University Washington, D.C. 20016

QOS A1EBICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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Copyright 1996 by Willmot, Timothy James All rights reserved.

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by

TIMOTHY J. WILLMOT

1996

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEDICATION

In memory of dancer, choreographer, and friend Daniel Albert (1954-1989)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DANCE rN LIGHT: A CAREER DOCUMENTATION OF CHOREOGRAPHER DANA REITZ by Timothy J. Willmot

ABSTRACT

This thesis seeks to establish that choreographer Dana Reitz is one of the

most innovative voices in the recent history of modem dance, particularly in her work

concerning structured improvisation and the relationship between light and movement. A

systematic study of Reitz's artistic development is conducted to demonstrate that this

originality is based on her investigation into a series of narrowly focused questions that

seek to discover the nature of perception in relation to movement.

Research consisted of interviews with Reitz, as well as of unrestricted

access to Reitz's personal archive which included reviews, articles, correspondences,

itineraries, press releases, photographs, drawings, videotapes, and other primary documents.

A review of the general and specialized literature was also conducted. These materials were

analyzed to conclude that Reitz’s work, particularly her collaborations with lighting

designer Jennifer Tipton, is so innovative as to constitute an entirely new mode of

performance.

ii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE

I met Dana Reitz in 1992 when she came to the American University for a

three-week intensive residency. I performed in her piece Light Field and was so utterly

fascinated by her choreographic style and devotion to the performance form that she was

allowing me to experience in the theater that I felt my life beginning to change.

After she left American, I received a call from her during the summer

inviting myself and Mark Simpson, a lighting designer at American with whom I was

working, to take a workshop with her and Jennifer Tipton in New York. I could not put a

price on what I learned during those two weeks in August-October from these two

extraordinary women.

After that experience, I came back to American University and co­

choreographed a piece with Mark Simpson entitled Light Music. During that process I

became interested in researching Reitz’s career and this interest became the basis of this

study. She gave me carte blanche access to her personal archive which included

newspaper clippings, programs, contracts, itinerary, tour schedules, videotapes, press

releases and conversations. We talked and talked over the days it took to collect the

research and I accumulated many hours of personal interviews on her attitudes and

philosophies regarding her creative work, performance, art, and life in general.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I feel privileged to have spent so much personal time with the artist who is

the sub ject of my thesis. The culmination came when she invited me to the premiere of

Necessary Weather and to have dinner with herself, Sarah Rudner and Jennifer Tipton

after the performance. I continue to be inspired on a daily basis by the example of her

artistry.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge Dana Reitz for giving me unrestricted access

to her personal archive, for the countless hours of talks and interviews that she granted to

me over the course of this project, for inviting me to participate in the dance/lighting

workshop she held with Jennifer Tipton, and for giving me the opportunity and

experience of dancing in her work, Light Field.

I also want to acknowledge Suzanne Carbonneau, dance critic, dance

historian, and friend. She has guided me throughout the entire process of this project

from collecting the research and organizing it, to reading the manuscript and offering

suggestions and comments, to helping me stay centered and on track with my writing.

She has been there personally and professionally for me and without her none of this

would have ever come to fruition.

My appreciation to Douglas Sonntag of the National Endowment for the

Arts for the interview which served as one of the catalysts for the project.

To my instructors at Potomac Massage Training Institute, especially Patty

Prestigiacomo, for allowing me the time and flexibility to finish work on this project as I

was also completing my certification in massage therapy. To my classmates, thanks for

the massages. I could not think of a better situation to support me in the writing of this

thesis.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract...... ii

Preface...... iii

Acknowledgements ...... v

List of Illustrations...... viii

Chapter

1. Beginnings...... 1

2. Blank Art ...... 12

3. Collecting Phrases...... 27

4. Into the Unknown...... 46

5. Field Papers ...... 67

6. Severe Clear...... 83

7. Circumstantial Evidence ...... 97

8. Suspect Terrain ...... 108

9. Lichttontanz ...... 122

10. Re-Entry ...... 134

11. Necessary Weather...... 141

12. Unspoken Territory ...... 153

vi

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Conclusion...... 175

Bibliography...... 178

vii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromJourney: Moves 1-7 ...... 18

Figure 2, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromJourney: Moves 1-7 ...... 19

Figure 3, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromJourney: Moves 1-7 ...... 20

Figure 4, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromJourney: Moves 1-7 ...... 21

Figure 5, Performance Announcement fox Journey: Moves 1-7 ...... 23

Figure 6, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromJourney for Two Sides: A Solo Dance Duet ...... 28

Figure 7, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromJourney for Two Sides: A Solo Dance Duet ...... 29

Figure 8, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromJourney fo r Two Sides: A Solo Dance Duet ...... 30

Figure 9, Photograph of Dana Reitz fromJourney for Two Sides: A Solo Dance Duet. ...32

Figure 10, Photograph of Dana Reitz fromJourney for Two Sides: A Solo Dance Duet..33

Figure 11, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromPhrase Collection, versions 2- 5 ...... 36

Figure 12, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromPhrase Collection, versions 2- 5 ...... 37

Figure 13, Program fromFour Scores for Trio ...... 48

Figure 14, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz from Four Scores for Trio...... 49

Figure 15, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz from Four Scores for Trio...... 50

viii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 16, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz from Four Scores for Trio...... 51

Figure 17, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromFour Scores for Trio ...... 52

Figure 18, Program fromSteps and Single Score ...... 57

Figure 19, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromQuintet Project ...... 58

Figure 20, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromQuintet Project ...... 59

Figure 21, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromQuintet Project ...... 60

Figure 22, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromQuintet Project ...... 61

Figure 23, Photograph of Dana Reitz fromField Papers ...... 70

Figure 24, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromField Papers ...... 76

Figure 25, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz from Field Papers ...... 77

Figure 26, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz from Field Papers ...... 78

Figure 27, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromField Papers ...... 79

Figure 28, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromField Papers ...... 80

Figure 29, Photograph of Dana Reitz and Sarah Skaggs fromSevere Clear...... 84

Figure 30, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromSevere Clear...... 89

Figure 31, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromSevere Clear...... 90

Figure 32, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromSevere Clear...... 91

Figure 33, Choreographic Drawing by Dana Reitz fromSevere Clear...... 92

Figure 34, Photograph of Dana Reitz fromCircumstantial Evidence ...... 103

Figure 35, Photograph of Sarah Rudner and Dana Reitz for program fromNecessary Weather...... 145

Figure 36, Photograph of Dana Reitz fromCircumstantial Evidence ...... 149

ix

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 37, Program fromSolos With and Without Music ...... 165

Figure 38. Photographs of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Dana Reitz for Program fromSolos With and Without Music ...... 172

x

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER ONE-BEGINNINGS

“Yes,” he beamed, “but what did you see?”

—Edwin Denby

These words, spoken by esteemed critic Edwin Denby to William Mackay

attest to Denby’s profound interest in the choreography of Dana Reitz. At the time,

Denby was recovering from eye surgery in the hospital and thus unable to attend Reitz’s

concert at the Kitchen in New York City. Because Reitz was a particular favorite of

Denby, he had insisted that Mackay go to the performance as his eyes. However, Mackay

arrived at the final performance too late to be admitted and was forced to watch from the

street, as he described the experience, “catching scattered glimpses of Dana’s solo

through a second-story window.”1 After a short and frustrating while Mackay left. A

few days later, when confronted by Denby, he confessed, but was startled by Denby’s

interest in even the limited view of Reitz.

Edwin Denby, who died on July 12, 1983, was considered by many to be

the most important and influential American dance critic of this century.2 The reason

why a man of Denby’s stature and significance would have such a keen interest in Dana

1 Edwin Denby, Dance Writings , Edited by Robert Cornfield and William Mackay. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Inc., 1986, 33. ' Edwin Denby, Dance Writings, [cover copy]. 1

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Reitz is at the heart of this thesis.

Dana Reitz was bom on October 19, 1948. She studied oboe and piano

from 1956-66, in Rochester, New York, in preparation for a musical career. In the spring

of 1965, as a junior in high school, Reitz spent the summer in Izumo, Japan as an

American Foreign Exchange Student. Reitz, who did not know Japanese, was forced to

spend her time there as an observer of Japanese culture. It opened the eyes of this young

American woman from upstate New York to an entirely different way of “reading” the

world, focusing on gesture, nuance, and the ways people relate to each other in habit and

in ritual. These observations encompassed everyday activity—varying from bowing, to

the way people ate, to how they cooked, to the way they went to school. Forced to rely

on visual and kinetic rather than linguistic modes of communication, Reitz found herself

immersed in Japanese culture in a profound and excitingly revelatory way. From the

experience, Reitz understood that how one feels, and what one sees, and how one hears

are all part of the larger texture of culture. As a result, her understanding of the human

experience underwent a shift that was to set the course of her life. In speaking of her

Japanese experience years later, Reitz recognized that it opened her to those processes we

regard as artistic:

I came from a small town in upstate New York and to walk into the Japanese culture and feel like I belonged was a major hit. I mean, it was a

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shock. Because it wasn’t a shock. Because it felt perfectly normal and fine and easy to understand to me. The language, the visual imagery, the movement, the writing—it all was so new and fresh to me and so stimulating it just offered all sorts of other possibilities and ways of thinking and ways of seeing.

Reitz went on to describe the feeling she received from Asian culture as a sense of being

a small, yet integral part of a much larger global community. Asian philosophy

encouraged people to view the world and their place in it in a way that profoundly altered

her own sense of self:

The culture of upstate New York isradically different from Japan. It couldn’t be more different. But in a sense that allowed me to form my own. It allowed me to be. To think for myself which is one of the major crucial things, especially at that age. It was giving myself grand permission to be, to struggle, and to see things the way you see them and to expand that. You just don’t have your opinion and hold on to it forever, but that you start to perceive yourself in context. And you start to perceive others in context. It influenced me greatly— emotionally, visually, artistically and all those things, but I didn’t know it until much later.3

In August 1966, the year after being abroad, Reitz matriculated at the

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Four years later, in May of 1970, she graduated

with a Bachelor of Science degree in dance education. During her stay at Michigan she

studied ballet and modem technique and in 1969 choreographed her first work, the duet

Comment, for the Contemporary Directions Festival in Ann Arbor. Soon after, as a

senior, she made the quintet Passage (1970) for an educational television series, and

Visage (1970), a solo also performed at the Contemporary Directions Festival. As an

J Dana Reitz, Interview with the author. February 20. 1994.

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upperclassman at Michigan she taught children and adults in the Ann Arbor Cultural Arts

program, and was a substitute teacher for the university. During her college years, she

also attended summer workshops—in 1968 on scholarship at Connecticut College

Summer School of Dance, and in 1969 and 1970 at Long Beach (California) Summer

School of Dance.

In the fall of 1970, Reitz moved to New York City, where she immediately

met choreographer James Cunningham and danced in his piece Junior Birdsmen. She

continued to study ballet and also began to take classes at the Merce Cunningham studio.

Almost immediately after moving to New York, in October of 1970, she joined Twyla

Tharp and Dancers. She performed with Tharp’s company for one season and taught

during the company’s residency at Oberlin College in January of 1971. Later, in

November of 1971, she was asked to join Laura Dean and Dance Company and

performed with Dean through August of 1972, including a European tour of Bremen,

Rome, Rennes, Pamplona, Eindhoven and Berlin.

Despite Reitz's initial success as a dancer working with avant-garde

choreographers, she left New York in late 1972, calling the city “rotten” and her

4 apartment “dangerous and wretched.’ She had decided that dancing was “silly,” and,

determined to escape both the city and her profession, she went to Sioux Lookout in

Ontario, Canada, about 125 miles north of the Minnesota/Canadian border, where she

began working as an Activities Assistant in a remote Indian hospital. At the hospital she

4 Jackie Faman, “They Have a Ballet ‘Star’ in the Family,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, December 12, 1976.

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explored a side of herself that she had prepared for in college with pre-med courses. She

loved biology and the natural sciences and was trying to decide if she should take

medicine more seriously even as she found herself still drawn to dance. After wrestling

with these issues, she was able to determine that her commitment to dance hinged on

establishing what had heretofore been missing—her own vision.3

Within a year, Reitz was back in New York City with a renewed

commitment to her art. Throughout the remainder of 1973 and into early 1974, Reitz

sought to expand her artistic reach by exploring dance in relation to film and video. In an

interview, she explained how, at the time, she was “trying out some ideas and trying to

figure out where they would go. I wanted to see what would happen if I used some of the

principles in different forms. Look at it from different angles basically. Film can help

you look at yourself.” Reitz explored the concept of what captures an audience’s eye by

using film to give her “more of an idea of what registered and what didn't register.”6 At

the end of 1973, she became involved with an experimental video project with filmmaker

Phill Niblock for the Brooklyn College TV Center and Channel 13. She also began

teaching at the Henry Street Playhouse and outside of New York City at Great Kills

Community Center, Richmond College, and Staten Island Community College. In 1973

and 1974, she began working with filmmaker David Gearey on a number of dance films:

3 Locations (9 min. color/sound),Once Again ( 4 min. color/ sound. 1973), and Airwaves

(5 min. color/sound. 1974). In a letter, Reitz gave descriptions of two of these films:

5 Dana Reitz, Interview with the author. February 20, 1994. 5 Ibid.

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“Once Again (stop animation film-some humor—old stock film, Vermeerisch quality,

me, different costumes, changing chairs, hv window) and Airwaves (play of light through

branches on moving bodies, music by Malcolm Goldstein, dancers Nanette Sievert, Dana

Reitz, Carol Marcy)—beautiful color.”7

At the same time Reitz became interested in forms and techniques that

profoundly shifted her movement interests and ideas. Expanding her movement base to

include Eastern dance and other varieties of bodywork, she began to study kinetic

awareness with Elaine Summers, T’ai Chi Ch’uan and Kathakali. She explained this

kinetic shift as something that she perceived as natural to the flow of her life, and

consequently of her career. Reitz described how T’ai Chi gave her access to her own

deeper, inner focus:

[T’ai Chi] came at a moment when I needed it, which was a calming down of my physicality and a centering that I needed so much. It was kinetic. It was the need to root. The need to get into the ground. And the training that goes along with that is trying to find a different way to focus and to listen to the energy that goes through the body and listen to the energy of the space. And it’s not egocentric. It is about being part of a greater picture and also being responsible for your own ground, that you get to sort out the information and stand there and move from there and you’re responsible, in a sense, for taking care of yourself. And that’s certainly far different from western training because it has to do with those concepts rather than what do I look like in the mirror. And that’s major.8

Another significant factor in Reitz’s artistic development during this time came

through her studies at Merce Cunningham’s studio and her introduction to John Cage.

7 Dana Reitz, a letter to Brenda Way, April 10, 1976. Collection of Dana Reitz. 8 Dana Reitz, Interview with the author. February 20, 1994.

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Cage’s radical conceptions of what made up sound and his use of silence as a form of

sound or music had a profound effect:

John Cage was a big influence. He takes a lot of eastern principle, but he makes his own too. He investigated for himself all of these things~the shoulds and shouldn’ts of sound. I had discussions with him and I followed his work and I read his books, which I highly recommend. His book Silence was a big gift to a lot of us in those days because it was somebody putting down on paper the way he perceived things. And the timing of how he perceived things. You know, it was a grand permission to go look at things in a different way. He was highly influential. There are many people in my generation and before who started investigating Eastern practices and started investigating other ways of working, to break things up, the shoulds and shouldn’ts of composition.9

Reitz related strongly to what Cage’s philosophies were teaching and exposing her to and,

as a result of this influence, Reitz began to formulate her own unique and highly

individualized style. In speaking about the development of her early choreographic

principles, she identified the conception that allowed her to feel that she had found the

right pathway in order to access what was “real” for her:

There is no law of choreography and when you understand that—that there aren’t these precedents in choreography—you to begin understand that it’s up to you to actually form your own. And how do you do that? You have to find the root of it, you have to find out what you’re struggling about, what’s real to you. rather than what’s fake or what “should.”10

Through an amalgam of her new-found interests, Reitz began to develop a

personal choreographic and dance style that was recognizably hers. The first of her

“new” pieces, choreographed in 1974, was the soloGeorgia, with music by trombonist

9 Dana Reitz, Interview with the author. February 20, 1994. 10 Ibid.

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Garrett List, which she performed at Henry Street Settlement, Washington Square

Church, and at Wagner College. Staten Island. Soon thereafter came a trio called 3 Piece

Set, performed by Reitz, Christina Ham, and Nannette Sievert, which again had live

music composed and performed by List. It was also performed at Washington Square

Church and Wagner College, Staten Island. In describing the investigative nature of the

work. Dance Magazine's Nancy Moore noted that Reitz conceived of the work as an

effort “to explore stylistic differences of three dancers working from a common spatial

and rhythmic framework in relation to music.” Moore went on to note that the aspect of

the work that most stood out in her mind was the dancers’ “distinctly individual, non­

verbal relationship with each other and the audience.”11

Throughout 1974 and 1975 Reitz continued to collaborate with filmmaker

David Gearey, and with videographer Phill Niblock, who was writing music in addition

to making films. In December of 1974, Reitz and Gearey presented the dance film

Footage (10 min. color/sound) at Phill Niblock’s studio on Center Street. Speaking of

the poetic quality of the film, Leonard Horowitz said it was “an unusual and beautiful

film of Dana Reitz’s feet. It’s a wonderful feeling to have feet discover themselves

running, gripping gravel, digging into mud and sand, in the snow, at the waters edge, in

the fog, the sunlight, caressing air, casting shadows.”12 On March 21, 1975, Reitz and

Gearey presented a program of four dance films, Footage, and three new films for which

Reitz choreographed three new solos, includingGrounded with music (Pipe 3) by Phill

" Nancy Moore, “Soundings,”Dance Magazine , May 1974. 26. 12 Leonard Horowitz, untitled article, Soho Weekly News, December 26, 1974.

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Niblock, Brass Bells to the sound of ankle bells, and The Price o f Sugar with music

(Canon in D) by Johann Pachelbel. Writing for Dance Magazine, Jennifer Dunning

wrote of the three small choreographic projects that “Reitz’s dances were cool and

minimal, hypnotically drawing in the attention as her flowing, pale clothes and often

consciously impassive, pale face seemed to draw in light. In Grounded , the fingers of her

outstretched arms scribbled in the air while her body swayed slightly in place.”

Describing Brass Bells, Dunning wrote that, while “wearing an anklet of bells of each

foot, she circled the room at different speeds...letting her changing body weight determine

the impetus of each circle.” Dunning liked best the final piece, The Price o f Sugar,

writing that it was “the fullest and most satisfying. [It] began with a gracious, stately

walk, the rising and falling on the balls of the feet reminiscent of the vertical patterns in

Baroque court dance. The walk turned into a run with sharp sustained changes of

direction and small tumbling leaps before it subsided once more, into spins in place. A

luminous little dance, it lingers in the memory.”13 Also in 1975, Reitz appeared in an

additional dance film by Gearey entitled Branches (6 1/2 min. color/sound).

The eight films— Airwaves, Grounded, 3 Locations, Footage, Brass Bells,

Once Again, Branches and The Price o f Sugar—were presented in a joint concert of film

and solo dance in various venues including the Experimental Intermedia Foundation;

York University in Toronto; Staten Island Community College; Rochester, New York;

and in January 1976 at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut. Nearly twenty years

13 Jennifer Dunning, “Head Over Heels,” Dance Magazine , July 1975, 32-33.

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later, Reitz remembered the qualities and purposes of these films, noting that they were

only temporarytools she had used to allow her access to deeper material: “They were

young films. They were small, they were poetic films, they were not narrative, just small

studies is what they were. And when you look at films, small studies, you can really see

yourself a little bit differently, and after that I dropped it. It was not something I wanted

to go into terribly deeply.”14

On June 28, 1975, Reitz arranged and co-produced Dances for Outdoor

Space with Nannette Sievert, and contributed two dances, Straw Hat Dance and

Collective, a group piece, to a program which was performed at Clove Lake Park, Staten

Island. Additionally, on December 19 and 20 at Staten Island Community College and at

Environ in Manhattan, Reitz participated in A Collaboration in Vocal Sound &

Movement, a major video collaboration with vocalist/composer Joan La Barbara and

filmmakers David Gearey and Phill Niblock for which Reitz choreographed a solo titled

Steps. Describing the original, tightly focused and repetitive nature of the piece for

Dance Magazine , Amanda Smith wrote that Steps “was based on precisely that—a series

of steps, almost slow motion prances, sometimes only a small articulation of the foot,

sometimes a march step. No matter what else Reitz did, she returned to the steps like

home base. When her dance flowed into other kinds of movement, it was controlled,

executed with ease, reminding me of T’ai Chi. Unaccompanied. Reitz created her own

rhythms; she seemed to be listening intently to her own body.”15

14 Dana Reitz, Interview with the author. February 20, 1994. 15 Amanda Smith, “Collaborations, Meanderings and Gratuitous Nudity,” Dance Magazine , March 1976, 22.

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Also in 1975, Reitz was an Artist-in Residence at elementary schools in

Rochester, NY; she began to study Anatomy for Dancers with Andre Bernard at New

York University; and taught Freedom to Dance workshops at the Newman Center, Staten

Island.

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“One of the things [Reitz] did when she appeared in Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach was to sit facing upstage and wag her hair from side to side: It sounds trivial, but it was spellbinding. You get the feeling you could watch her shelling peas or carrying luggage and it would be a movement experience of special moment.”

—Alan M. Kriegsman

In the fall of 1975, Reitz heard from Joan La Barbara, a friend and

member of Philip Glass’s ensemble, that Robert Wilson, “the enfant terrible of the New

York theatre avant garde,” was auditioning dancers for an opera that he was creating.16

Reitz attended the audition and found herself in the project, which was being created

from the ground up with the performers. The new performance required a lengthy time

commitment, with rigorous rehearsals that began in December. It was a challenge

working with someone of Robert Wilson’s reputation, which had been consolidated

internationally with his 1973 presentation of the twelve-hourThe Life and Times o f

Joseph Stalin , which New York Times cultural critic John Rockwell called “the apex of

Wilson’s first phase and a still-unequaled experience in my own life in the theater.”17

Wilson was already approaching legendary status, but Reitz seemed unfazed. It was

16 Otella Ayato, “The ‘Long’ Years Over, Dancer Seeks ‘Time to Think’,” Staten Island Advance , February 11, 1977. 17 John Rockwell, “Robert Wilson’s Stage Works: Originality and Influence,” Robert Wilson: The Theater o f Images. Second edition. NY: Harper and Row, 1984, 19.

12

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Wilson’s working methods and his improvisational freedoms that attracted her to the

project. When asked what prompted her to become involved in the piece, Reitz

responded that “it seemed like an interesting thing to do....I particularly loved the

beginning of rehearsals~it was almost all improvisation and I love the excitement of

improvising.”18

During the preparations forEinstein on the Beach , as it was later called.

Glass put together material, slightly rearranged, into a music program that stood as a

performance on its own. On March 19 and 20, 1976, The Kitchen presented Philip Glass

with Ensemble and Chorus. On May 25 and 26, in collaboration with Dickie Landry and

Andrew deGroat, there was a benefit concert entitled Music/Dance for the Tibet Center at

the Cathedral Church o f St. John the Divine/Synod House. Drawing from material from

Einstein on the Beach rehearsals, these performances served as a public proving ground

for the music and choreography that was to be eventually included in the final

presentation.

Rehearsals concluded in late June, and Reitz was scheduled to fly to Paris

to begin the European tour of the piece on July 4, 1976. Just two days before, her

apartment building in Staten Island was suddenly and unexpectedly condemned and all its

tenants were forced to leave. Within 48 hours, she had packed away everything she

owned, moved into storage the possessions of her lifetime, and said goodbye to neighbors

18 Otella Ayato, “The ‘Long’ Years Over, Dancer Seeks ‘Time to Think’,” Staten Island Advance , February 11, 1977.

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and friends. Somehow achieving the task, Reitz flew on to Paris as scheduled, even as

she knew that she had no “home” to come hack to.

The world premiere ofEinstein on the Beach on July 25-29 at the Festival

d’Avignon in Avignon, France met with immense popular and critical success. From

there it continued its successful European tour with subsequent performances on

September 13-17 in Venice; September 22 and 23 in Belgrade; September 28-30 in

Brussels; October 4-9, 11-13 at the Festival d’Automne in Paris; October 17 and 18 in

Hamburg; October 22 and 23 in Rotterdam, and October 26 in Amsterdam.19 The

immensity of its success in Europe created interest in the United States and Einstein was

added to the schedule of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City for one

performance on November 21. Apparently, demand was so great that soon thereafter a

second evening was added for the following Sunday, November 28.

The nature of Wilson’s work was such that each member of the cast would

have the versatility and opportunity to sing, act and dance. Reflecting on her role, on the

roles of the members of the project, and on the glories of touring Europe, Reitz described

the cast’s diversity and how, as members of Einstein on the Beach ,

we all danced and sang and acted in that piece. I think the gift of Einstein on the Beach is the fact that there were these huge opera stages all over the world that were grand and wonderful to run across. You know, to dance and to be. to feel that kind of space is magnificent. I think that that was a true gift—to have that experience of working with other people in these venues, so many of which have incredible historical significance. The Einstein on the Beach tour was great and it allowed me to dance full out and to perform full out and sense what that is. It was just a great, great playing field.20

19 Tour Schedule for Einstein on the Beach, 1976. [European Tour]. Collection of Dana Reitz. 20 Dana Reitz, Interview with the author. February 20, 1994.

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While the credited choreographer for Einstein nn the Beach was Andrew

deGroat, Reitz had actually created additional material for her various roles, which

consisted of “dancer on perpendiculars, first train, woman reading book, prisoner,

dancer, singer.”21 Reitz was given no choreographic credit in the European printed

program, but finally at the Met an insert was made in the program acknowledging her

contribution. When asked almost twenty years later about Wilson’s initial failure to

credit her choreography, Reitz was able to be philosophical about the lapse:

I think that now I wouldn’t have pushed for that so hard because I understand what it is to direct a huge production and that everyone is part of the making of it....I was adamant at that age, wanting to get the credit for my part in it because I felt very left out and there were others who did the same thing. However, now when I look back I say, “Well, it’s just part of the whole and that’s how he makes work.”...If [Wilson] had just said “made in cooperation with” or “in conjunction with the performers,” it would have been, across-the-board, a helpful thing to do.22

In speaking of the rehearsals, touring, different countries and hotels,

unfamiliar foods, the intensity and loudness of the music, the five-hour performances, and

the recuperation that took place afterward, Reitz pronounced theEinstein experience “a

marathon.”23 Although she insists that the actual dancing was never difficult and that the

piece itself was stimulating, it was “stimulation” of an unusual and challenging sort. For

21 Stagebill for Einstein on the Beach at Lincoln Center, November 1976, vol. IV, no. 3. Collection of Dana Reitz. 22 Dana Reitz, Interview with the author. February 20, 1994. 22 Jackie Faman, “They Have a Ballet ‘Star’ in the Family,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, December 12, 1976.

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example, in one scene, Reitz was required to read a book while “wagging” her head and

hair from side to side as she crossed along the hack of the stage over a forty-minute

interval.

Returning to the United States for the Met run not only meant two more

performances of the five-hour opera-drama but it also meant that Reitz needed to find a

place to live. After searching briefly, she found a spacious loft in SoHo, at the center of

the avant-garde dance world. The freedom and flexibility Reitz discovered and the

critical acclaim and financial security that the Einstein on the Beach tour provided

allowed her a brief respite to recuperate, to think, and to experiment. During her time off

she began working with her own movement. In a reflective moment. Reitz captured the

significance of working with Robert Wilson inEinstein on the Beach and how the work

launched her career in saying that “my entrance into the field was after Einstein , around

1976—in terms of being taken more seriously.”24 The world of Robert Wilson also

introduced Reitz to artists including lighting designer Beverly Emmons and composer

Hans Peter Kuhn with whom she would work in the future on her own large-scale

collaborations.

24 Dana Reitz, Interview with the author. February 20, 1994.

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During the six months following the closing ofEinstein on the Beach ,

Reitz entered a period of artistic growth as she explored various media. In March 1977

she performed as a singer (alto) at the Kitchen in a Concert o f Music directed by

composer/musician Pierre Ruiz. She also collaborated with Ruiz and filmmaker David

Gearey on a solo entitledDesert. The collaborative work, featuring dance, music and a

short film by Gearey, was shot at Sculpture Space. The completed piece was performed

at the Kirkland Art Center in April 1977, and at Danspace, St. Marks Church in June

1977.

During the same six months, Reitz created her first major solo,Journey:

Moves I through 7. The piece was a breakthrough for Reitz, her first piece based on

improvisation, and her first use of drawing as a choreographic tool. Performed in mid-

May 1977 at Real Arts Ways in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 25-27 at the Cunningham

studio, and on June 14 with Desert and Footage at Danspace, St. Marks Church,

Journey: Moves 1 through 7 had accompanying sketches that Reitz used “to create and

clarify the evolving dance structure.*’2^ Of the four sketches, one is stark and angular, the

middle two are swirling and free-flowing with intermittent accents of percussive, staccato

lines, and the last is an amalgam of the other three. All were reproduced and copied to

serve as the printed program for the concert of work, which included a brief text by Reitz

explaining the sketches. [Figure 1-4].

25 Dana Reitz Dancing [program]. Dana Reitz, May 1977. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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Capturing the interrelationship of the sketches with Reitz’s choreographic

structures. Stephanie Woodward wrote ofJourney: Moves I through 7: “As Reitz travels

down Journey's zig-zag path, developing each of her seven basic movements in turn, it is

clear that she is making not the look, but the feeling of one movement grow into that of

another. I found the boundaries between movements, the way in which she changed from

zig to zag, most exciting.”26 In defining the relationship between her style of

improvisation and composition and how or when that leads to choreography, Reitz said,

“Everything is set except the actual steps it takes to get there. The only trick is

performing the piece.” John Howell described how the dance “unfolds along seven paths:

these carry her back and forth across the performance space in continuous motion.

Movement grows from simple to complex patterns via theme and variation, governed by

the different tone of each ‘line’.”27 [Figure 5].

On July 17, 1977, John Rockwell included a discussion of Reitz’s work in

writing for the New York Times about the phenomenon of “blank art.” He described

blank art as a “radical reduction of the traditionally elaborate, rhetorical gestures of art. It

stretches time and empties space, forcing the observer to lose himself in the meditative

contemplation of subtly simple shapes, sounds, actions or concepts.” Rockwell identified

Reitz as an exemplar of this style in choreography. He recognized that Reitz’s aesthetic

basis included exceptionally clear Asian influences. He felt she drew from T'ai Chi

26 Stephanie Woodward, “Made in the USA,” Soho Weekly News, June 2, 1977. 27 John Howell, “No To Homogenized Dancing,”Performing Arts Journal, vol. 2, no. 2 (Fall 1977), 9.

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Ch’uan the “sinuous posings” of the martial art.28 Rockwell’s observation picked up on

the concept of line in Reitz’s work which would soon extend as Reitz began to use

sketches as a framework for her choreography and as the influence of brush and ink

began to infiltrate her work in the years to come.

Continuing the burst of creative energy, on October 17, 18, 24 and 25,

Reitz was ready to present Duet for Solo as part of a showcase at the Ambrose Arts

Foundation entitled 5 Solo Works. Writing for Dance Magazine , Amanda Smith singled

out Reitz as a disciplined and engaging performer as well as a brainy and intuitive

choreographer:

By far the most substantial piece of choreography and the most demanding, controlled performance came from Reitz in her brief but delightful Duet for Solo. First Reitz worked toward the audience in a straight pathway down one side of the stage, emphasizing the linear quality of her arms, legs and back. Then she went to the other side of the space and progressed toward us again, this time doing curvy movements, spirals, and pivots. Finally, stepping from side to side, she performed what amounted to a dialogue between the two types of movement, reminiscent of, but not quite the same as, the classic mime dialogue between two characters. It was pithy and witty and wonderful.29

On November 18, 19, 25 and 26, Reitz performed an expanded version of

Duet fo r Solo at the Franklin St. Arts Center. The performances were videotaped and

aired on cable television on November 23 and 30. Even during these early years as a

choreographer, Reitz was intensely interested in the purity of the image of the work she

conveyed to audiences and she worked diligently to protect herself and maintain the

28 John Rockwell, “Today’s Blank Art Explores the Space Behind the Obvious," New York Times. July 17, 1977. 29 Amanda Smith, “Seven Evenings," Dance Magazine , January 1978, 34-37, 78-82.

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artistic integrity of her works. A contract she typed herself stipulated that the rights of

preparation of tapes, reproduction, distribution, editing and copyright instructions would

carry a credit specifically stating that Duet fo r Solo was choreographed, performed and

directed by Reitz, calling for her to “have final approval over all aspects of the

production.”30

Simultaneously, Franklin Furnace presented an exhibition, “Working

Notebooks,” which included photographs, journals, writings, reflections and

documentation of theatre, dance and music works. The list of avant-garde exhibitors

included Lucinda Childs, Andrew deGroat, Simone Forti, Philip Glass, Spalding Gray,

Sheryl Sutton, Ann Wilson, Robert Wilson and David Woodberry. Represented by her

choreographic drawings fromJourney: Moves I Through 7, Reitz’s inclusion in this

pantheon was an indication that she was explicitly regarded as among the most important

of the young artistic voices in experimental theatrical work.

Additionally in 1977, she collaborated with choreographer Wendy Perron

on 4-Way Daily Mirror and founded Clear Cases In Improvisation , an improvisational

teaching workshop series which she would utilize as artist-in-residence throughout the

United States and Europe for the next eight years. Also in 1977, on a program which ran

from June 3-5, Reitz revisited her success of the previous year, performing with deGroat

at Pace University/Schimmel Center for the Arts in Selections From Einstein on the

Beach.

30 Dana Reitz, contract forDuet for Solo, n.d. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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In 1978 Reitz found another occasion for continuing and advancing the

exploration of her personal artistic growth, by performing a speaking role as Virginia

W oolf in Ann Wilson’sButler’s Lives o f the Saints. Reitz was enthusiastic about the

challenge, writing excitedly to a friend: “I actually spoke words in a theatrical production

in January—words from the writings of Virginia Woolf. It was very fascinating to prod

into the unknown or underknown territory of words (for me).”31 The production was

presented in mid-January at 88 Pine Street, to less-than-enthusiastic reviews. Reitz,

however, was singled out. Robert Pierce of theSoHo News called Reitz an exception in a

cast that “delivered their lines like amateurs.”32 Deborah Jowitt wrote that Reitz

delivered the words of Virginia Woolf “from a deep and thoughtful center.”33 This

theatrical venture was Reitz’s last non-dance experiment. From here on she devoted her

energies exclusively to choreographic experimentation.

31 Dana Reitz, letter, [n.d.]. Collection of Dana Reitz. j2 Robert Pierce, “An Amateur Pageant,” SoHo News. January 1978. 33 Deborah Jowitt, “Everyone Worked So Hard,” Village Voice , January 30,1978.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER THREE-COLLECTING PHRASES

“What I look for is the rhythmic pulse, the heartbeat of the phrase. Then I find out what it is about the phrase that intrigues me. Is it the fact that I go up and down? Both?...Blueprints in action, that’s what I’m about—rhythms, textures, dynamics, energies, designs.”

—Dana Reitz

While she prepared for Butler's Lives of the Saints , Reitz was also re­

shaping and molding her next piece of choreography. Distilled from the solo workDuets

fo r Solo from the previous year,Journey fo r Two Sides: A Solo Dance Duet with video

for two monitors was presented at the Kitchen on March 23-25, 1978. This piece had as

its genesis three choreographic sketches. One was flowing and graceful in nature; one

sharp, abbreviated, staccato; and the last, seemingly a blend of the two, not merely as a

combination of both styles of sketching, but almost as if one sketch had been overlaid on

top of the other, creating a result with an amalgamated style. [Figure 6-8]. In a press

release for her performance at the Kitchen, Reitz described Journey for Two Sides: A Solo

Dance Duet in this way:

A solo piece that is performed as two characters, one manifesting the logical, and the other, the intuitive side of the self. It is a dialogue in movement in which each character develops its own patterns (linear-curved, mathematical- unpredictable) yet influences and is influenced by the activity of the other. Each character has its own platform, the logical one on the performer’s right, the intuitive on the left, with a gap between the two sides. The task was to

27

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FIGURE 6

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continually move the characters forward (starting each statement from the back- [in] many waves) and begin to pick up differing movement ideas, across the gap, yet retain the character’s individual traits. The duet was also performed for video on a two monitor (duo) setup where the rhythms were matched, as well as facings, but the manners of movement were different. This video consists of five sections, the first, of the feet—to the fifth section (the torso). This was to show the simultaneous input of the two “sides” in the development of a phrase.34

In explaining how the piece had multimedia complexity and at the same time gave the

viewer a clear look into an age-old issue, Amanda Smith writing for the Village Voice

said that the work was “a dialogue between two aspects of the self, an exploration of the

classic dichotomy between the logical and the intuitive, the intellect and the emotions,

rendered abstractly in modem dance terms.”35 For Jean Nuchtem, the most notable

section of the work came after Reitz had established the side A and side B characters of

the piece and “instead of stepping off one platform and onto the other, Reitz jumps across

these metaphoric lakes. [Figure 9-10]. She no longer needs to uphold the contemptuous

tension ‘order’ feels for ‘chaos’ (and vice versa), and no longer needs to define each side,

but freely jumping from one to the other platform, Reitz now begins to integrate her two

sides. She abandons the opposing tensions; explores each side for its own worth.”36 The

use of videotape indicates that Reitz was still interested in employing art forms other than

her own in her projects. However, she was also cultivating and nurturing the seeds of her

growing, individual, and newly discovered choreographic style. Commenting again on

the improvisational qualities of her work, Reitz said: “What’s choreographed is the form,

34 Dana Reitz, “Description and/or artists’ statement about the work for the catalogue entry.” Haleakala, Inc. March 1978. 35 Amanda Smith, “Two-Faced Woman,” Village Voice. May 15, 1978, 84. 36 Jean Nuchtem, “Reitz: Journey for Two Sides,” Soho Weekly News, March 30, 1978.

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FIGURE 9

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the space, the aura, the time, the rhythm, where it’s going. But the movement, the actual

steps, are not. I like finding ways of working that are not performed.” Acknowledging

that both side A and side B simultaneously exist, Reitz went on to say that “they both

help each other develop, but they don’t become the same thing.”37

Reitz also performedJourney for Two Sides: A Solo Dance Duet at

Colgate Rochester Divinity School with a follow-up discussion. In an article Pastoralin

Psychology, Reitz addressed how the two sides were really not that different from each

other: “It was a difference in manner and approach. It wasn’t that I was completely

different persons; it was just that I was using a different approach. Starting different

places and being able to share information (between the two sides because of the duet

aspect of the solos), I could come up with something to work on.”

During the summer of 1978, Reitz worked on her next major project.

Phrase Collection, versions 2-5. In addition, she performed with Elaine Summers Dance

and Film Company on May 25, 27 and 28 at the Riverside Dance Festival, dancing in two

solo works choreographed by Summers,Birch Forest and Confrontation. Reitz was also

involved in the Poetry Project at St. Marks Church and, on May 24 she and other avant-

garde artists, including John Ashberry, Rudy Burckhardt, Allen Ginsberg, Kenneth King,

Taylor Mead and Larry Rivers, participated in a benefit reading. Again, Reitz’s inclusion

in this project was an indication that she was regarded as among the most important of

the young artistic voices in experimental theatrical work.

37 Dana Reitz, quoted in Amanda Smith, “Two-Faced Woman,” Village Voice, May 15, 1978, 84. j8 Dana Reitz, quoted in James Ashbrook. “Half Brains and Split-Minds,” Pastoral Psychology, vol. 34(1), Fall 1985, 10.

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Also for the Poetry Project, Reitz introduced and performed the solo

Phrase. The collection of dances that were created fromPhrase were performed at

separate showings and sometimes by different people. Each new performance created

another variation ofPhrase until eventually there were eleven versions and a European

edition. Explaining how the work was structured around a central, common core phrase,

Reitz’s program note offered this description: “These phrases are what I call ‘core’ or

‘home’ phrases, the main material that does not specify step or body shape but rather the

line of intent, the direction of energy, the rhythmic base, the spatial coordinates, the

blueprint of action, the calligraphy of the movement.”39 In a retrospective for theVillage

Voice in 1980, Jowitt also notedPhrase Collection's use of choreographic drawings and a

central, common phrase in which other movement was created saying, “In the program

for her Phrase Collection were printed 10 [sic] simple, fluid drawings-a calligraphy that

mapped out the energy flow for each of 10 phrases. On these, and within limits and a

•40 structure defined by Reitz, the dancers improvised.’ [Figure 11-12].

Also describing how Reitz used her initial idea to build other dances,

Nuchtem wrote that it “grew out of a solo that was a compilation of small, connected

phrases. Performing the work, Reitz realized the small phrases hinted at larger ones so

she went back to the studio to develop those hints.” Marcia Siegel writing for theSoho

Weekly News, suggested that some of her notes “had an odd resemblance to the squiggly

drawings she’s used in the past.”41 Allen Robertson described how, in version 9, simple

39 Stephanie Woodard, “Inside Out,” Soho Weekly News. November 9, 1978. 40 Deborah Jowitt, “Best Feet Forward,” Village Voice, March 10, 1980, 35. 41 Marcia Siegel, “Creative Doodling,” Soho Weekly News, May 10, 1979, 66.

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phrases were utilized by the performers to string together a dance: “The phrases are

stated, expanded, developed, tossed away and returned to, i.e., collected. The

movements, concentrating on elegantly simplistic arm gestures that seem to be based on

abstracted everyday movements, grow and enlarge into phrases.” Capturing her

concentration and inner focus, Robertson pointed out that Reitz “has the inward focus of

a child totally concentrating on what she's doing.”42

The first manifestation of a reworkedPhrase was the soloPhrase

Collection 1st Version which was performed by Reitz on August 22, 1978 at the Cooper-

Hewitt Museum. The second through fifth renditions were the triosPhrase Collection,

versions 2-5 that Reitz danced with Jane Comfort and Deborah Gladstein. Each version

was performed on a different night at Dance Theater Workshop starting withversion 2 on

October 10, version 3 on October 17, version 4 on October 24, and version 5 on October

31. Describing Phrase Collection, versions 2-5 , Susan Reiter called it “a fairly brief yet

rich and fascinating work...built around nine ‘core’ phrases which serve as a blueprint for

the finished performance.” 43 Pointing out that the piece used mostly the dancers' upper

limbs, Jowitt wrote, “It’s a dance of arms, the way some dances are leg dances. The

women do shift their weight, walk, turn their heads, let the movement ripple or twist

through the center of their bodies, but their arms and hands are always busy with small,

fluent tasks. Sometimes you can fancy the three as sorters in some cosmic factory—their A 4 attention tranquilly focused on the job their hands are doing.’ Impressed by the focus

4~ Allen Robertson, “Reitz-On/Pan-Off,” Minnesota Daily, August 3, 1979. 43 Susan Reiter, “Conn Tribute/Brief Reitz,” Other Stages, October 19, 1978, 6. 44 Deborah Jowitt, “Dana Reitz,” Village Voice, October 30, 1978, 105.

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and commitment to artistic vision that she had been following throughout Reitz’s career,

Jowitt said ofPhrase Collection, versions 2-5 : “These days, when there’s so much

showy, melodramatic, ill-considered dancing to be seen, I’m thankful for someone who

works with carefully chosen and limited material-exploring so sensitively, so thoroughly

that when she’s done, you can scarcely believe how much rich movement such a simple

and restricted premise can yield.”45

Continuing to steadily explore these phrase possibilities, on June 19, 1979

the trio Phrase Collection, version 6 was performed, again by Reitz, Comfort and

Gladstein, at the Sweet 14 Festival in Union Square Park. On July 13 the solo Phrase

Collection, version 7 was presented at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and on July

22, 27 and 29 respectively Phrase Collection, versions 8-10 were performed by Reitz and

fifteen local dancers at Lake Nokomis, the Minneapolis Zoological Gardens and

Powderhom Park. Reitz spent eight weeks in the Minneapolis and metropolitan region

performing, teaching and presenting workshops for the community. Impressed by the

“look” of Reitz’s work, Allen Robertson compared it to the original modem dance icons,

saying that, “she’s a natural. If Dana Reitz had been around at the turn of the century she

would have been skipping through the grass in flowing chiffon, impersonating nymphs.”

Robertson continued his analogy: “There’s a fluid, easy graciousness to her movement

that is smoothly unemphatic and sweetly reminiscent of the barefoot dancers of

yesteryear. Not that her choreography looks anything like theirs—it certainly doesn’t; but

45 Deborah Jowitt, “Dana Reitz,” Village Voice, October 30, 1978, 105.

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her approach to performance—the how and why (if not the what) of her dancing—has the

same unstrained and beguiling ingenuousness as those earlymodem dancers.”

Describing the Minnesota versions, Robertson focused on the process of the

choreography: “For those who find pleasure in watching someone seriously take on

serious questions, Reitz is a real treat. Her work deals with the process of dancing; she

explores what dance is, where it comes from and what it can mean. Reitz’s work is a

long way from being ‘entertainment.’ It isn’t conventionally exciting. There is no music,

no glamour; but at the same time she isn’t dour and heavy duty either.”46

However, not all the local critics could grasp Reitz’s individualized and

unique approach to choreography through improvisation. What Reitz was attempting

upset traditional notions of choreography and virtuosity. It was experimental in the way

that John Cage’s work was experimental—so radical that many commentators

misunderstood the premise and were upset by its subversion of tradition. Confused by

her style and disappointed that she “never demonstrated any sense that she was

performing for an audience,” Midg Docken called Reitz “interminably boring” as a

choreographer and wrote that the work was “sadly Iacking...strength, clarity of purpose,

fluidity of movement and choreographic design.”47 It was a criticism that Robertson had

anticipated and he answered in writing that Reitz’s choice of performance style and

choreography was “very effective, clear and so utterly simple that it would be easy to

46 Allen Robertson, “Reitz-On/Pan-Off,” Minnesota Daily , August 3, 1979. 47 Midg Docken, “Choreographer Lacks Balance, Clarity,”St. Paul Pioneer Press , July 15, 1979.

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mistake what she’s doing as simple-minded--the same problem that the earliest modem

dancers experienced.” 48

Returning to New York, Reitz presented the quartet Phrase Collection,

version 11 danced by herself, Comfort, Gladstein and Robin Hertlein on August 28 at the

Cooper-Hewitt Museum Garden. Speaking of the audience’s role inPhrase Collection,

version I I , Noel Carroll’s remarks could easily be superimposed over the entire Phrase

Collection series. He points out that the type of dancing found in the work “is what

critics often label ‘brainy’ or ‘intellectual.’ The reason is not simply because the subject

matter is abstract but also because the subtle play of comparison and contrast assigns the

spectator to a demanding role, akin to a scientific observer searching for categories with

which to perceive and to describe unfamiliar phenomena.”49

Through November and December, Reitz toured Europe, performing the

soloPhrase Collection, European Edition. The tour consisted of four venues: Salle

Simon I. Patino in Geneva, Switzerland; Chapelle de la Sorbonne at the Festival

d’Automne, Paris; Kunsthalle Basel in Basel, Switzerland; and Stadsschouwburg at the

Festival Modeme Dans in Utrecht, Holland. Reitz also performed Steps for the Geneva,

Basel and Utrecht programs. European critics remembered Reitz from Einstein on the

Beach, and she was able to consolidate a following there which would grow throughout

the 1980s and provide her a sympathetic hearing for her large-scale projects. Remarking

on her last appearance at the Festival d’Automne in Paris, Marcelle Michel wrote that

48 Allen Robertson, “Reitz-On/Pan-Off," Minnesota Daily , August 3. 1979. 49 Noel Carroll, “Space Odyssey,” Soho Weekly News, September 6, 1979.

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“one remembers her imperturbable advances and retreats in Einstein on the Beach."

Michel went on to describe Phrase Collection, questioning whether what Reitz did

onstage could be called “dancing”: “Should one say Dana Reitz dances? She moves

rather, but she moves well. It’s a sequel of phrases more or less long intercut by pauses.

The attack is brutal; the gesture bounds and hits the space like a whip. During the pause

the dancer concentrates, reassembles the spirit and starts again in the manner of a

Japanese calligrapher putting his energy into a single brushstroke.”30 Describing Reitz’s

dancing as magical, Peter Burri writing for the Basler Zeitung in Switzerland remarked

that “Dana Reitz is capable of something very special...she stands in this space [and]

gradually develops a whole web of invisible vocabulary...A totally unique, very personal

and highly developed kind of dance...This woman is a magician.”31 Speaking of the

highly unique and minimal nature of Reitz’s work and its consequent accessibility, E.N.

writing forLa Suisse in Switzerland commented that “if the conception of such a display

is rather abstract, it pleases through its originality, and the invention never separates itself

from sensibility which gives it a human dimension.”32 As was true for so many avant-

garde American artists, the success of Reitz’s European tour created a following for her

work, providing a sympathetic audience and critical response when she was unable to

find the same in the United States.

Jowitt summarized the entire Phrase Collection series, describing it in

ways that suggest it as a paradigm for the core concern of Reitz’s entire choreographic

50 Marcelle Michel, “Dana Reitz and Deborah Hay,” Le Monde, November 25-26. 1979. 51 Peter Burri, “Great Dancer: Dana Reitz,” Basler Zeitung, November 27, 1979. 52 E.N., “A la salle Patino Dana Reitz danse,” La Suisse, November 18, 1979.

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career: “The scale was small~not a lot of dashing through space—with many quiet

looping hand gestures close to the body. But in this engrossing, subtly rich dance, Reitz

certainly achieved one of the things she’s after—dancing that is created during

performance, that is personal and spontaneous, yet has the firmness of choreography.”33

Additionally in 1978, Reitz performed in Pilot 5, a collaboration with

choreographers Kenneth King, Nancy Lewis and David Woodberry on September 5 at the

Cooper-Hewitt Museum and on October 2-3 at Art Resources in Collaboration.Pilot 5

was “a culmination (continuation) of the choreographic-video-performance process the

group has been working on over the past year for the purpose of exchanging and

developing movement resources.”54 She also appeared in a section of the film The Erotic

Signal by long-time collaborator David Gearey for Walter Gutman, and danced in Get

Wreck by Andrew deGroat, the choreographer with whom she had worked on Einstein on

the Beach. During the next year, 1979, Reitz appeared in a section of the Rudy

Burckhardt film Mobile Homes. (Widely respected as a seminal avant-garde filmmaker,

Burckhardt was an artistic compatriot of John Cage and Merce Cunningham.)

Progressing into a very busy creative phase of her career, Reitz began

work onBetween Two, a collaboration with violinist Malcolm Goldstein, which was

performed on April 27 and 28, 1979 at Washington Square Church. Reitz danced the

piece solo but used Goldstein’s music as a partner to guide her, as her movement was

reciprocally used to guide him. Marcia Siegel thought that Goldstein and Reitz were

53 Deborah Jowitt, “Best Feet Forward,” Village Voice , March 10, 1980, 35. 54 Press release for Pilot 5 , n.d.. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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equally virtuosic: “Goldstein’s dynamics and his dexterity are a stunning match for Reitz.

He can make a bow skitter and whang across the strings while producing the tiniest

sounds imaginable. His music too has suggestions of character—his violin can break into

wild, sobbing tantrums, puppy yips, wails and wheezes, and can slide like a Japanese

flute, play duets with itself in quarter-tones, and thump precussively.”35

Siegel described the artists’ interdependence as complete, noting that Reitz

“shares that space with violinist Malcolm Goldstein. Their ideas mingle, overlap, work

off each other. What Goldstein suggests aurally she translates into movement, and the

result is so kinetic that my hand draws it quicker than my mind can think up words.” Burt

Supree also drew on images of drawing and line vividly describing how Reitz “separates

and fans her fingers with the curling motion of a sea anemone, lets the curve flow into her

hands, scribbles arcs with her forearm, extends the movement through the whole arm as

the impulse mounts her.” Supree continued to employ animal analogies, writing that

“often, her abbreviated gestures suggest fleeting images of animals and birds: preening,

startled, curious. But the complexity and variety of her movement combinations would

require a whole zoo.” Supree was captivated by the mystery and inner focus of Reitz’s

work:

She leaps up with the kind of shivery movement that shakes off the past and helps you to reorient yourself. She looks displeased with something. Maybe I’m imagining this. She touches the floor with her hand, and jumps. She looks dangerous. She makes a move, pulling her mouth in. Maybe her mouth is dry....She rolls her shoulders with the suggestion of dispelling a slight ache or simply enjoying the sensation. Nothing is arbitrary; every movement, no matter

55 Marcia Siegel, “Creative Doodling,” Soho Weekly News, May 10, 1979, 66.

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how often repeated, is particuIar....She reminds me of Katy Litz by the way she puts so many complex articulations together, by the way she seems able to juggle independent and simultaneous rhythms.56

Both Journey for Two Sides and Phrase Collection consolidated Reitz’s

movement style, providing her with the material she would need for the next phase of her

choreographic development. With her next works, she would concentrate on the creation

of a variety of adaptable scores.

56 Burt Supree, “Inquiring Hands, Inquisitive Feet,” Village Voice , May 14, 1979, 78.

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“I felt that if I trusted myself, I would get somewhere."

-Dana Reitz

On March 20-23, 1980, Reitz presented Four Scores fo r Trio with

Gladstein and Hertlein at Dance Theater Workshop in New York. The piece was divided

into four sections—each section had its own written description as well as choreographic

drawing. In an article about how “twentieth-century American dance has been

remarkable for the number of gifted dancer-choreographers” who dared to turn their

backs on convention, Jowitt described Reitz’s usage of choreographic drawings and

spoke with the choreographer about the breakthrough they represented as catalyst for her

work:

Drawing is Reitz’s accomplice. ‘When I did Journey, Moves 1-7, three years ago, I was biting my nails a lot, and I couldn’t figure out how to define all this stuff I was doing in the studio. So I started trying to visualize what I was doing from the outside.’ And she realized how confined she felt, afraid to blast out, censoring her every move. Sitting at her kitchen table, Reitz scribbled harsh zigzags on a piece of paper, recreating that moment when her pencil began to dash off into long, increasingly confident loops. All at once, she had the beginnings of a method, a tool that could allow her to focus on impetus, flow, rhythm, rather than worrying about steps. Her hand could encompass subtle changes and shadings with each repetition of a pattern. One day she’d start in the studio, the next day by drawing.57

57 Deborah Jowitt, “Best Feet Forward,” Village Voice , March 10, 1980. 46

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The choreographic premise forFour Scores fo r Trio was simply improvisational theme

and variation based around the four scores: Easy Time, Forced Time, Time Alone and

Time Resolved. [Figure 13-17], Writing about the work in a press release, Reitz

described her work in language to which she would return for the next decade, suggesting

that she had found the heart of the choreographic interests that would occupy her mature

work: “In her work, Dana Reitz creates core movement phrases from which she evolves

unlimited variations. This continual transformation of her core choreography produces a

kind of kinetic calligraphy, revealing the movements’ own musicality. Four Scores for

Trio...is an intricately» • crafted work which utilizes this unique choreographic style.” s f f

Remarking on Reitz’s ability to invent rich works from limited material. Jack Anderson

said that “out of a few phrases, she made two impressive dances.”39 In his description of

the four sections of the piece, Michael Robertson explained that

we see all the basic elements of the dance in the first of the scores: the straight floor patterns the three women...walk through, their weight kept low, an almost jazzy insouciance in the free-swinging torso and arms. Most of the movements in unison...In the second score the women begin improvising and things get speeded up...while in the third section each of the women has a slow-paced solo exploring bits of movement. The last section incorporates elements of all the others.60

Commenting on the idea of theme and variation, Jowitt notes that “even

when each woman is improvising alone, the changes she rings on the basic ‘score’ are

extremely subtle-less like variations and more like carefully controlled discrepancies in

58 Press release. Dance Theater Workshop, February 27, 1980. Collection of Dana Reitz. 59 Jack Anderson, “Dance: ‘Four Scores’ by Dana Reitz,” New York Times, March 23, 1980. 50 Michael Robertson, “Dance Review VII,” Dance Magazine , August 1980, 73.

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with Deborah Gladstein (red) Robin Hertlein (green) Dana Reitz (brown)

the first score: a choreographed "song" to be performed and repeated, gradually opening up movement possibility, in Easy Time

the second score: the first score is divided into sections, and decision-making in performance is pressured with increasing speed, volume, space, force, in Force Time

the third score: each person takes needed time to approach, inspect, ponder fi develop smaller fragments of the song, in Time Alone

the fourth score: the first score is replayed & opened with new information found during the second and third; combinations, movements, rhythms, moments, intensities, relationships are changed, in Time Resolved

The choreographic drawings follow the transformation of a single movement phrase through all four scores. My thanks to Deborah & Robin for essential help in the development of this piece.

Intermission

FIGURE 13

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performance attitude. Finally they all dance their way through the whole thing together

again, each adding some of the discoveries she made while dancing alone.”61 Remarking

also on the idea of theme and variation, Nancy Goldner writing forSoho News noted that

the work “progresses not only by theme and variations but also by gradual intensification

of movement.”62 Recognizing that Reitz was using her former choreographic projects to

continually feed into her concerns, Molissa Fenley writing forIn-Step captured how the

essence and spirit of Journey fo r Two Sides: A Solo Dance Duet was present in Four

Scores fo r Trio. Fenley noted how Reitz described process “as listening to both sides of

the brain--the analytical and structured side versus the intuitive and spontaneous side. It

is this listening while in front of an audience that holds the key to developing an alert and

sensitive improvisational dancer.”63

On June 5 and 6 1980, Reitz performed Working Solo at Danspace, St.

Mark’s Church. Working Solo had at its core the same premise as Four Scores for Trio—

one short, clear phrase introduced in the beginning of the work that initiates the rest of the

movement in the dance. Describing how Reitz introduced her core phrase during this

work, Robert Pierce explains how Reitz

paws the ground ferociously and then rides this initial impulse. letting the energy flow out in her dancing—sustaining it unnaturally for a moment or two—and then letting it dissipate....this phrase is repeated several times, with the movement gradually altered. By the time Reitz temporarily abandons this idea (she returns to it later), a different movement progression has become the core around which more and more material is added and developed. During the dance some ideas remain more or less immutable. The transformation of energy to stillness is a

61 Deborah Jowitt, ‘"Dance: Dana Reitz,” Village Voice , April 14, 1980, 73. 62 Nancy Goldner. “Whose Couch Is It?,” Soho News, March 26, 1980, 73. 63 Dana Reitz, quoted in Molissa Fenley, “Dana Reitz,” In-Step, April 1980, 10.

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constant. When Reitz becomes still, you know she’s going to begin the sequence again and that some of it will be the same while most of it will have been 64 transformed.

Working Solo was the germinal work on which Reitz was basing the choreographic idea

for her next group project. FromWorking Solo, Reitz developed First Course fo r Trio,

which was eventually renamed Single Score for her upcoming tour of Europe.

Capitalizing on the initial success of her work in Europe, on June 18 she performed

Working Solo—Single Score at Salle Simon I. Patino in Geneva, Switzerland, and on June

25, at Kunstmuseum Bern in Bern, Switzerland. Working Solo was a dance-in-process,

designed to allow Reitz to perform while continuing the research and development of her

choreography.

Once she returned to the United States, Reitz presented the trio Double

Score, which was a continuation of theWorking Solo material with Gladstein and

Hertlein, on August 10 for the Creative Time Project. In describing the piece, Jennifer

Dunning pointed out the immensity of the sand dune at the Battery Park City Landfill

where the dance was performed when she explained how “this dance began and ended

with solo passages....Standing nearly still, each dancer worked her way through

sequences of soft-edged semaphoric gestures of the arms.” She went on to describe how

the dancers advanced and retreated across the dune either in unison or staggered with

jumps and leaps.65

64 Robert J. Pierce, “Signposts Mark the Way,” Soho News, June 11, 1980, 45. 65 Jennifer Dunning, “Dance: Dana Reitz’s ‘Double Scores’,” New York Times, August 12, 1980.

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In 1981, Reitz began re-visiting Steps, choreographing new versions of the

work that delved more deeply into the subject matter. Esther Sutter described Steps II as

“a further development or, as [Reitz] herself says, a spatial analysis of her 1979 Steps."

Sutter saw Steps II as a. link to other artistic minimalists who devised structures that

aimed at the investigation of thought and feeling. She pointed out that Reitz was

extremely in tune with both her intuitive side and her conceptual side during performance

and this gave her an “artistic kinship to Philip Glass.” It is this quality alone, Sutter

conjectured, that “makes her dance a visually designed music, perceived through the

eyes.

Describing the performance ofSteps and Single Score on March 13 and 14

at the Washington Project for the Arts, Alan M. Kriegsman remarked that Reitz was “a

performer of inescapable charisma,” whose gift to her audience “is a stream of

movement consciousness. It looks improvised, but it’s so meticulous in shape and

dynamics it could be entirely prefabricated.”67 Don Zuckerman “was struck with the

feeling that I was in the presence of a master at work.” About April and May

performances at the Performing Garage, Suzan Moss called Reitz “undoubtedly an artist

with courage and originality.”69 Writing for Dance Magazine, Linda Small said that

Reitz “excels in making the observer’s mind accept and absorb contradictions.”70

Robertson pointed out in his review that “she looks like whatever you want her to be, I

66 Esther Sutter, “Der Tanz der Spinnenfrau,” Basler Zeitung, December 2, 1981. 67 Alan M. Kriegsman, “Dana Reitz at the WPA,” Washington Post, March 14, 1981. 68 Don Zuckerman, “Dana Reitz,” Unicorn Times, April 1981. 69 Suzan Moss, “Dana Reitz,” In-Step, May 1981, 10. 70 Linda Small, “Reviews: Dana Reitz,” Dance Magazine, September 1981, 90.

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think, because she’s just doing steps and leaving the next move—that of interpretation~up

to us.”71 Capturing the quality of Reitz’s movement, John Howell wrote that “she

worked in a distinctively Reitzian style of upright torso, stepping back and forth, hand

and arm gestures, and subtle rhythmic shifts in weight. Her flow of new variations was

so unbroken, even, and fluid that the drama of moment-to-moment decision-making was

almost lost. It’s a cool calligraphic choreography in which many hours of preparation lie

behind each “spontaneous” step.”72

On December 19, Reitz performed Steps at the Benefit for Movement

Research at Symphony Space. Jowitt noted, that during the performance Reitz was

“more daring in space, more committed to her decisions, more full in range than I’ve ever

seen her. And the audience was thrilled.” 73 Explaining how the variations of Reitz’s

simple premise seem endless, Valerie Moses remarked on Steps that “this dance is

startling in its newness. It’s chaotic and beautiful, but also sleek and highly

concentrated.”74

There was one choreographic drawing on the cover of the program for the

performances at the Performing Garage, but of even greater interest, there were also

several drawings for Quintet Project , Reitz’s next major group project, on which she had

been working since 1980. [Figure 18-22]. On October 6, Reitz and company premiered

Changing Scores from Solo to Quintet (eventually called Quintet Project) which was

71 Allen Robertson, “Filling in the Blanks,” Soho News, April 29, 1981, 47. 72 John Howell, “Dance Sampler,”Live 6/7, 1982, 62. 72 Deborah Jowitt, “Benefit for Movement Research,”Village Voice, February 4-10, 1981, 75. '* Valerie Moses, “Colorado Dance Festival on the Right Track,”Coloradoan, June 18, 1982.

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j FIGURE 18 FIGURE

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performed in silence with Maria Cutrona, Robin Hertlein, Julie Lifton and Sarah Skaggs

at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis as part of the New Dance USA Festival. Reitz

described the origins of the work as a “natural extension of previous solo and group work

based on choreographic scores. The methods of variation and development utilized in

earlier work (Steps; Journey: Moves I through 7; Phrase Collection and Score) were

drawn upon by the group in the creation of new choreographic material, subsequently

assembled into a new score.”75 The piece started with a solo for Reitz, then moved into

ensemble work for the five dancers, and finally into a true quintet. Describing Reitz’s

choreographic style, Mike Steele said that she was “exceptional at taking on a dance

phrase, building on it, varying it, adding counterpoint until we are actually watching her

movement tunes.”76 Describing how Reitz had honed her highly individual style.

Robertson explained that she “blends silken ease with an angular gawkiness that is

simultaneously powerful and endearing. She moves like a thoroughbred colt learning

how to be a champion.”77

Quintet Project was commissioned by the Festival d’Automne in Paris and

was performed there in November as well as at Kunsthalle Basel in Switzerland.

Describing the work, Marchelle Michel outlined the power of Reitz’s choreographic

simplicity: “It is not the sublimated beauty of the classical ballerina; it is exactly the

opposite. No virtuosity, no musical accompaniment are used to embellish the dance.

75 Dana Reitz and Da«cerr[program], The Kitchen, April 27-May 2, 1982. Collection of Dana Reitz. 76 Mike Steele. “In ‘New Dance,’ Art Moves Beyond More Experimentation,"Minneapolis Tribune , October 8, 1981. 77 Allen Robertson, “Dance Program Goes to Extremes,"Minneapolis Star, October 6, 1981.

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Dana Reitz has a gift for movement that would despair many dancers if they could

perceive how much they are deprived of it.” Michel describes Reitz’s style as one that

may fool people about its power. He found that “her concert is so simple, so obvious,

that you need some time to realize its strength.”78 RecognizingQuintet Project's

structure from other works that Reitz had brought to France over the past three years,

Jean-Pierre Thibaudat identified its premise as “five women, five bodies, five ways to

dance the rhythms, the basic figures written by dance in her exercise book. Five ways to

invent, bit by bit, the language of her body. Dance has found hers: this is called a style.

She does not try to impose it upon her partners, on the contrary. They all have their own

style, their own ecriture [handwriting].”79

Additionally while touring Europe, Reitz introduced the solo variation

Changing Score which she performed at Almeida Theatre in Islington, England for Dance

Umbrella 1981 on November 9 and 10. During the run of the performance, Reitz held

pre- and post-performance lectures and explained her general attitude about her work: “I

give myself permission to make choices, sometimes mind choices , sometimes body

choices. I try and sink into the rhythm and explore it. The core choreography is solid,

the core movements and the idea of what I want to give—then I improvise. I have a

specific goal within each piece.” Noting the originality of the movement inSteps II, a

combination ofSteps and Changing Score, John Percival explained that “thanks to her

process of constantly reworking the basic material in performance, most of it looked

78 Marchelle Michel, “Dance: Dana Reitz at the Festival d’Automne,” Le Monde, November 19, 1981. 79 Jean-Pierre Thibaudut, “Dana Reitz: Dancer to the Tips of Her Fingers,” Liberation, November 21 - 22, 1981.

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o n new.” Remarking on the use of silence, Jann Parry pointed out that “she is improvising

to her own internal music, which we can see but not hear.”81 Parry went on to remark on

the difficulty that some may have had accessing Reitz’s work, writing that “she demands

a lot of concentration on the part of her audience.” However, attention was rewarded

because, with the proper effort, eventually “a pattern emerges, like a brass rubbing on a

piece of tracing paper.”

From April 27-May 2, 1982, Reitz performed Quintet Project and Steps at

the Kitchen. Jowitt, a long-time supporter and follower of Reitz’s work, said of the

performance: “Dana Reitz has struck, I think, a small vein of true gold. Perhaps not

every dancegoer would find her work as beautiful as I do, but surely most people,

watching her, would sense that something valuable and unusual was happening.” 83 On

June 10, Reitz performed Steps , Changing Score and Steps II at the University Theater in

Boulder for the Colorado Dance Festival. Irene Clurman likened watching Reitz perform

to “reading fine print.” In the end however, Clurman admitted that Reitz’s “unusual

grace and impassioned presence made reading the fine print of her gestures both

rewarding and addictive.”84 Reitz’s own explanation of the “fine print” centered on an

exploration around a “blueprint for action.” Talking with aClear Cases in Improvisation

workshop group in Colorado, she said that “the body is not stupid, it knows a lot of things

and can tell your mind, if it listening.” She went on to explain that the different sides of

80 John Percival, “Dana Reitz,” The Times, November II, 1981. 81 Jann Parry, “Looking For a Pattern,”Dance and Dancers , January 1982. 82 Jann Parry, “Dance,” The Listener, November 19, 1981. 83 Deborah Jowitt, “Mining One Clear Vein,” Village Voice , May 18, 1982, 83. 84 Irene Clurman, “Dana Reitz’s Dance Like Reading Fine Print,” Rocky Mountain News, June 11, 1982.

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the brain can converse with one another, emphasizing “that dancers can’t ‘preknow what

Q f to do’ and must discover that as they work.”

However, the significant breakthrough of the Colorado performances of

Changing Score concerned lighting, which would become the most significant feature of

Reitz’s work in its next phase. Whether it was the first time Reitz had actually worked

consciously with lighting or whether it was the first time someone was taking note of the

fact, it remains that for the first time two critics pointed out the relationship between

Reitz’s dancing and the lighting. Glenn Giffen wrote that “as she travels between pools

of light Reitz suggests dialogue, a lyrical episode dissolving into an emphatic one,

whether a character or a mood left unresolved and probably unnecessary. The changing

portion of the score seems to develop in her use of the stage, evolving from points of

fixed action confined in all those circles of overhead lights.”86 In a much more dramatic

depiction, Juliet Wittman stated: “I’d been enthralled through the first piece, but

something happened during the second, Changing Score. For the first time, Reitz

responded to external reference points: three blue lights strung in a triangle above the

stage. She would dance under one, walk quietly through the half-light to another, dance

again.” Later in her review, Wittman explained how Reitz used lighting as a

choreographic variation: “Reitz ends each dance by having the lights dim slowly to black,

and she uses the device differently each time. She’s swallowed up by darkness after the

first dance, and moves off backward through the semi-dark after the second. But the third

85 Kathryn Bemheimer, “Colorado Dance Festival Kicks Off Summer Activities.” Silver and Gold Record, June 10, 1982. 86 Glenn Giffin, “Soloist Ventures, Wins at Festival,” Denver Post, June 12, 1982.

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and final time, the lights go down so slowly that the dancer’s Figure seems to glimmer

out.”87 These prophetic comments about lighting only scratched at the surface but they

hinted at the extraordinary depth with which Reitz would delve into lighting as a

choreographic tool as her career progressed.

87 Juliet Wittman, “Dana Reitz: A Review.” New Ideas—New Dance, Colorado Dance Festival [program], n.d. Collection of Dana Reitz.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER FIVE-FIELD PAPERS

“Dancing isn’t something you do on theoutside of your life. I do a piece, and there’s always a big, hunky question that doesn’t get resolved~so I take that as the source of the next piece.”

--Dana Reitz

On February 10-13, 1983, Reitz took an unresolved question fromQuintet

Project and presented the movement investigation as the quartet Field Papers with Bebe

Miller, Maria Cutrona and Sarah Skaggs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the Next

Wave: New Masters series. Probably the most prestigious American venue for the avant-

garde, the Brooklyn Academy season was an acknowledgment of the esteem with which

Reitz was held in that world. It coincided with another turning point in her validation as

an important American artist in her receiving a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial

Foundation Fellowship for her choreographic work.Field Papers was a milestone in

Reitz’s career as it represented a culmination of all her works to date.

Billed as “a work for four dancers and musician,” 88 Field Papers had

music by long-time collaborator Malcolm Goldstein on violin. The costumes, designed

by John David Ridge, were silky, pale outfits that differed for the sets of dancers—Skaggs

and Cutrona wore loose-fitting blouses and pants, Miller and Reitz wore loose-fitting

88 Field Papers [program], Brooklyn Academy of Music, February 10-13, 1983. Collection of Dana Reitz. 67

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89 blouses and skirts. Most significant, however, was Beverly Emmons being brought in

as lighting designer on the project.

Beverly Emmons graduated from Sarah Lawrence in 1965 and decided to

become a lighting designer after serving as a technical assistant at the American Dance

Festival at Connecticut College.90 On the basis of that experience she created the

Technical Assistance Group which produced young dancers in the 1970s, and led to her

work with the Dance Umbrella series. Emmons’s reputation was such that Robert

Wilson, who was known for his impeccable visual designs, engaged her as lighting

designer for Einstein on the Beach. It was her most notable achievement, as she used

only 225 lights to create Wilson’s epic vision. Over the years she went on to work with

Meredith Monk, Joe Chaikin, Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, Richard Foreman,

Bette Midler and David Byrne. Emmons also won a Tony forAmadeus and was

nominated for Tonys forThe Elephant Man and A Day in Hollywood as well as for

several other productions.

For Field Papers, Emmons set up different "‘fields” of light throughout the

stage. The piece begins with Skaggs entering along the back of the stage lit by a

horizontal blue light. “Her stepping is placid, steady,”9'and, as she crosses, “her arms

weave smoothly around her, her steps and turns and sways are resilient; when she swings

one leg in the air, she doesn’t display a completed gesture. The dance is like spinning,

89 Deborah Jowitt, “Set Your Foot on Brother Earth,”Village Voice , March I, 1983. 90 Biographical information on Emmons found in Rob Baker, “Visual Recall: Beverly Emmons’ Working Pragmatism,” Theatre Crafts, March 1986,22-27. 91 Sally Banes, “Reviews: Dana Reitz,” Dance Magazine , June 1983, 35.

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like humming; the small crests and declines in its rhythm are part of an ongoing flow.”92

Cutrona then enters along a diagonal swath of gray colored light. Her movement “is

sturdier, powerful, almost casual in the way she owns the space,”93 and, as she crosses,

“she’s closer to the audience than Skaggs, but still far away. What she is doing is like

Skagg’s dance, but not exactly like.. ..For a long time, the two of them dance, distant and

quiet. They never appear to see each other, but every now and then one borrows a gesture

from the other.”94 Miller enters into a rectangular-shaped amber light that is closer to the

audience, “advancing and retreating, vivid within the gentle parameters of Reitz’s

style,”95 and her movement is “beautifully articulate and dramatic.”96 Finally, Reitz joins

the other three, also in a rectangular, dark-amber light placed next to Miller’s. As the

dance continues, the lighting illuminating Skaggs and Cutrona begins to fade and they

become “more distant and shadowy in contrast to Miller and Reitz, who imbue the

movement with a kind of passionate alertness, as if sensing the presence of currents of

air, scents, sounds all around them. They punctuate the dancing more often than the

others do~draw up a gesture, wait before releasing it.” 97 [Figure 23].

As the piece progresses, the fields begin to open up, and the dancers are

freed to move throughout the entire space interacting more with each other. Describing

this section in her review, Jowitt remarked that “it’s a great pleasure when they begin to

92 Deborah Jowitt, “Set Your Foot on Brother Earth,”Village Voice , March I, 1983. 93 Burt Supree, “Dana Reitz Steps Into the Same River,” Village Voice , February 15, 1983. 94 Deborah Jowitt, “Set Your Foot on Brother Earth,”Village Voice , March 1, 1983. 95 Ibid. 95 Burt Supree, “Dana Reitz Steps Into the Same River,” Village Voice, February 15, 1983. 97 Deborah Jowitt, “Set Your Foot on Brother Earth,”Village Voice, March I, 1983.

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FIGURE 23

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expand their paths, the lighted areas spread and merge, and the four women begin to

travel through the space together.” Jowitt was aware that, although the performers were

working from a common phrase, “anyone at any time may interpret it slightly

differently....So you perceive a unison that is always being blurred or undermined in

subtle and surprising ways—usually for only one movement, and always without breaking

98 rhythm.” Describing the movement styles of the dancers, Supree remarked on Reitz’s

movement style: “I sometimes imagine her moving within an imaginary sphere or ovoid

with a trembling sensitive surface. She seems to register her movement, to hear it,

through the inside of her body. In contrast, Miller appears to listen through the surface of

her skin, through the fact of her limbs meeting the air.”99 Remarking on the harmonic

flow of the performance, Marcia Pally comparedField Papers to a debate “with each

voice explicating a line of thought (literally a path across the stage) one after another.

The motions are elegant, restrained and executed in a calm uninterrupted flow, not unlike

reading a prepared text.”100 Pointing out that the viewer was made to shift focus from

dancer to dancer, Supree remarked that “the music of their distanced interactions is

accentuated. Your eye idly selects and recomposes the panorama, drawn by consonances

and contrasts of movement and rhythm, as what one woman does seems to decorate or

underscore what another is doing across the room. The melody flows from person to

98 Deborah Jowitt, “Set Your Foot on Brother Earth,”Village Voice , March 1, 1983. 99 Burt Supree, “Dana Reitz Steps Into the Same River,” Village Voice , February 15, 1983. 100 Marcia Pally, “Reports: Brooklyn/The Bronx,”Ballet News, June 1983, 41. 101 Burt Supree, “Dana Reitz Steps Into the Same River,” Village Voice , February 15, 1983.

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The final section of the piece came when all the dancers left the stage and

Goldstein came out with his violin to situate himself downstage left. Jowitt compared

Goldstein’s playing to Reitz’s dancing: “As she nudges out of her body subtle gestures

and combinations of gesture unlike any you’ve ever seen, he produces on his violin a

startling array of tones and coaxes far beyond the instrument’s usual melodic role.”102

After his brief musical introduction, Reitz then returns and performs a short solo during

which the audience “can concentrate on her sensuousness, on the depth of her power, on

her amazing grace. Hands scooping the air around her, head swinging, body dipping and

twisting, she travels backward away from us. Her gestures dissolve even as new ones are

forming. Their tracery still hangs on the air as the lights fade.”103 Describing the closing

section ofField Papers , Jack Anderson noted how “curiously, most of the dancing

occurred without music, most of the music without dancing. Yet, with her contrapuntal,

polyphonic choreography, Miss Reitz made music and dancing one. In her wondrous

realm, music became a dance of sound and dancing was music for the eyes.”104

Field Papers was a continuation of Reitz’s former dances and in it,

sections were drawn directly from Quintet Project. In the program, Reitz charted the

work as a summation of her choreographic concerns:“Field Papers , an extension o f

previous work, continues to address the questions of human similarity and distinction.

The emphasis of this piece is on the simultaneous growth of unity and individuality, the

102 Deborah Jowitt, “Set Your Foot on Brother Earth,”Village Voice, March 1, 1983. 103 Ibid. 104 Jack Anderson, “Dance: Dana Reitz’s ‘Field Papers’,” New York Times, February 13, 1983.

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energy that creates the line and color of the field.”105 The idea for Field Papers came

from Reitz’s recollection of the fields of upstate New York where she grew up.

Describing the choreographic concept, Reitz explained how “visually you might imagine

fields where you turn the comer and there’s a whole new vista. The shifting is like a ride

taking you into another perspective on the dance.”106

Working from an improvisational base similar to that ofQuintet Project ,

the four dancers created their own phrases from a common core. Reitz described the

struggle of working improvisationally and the sensitivity that a dancer in her work needs,

in questioning “how much structure do you allow, and how much the body can influence

it back and forth. The body joumies in space with energy behind the steps, not with just

the steps themselves. And the energy is affected by people passing in and out, listening

and watching, passing information back and forth to one another.” She went on to

explain how “you find you can be opened up, enriched by these experiences, while

maintaining the integrity of your initial movement phrase.”107 The magic ofField Papers

came in the way that Reitz set up the structure of the dance to deliver phrases that were at

once recognizable as the original, common core and at the same time carried the

individual signature of each dancer.

In order to accomplish that goal, Reitz maintained from her previous

works a corps of dancers with whom she worked intensively. She described the

105 Dana Reitz, program note in Field Papers [program], Brooklyn Academy of Music, February 10-13, 1983. Collection of Dana Reitz. 106 Dana Reitz, quoted in David Sears, “Dancing on the Next Wave.” Inperfromance , January/February 1983. 107 Ibid.

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problematic nature of finding dancers to work within her tightly focused vision of

working improvisationally:

It’s been hard to find dancers who want to improvise seriously because it’s a personal investigation. It’s hard and touchy. You have to trust what you find in yourself—uncover it, believe it, perform it....You have to trust your intuitions enough to choose well, and it takes time to develop the skill. You’ve got to get that judgmental parrot on your shoulder to stop telling you what to do. You have to give up your image of what you should look like. It’s easier if you get rid of the mirrors and that shape orientation. Judging yourself harshly is a killer....What you project [to the audience] is your fascination with what you’re doing.108

What Reitz was cultivating from this directed-focus work with the dancers

went beyond the actual “steps” of the piece. She was primarily interested in the

interaction between the dancers and “how we affect each other, and how we can broaden

our range.” During her pieces Reitz set up structures as guideposts designed to focus her

energy, helping her to access “new territory, to increase my awareness on conscious and

unconscious levels. There are things I’m out to discover. And in performance, I’m on

the spot, so I have to go deeper.” 109 Reitz likened the philosophy to “an ancient thought

that the deeper the roots, the higher the tree. The ground is your secure base. The weight

comes from your feet and you are balanced. Surprisingly, you might find that you can

jump higher when you’ve first invested weight into the ground. And this all comes from a

meditative centering, deep breath control, and a trust between foot and floor.”110

108 Dana Reitz, quoted in Burt Supree, “Dana Reitz Steps Into the Same River,” Village Voice , February 15, 1983. ,0^ Ibid. 110 Dana Reitz, quoted in David Sears, “Dancing on the Next Wave,” Inperfromance , January/February 1983.

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From her experience with Quintet Project , Reitz found that the stronger

the individual dancers were the stronger their final amalgamation could he. Incorporating

her philosophies of brush and ink drawing, Reitz commented that, “the individual stroke

affects the space. One hand is usually braver, more untrained than the other, and you find

more unpredictable movement with it. These are natural energies.’’ She goes on to recall

a lesson when her teacher handed her a brush and stood behind her moving her entire

body to make the single brushstroke, saying that the stroke came from “the whole body,

and that energy comes from the ground up through you, cleansing, changing, flowing

right out through the fingertips.” 111

In the program Reitz included a series of choreographic drawings that

depicted the various duets in the piece. [Figure 24-28]. These drawings were a visual

metaphor for Reitz’s working methods and goals inField Papers. Her use of

improvisation with set guidelines and structure allowed the dancer to be present in a

space where energies could be freely passed from one dancer’s phrase to another

throughout the sequence of the performance. The discovery which was most valuable

and interesting to Reitz came from the dancer’s commitment to the borrowing process

and what was subsequently uncovered. In an interview with Supree, Reitz captured the

meaning of this idea:

‘The transitions (and the phrasing, and the quality of movement) are most interesting....How one idea molds into another. How the perspective shifts just

111 Dana Reitz, quoted in David Sears, “Dancing on the Next Wave,” tnperfromance , January/February 1983.

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FIGURE 25

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/

FIGURE 26

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FIGURE 27

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i

i • :.f ;·" i I ~

J I /' i .I

. -_;. .. -

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.I

FIGURE 28

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slightly, and a whole new vista is there. You don’t have to move the world, just go from here to there,’ she says, and hops her finger an inch across the tabletop.

This was the “question” that Reitz was trying to answer withField Papers. She was

intensely interested in the individual dancer’s brushstrokes and “where the impulse is,

how it travels, how it goes out of the body. And the commitment to that stroke. That

moment can’t be repeated, but it’s a trained moment, it’s prepared for, and comes out of

everything that’s happened before. It can be like you’re not even there. It goes right

through you.”112

Reitz described being deeply affected in her conceptualization by an

experience “at an aquarium in Boston. Sharks, turtles, eels, moving in their own ways,

not interfering, then suddenly, something invisible happens, one flicks sharply one way,

another zips somewhere else...” She was left questioning what it was that caused them all

to react in unison while retaining their own distinct and individual styles. It was this

concept at which she aimed Field Papers, and at which she would continue to direct her

energies in future projects. (See discussion inSevere Clear).

Excavating material from Field Papers , Reitz put together a solo

performance package that included Steps, Changing Score and Solo From the Field

Papers. She toured the works throughout Europe in 1983, at the MoMing Center in

Chicago in 1984 and Australia in 1985. Another project, possibly the most tell-tale sign

that Reitz’s work had risen to the next level of professional and artistic growth was her

112 Dana Reitz, quoted in Burt Supree, “Dana Reitz Steps Into the Same River," Village Voice , February 15, 1983.

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incorporation and founding of her Field Papers, Inc. This new persona, named for her

breakthrough project, would serve as the production vehicle for the remainder of the

works in her career.

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“I’m eager to see Severe Clear again, and that’s the highest recommendation I can give to any work of art.”

--Christine Temin

For eight weeks in the spring of 1985, James Turrell. the noted sculptor of

light and space who had just received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, worked at

transforming the Radcliffe Dance Studio at Harvard University into a performance

environment for the world premiere ofSevere Clear on June 9, 1985. He constructed

carpeted risers where the audience was situated around a central box that had “been

tipped over toward the audience, ready to reveal, spill, or absorb, it’s atmosphere

changing from alabaster void to contouriess black to marine deep.”113 It was in this

environment that the two dancers, Reitz and Sarah Skaggs, would perform Reitz’s

choreographic structure. [Figure 29], Their costumes, designed by John David Ridge,

were an iridescent, silvery material with vertical stripes, painted by Mary Macy, designed

to glisten in the various intensities and colors of Turrell’s atmospheric lighting. The

entire installation was the culmination of a project on which Turrell and Reitz had been

working for two years.

113 Lisa F. Hillyer, “Box Steps: Clear and Present Dancing,” Boston Phoenix, June 25, 1985. 83

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James Turrell had combined undergraduate work in psychology with

graduate work in art to explore the properties and perception of light and space.114 These

two elements became the subject and the media of his art. Working with both natural and

artificial light, Turrell experimented in an empty white room (Stoppages for the Mendota

and Projection Pieces), and then in rooms with removable ceilings {Skyspaces). In 1974

he began work on the mammoth The Roden Crater Project, an environmental earthwork

designed to convert a volcanic cone into a “kind of planetarium.” Turrell also did interior

work, creating sculptural designs with light, in a major one-man exhibition in 1980 at the

Whitney Museum of Art, as well as in installations at the Castelli Gallery (1981), the

Center for Contemporary Art, Seattle (1982), the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (1983), the

Hayden Gallery at MIT (1983), and the Musee d’Art Modeme de Ville, Paris (1984). His

work was found in the collections of the Chicago Art Institute, the Dia Art Foundation,

the Modema Museet in Stockholm, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles,

the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum. Like Reitz, he had received

awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim

Memorial Foundation.

Turrell had first been attracted to Reitz’s work upon seeing her Field

Papers at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1983, and had approached her with the idea

of creating a collaborative project. The reasons that Turrell was interested in working

with Reitz were noted by curator Margaret Reeve who saw that the two shared artistic

114 Biographical information on Turrell found in “James Turrell” [resume], n.d.:Severe Clear [program], Radcliffe College, June 9, 1985; and “Severe Clear: A Collaborative Work by Dana Reitz and James Turrell with Sarah Skaggs,” press release, n.d. All in collection of Dana Reitz.

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interests in “inquiring] in their work about the nature of perception with deliberate shifts

of attention and points of view.”115 For the next two years, the pair worked on the

conception and realization ofSevere Clear. For a work of this technical complexity,

assembling a considerable amount of funding was a necessary part of the work process.

They first received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Interarts program,

and went on to acquire a New Works grant in the amount of $54,000 from the

Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. At the same time, arrangements

were made for a video-documentation by WGBH's New Television Workshop in Boston

to be aired as “The Making of Severe Clear.”

What made Severe Clear exceptional was the equal collaborative process

developed by Reitz and Turrell. Turrell worked to construct an environment that altered

the audience’s perception and/or expectation of a given situation. He attempted to

emphasize the presence and consciousness of the audience within the space and to

elaborate on how the elements of light and space do not make reference to anything other

than each other—no reference to objects, theater, or the architecture, only to the

movement itself. Severe Clear was the first piece of work involving movement in

Turrell’s environments.116 In tandem, Reitz’s choreography would, as she wrote, “define

movement questions, structures, transformations and variations. Her work would be

improvised in a highly concentrated manner around firm core structures and scores.

115 Margaret Reeve, “James Turrell and Dana Reitz: A Collaboration in Dance and Light,” A n New England , June 1985, 5. 116 Field Papers, Inc., “Description: Dana Reitz/James Turrell Collaborative Project.” Unpublished document. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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Performance was motivated by an interest in how individual strength and clarity evolve

(consciously and unconsciously) and how interaction with others becomes a part of this

process.”117 A press release described the project:

There will be a prepared space by James Turrell that will be inhabited by light and two dancers....The presence of these two dancers will affect the nature and quality of light, the definition and feeling of the space. The presence of the light and the space generated by the light, in turn, will affect the timing of the individual dancers, the relationship between them, and the perception of the activity as a whole. An illusionary quality of time is stressed. The full effect of this orchestration creates ambiguities of real time and fantasy time experienced through constant shifts of attention. Throughout the piece seemingly random connections begin to coalesce so that old things not understood may become clear.118

The environment Turrell created for the hour-long work consisted of an

empty box surrounded by a white frame inside a pair of white borders. In front of the box

was a brightly lit white pathway. Turrell’s lighting instruments (the source of the light

beams) were concealed, creating an illusion of mysterious depth and otherworldliness. As

the lights gradually came up, the audience could barely make out the forms of Skaggs and

Reitz in the murkiness of the gray-blue surround. Severe Clear was performed in silence,

so that the only sounds came from the creaking of the floor in response to the dancers’

weight; the absence of accompaniment drew attention to the natural sounds of wood

settling and other ambient sounds customarily obscured by music.

ll7Field Papers, Inc., “Description: Dana Reitz/James Turrell Collaborative Project.” Unpublished document. Collection of Dana Reitz. 118 Field Papers, Inc. “Severe Clear: A Collaborative Work by Dana Reitz and James Turrell with Sarah Skaggs.” Press release, n.d. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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At the beginning, the movement was so small in scale that it was barely

perceptible. Reitz and Skaggs seemed to actively seek out the subtle gradations of

lighting. Deborah Jowitt wrote that “their complex, gentle undulating and twisting make

it seem as if their heads, limbs, bodies are constantly searching out new currents in the

atmosphere.”119 [Figure 30-33]. As the work progressed, the movement became larger

and more urgent, arms curling out from the dancers’ clear, calm centers. At one point,

Reitz used a riding crop she was carrying to slice and whoosh through the air.

Advancing to the edge of the box, Reitz and Skaggs peered out as though they were

characters stepping out of a movie frame. There were frequent blackouts, and the dancers

continue to move in the darkness, creating a sense of continuity to keep the audience

attuned to the sounds of the action. Turrell chose to mask lighting transitions to “give an

illusion of motion: perhaps we are seeing the women in many different environments, as

if we were moving from sculpture to sculpture in a museum....”120 At one point, the

dancers entered wearing goggles in the now iridescent black-lit space. They seemed to

float inside the box, which appeared two-dimensional. The black light changed to red,

and eerily seemed to drip down the sides of the box. Reitz called out “Sa-a-rah” to

Skaggs, stepped over the barrier, waving the crop, and directed a mysterious scene before

her until her movements grew increasingly frantic. Skaggs echoed her movements inside

the box. At the end of the dance, Skaggs joined Reitz outside of the box and the two

119 Deborah Jowitt, “Denizens of the Twilight,” Village Voice , July 9, 1985. 120 Ibid.

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1 *

V FIGURE 33 FIGURE

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craned their necks, peering into the audience. Suddenly, they jumped back over the

barrier, disappearing into the blackness.

In developing Severe Clear, Reitz had envisioned water imagery as part of

the basic conception of the work. She jokingly toldThe Boston Globe that she had

considered calling the dance The Great Barrier Relief.'21 In order to assimilate the

underwater atmospherics that Reitz envisioned, Reitz and Skaggs spent their time off

visiting the New England Aquarium. Reitz told the Globe that, although she was not

aiming to mimic any marine movement, she was trying to get at '‘the silky, unpredictable,

unselfconscious feeling of fish swimming through the sea, and the shiny reflections of

fish scales.” 122 Critic Christine Temin recognized that the notable choreographic

achievement of Severe Clear lay within the silent and yet knowing connection that was

apparent between Skaggs and Reitz as they improvised their individual ways through the

piece and at the same time remained connected in such a powerful and distinct way as if

“the link between them is as unforced as the link among fish swimming in a school .”l2j

Writing for the Village Voice , Deborah Jowitt also picked up on this imagery: “We seem

to be peering into the depths of an aquarium, as if to decipher the fluid behavior of its

inhabitants.” Jowitt went on to note that “the absence of [lighting] transitions gives an

illusion of motion, as if moving from tank to tank in an aquarium.” The lighting

124 suggested that Skaggs and Reitz were “phosphorescent creatures.” And broadening the

121 Christine Temin, “Choreographer Dana Reitz Sees Her Way Clear,” Boston Globe, June 7, 1985. 'J2 Ibid. 123 Christine Temin, “In An Unfathomable Twilight,” Boston Globe, June 15, 1985. 124 Deborah Jowitt, “Denizens of the Twilight,” Village Voice, July 9, 1985.

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metaphor The Boston Phoenix's Lisa Hillyer wrote that “Severe Clear creates impact

through an accumulation of minutiae. The spectacle arises from its patient branching and

consolidating, its reproducing of its moments like the growth of a coral reef.”123 During

an interview with Elizabeth Dempster, Reitz herself used aquatic imagery in speaking of

the improvisational experience with Sarah Skaggs. She told Dempster that during the

making of and performance ofSevere Clear, she and Skaggs had come to know “each

other’s timing extremely well so we could kind of swim together or go in separate areas

and not fight for space. There was a real camaraderie there that was remarkable. That

was the highest point I’ve ever worked with anybody.” 126

Due to the non-portable nature of the elaborate site-specific installation,

the work received only nine performances. The critics were unanimous in expressing

dismay that this groundbreaking work would not be seen elsewhere. In September 1985,

Reitz and Turrell were awarded a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) by

Dance Theater Workshop for their choreographic and design collaboration, in recognition

of the extraordinarily innovative nature of Severe Clear.

It is apparent from reading reviews of Severe Clear that the critics saw this

work as a momentous change in their routine of theater-going. They found themselves

transfixed by the experience as focused on the “dialogue” between the two dancers, and

by the extraordinary presence of the dancers who were clearly responding to the space,

lighting, and events of the performances in the moment. By any measure of theatrical

125 Lisa F. Hillyer, “Box Steps: Clear and Present Dancing,” Boston Phoenix, June 25, 1985. 126 Elizabeth Dempster, “Situated Knowledge: An Interview with Dana Reitz,” Writings on Dance 7, (Winter 1991): 31.

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convention,Severe Clear should not have worked in this way—it was barely moving,

barely visible and barely audible. Yet, the critics described a transcendent experience

which left them in awe and wonder. Lisa Hillyer noted that the work belied all

177 expectations, dashing the notion of “predictable conclusion.”

Severe Clear did not follow theatrical paradigms which supposed that a

dance would lead the viewer to some pre-determined conclusion and that lighting would

illuminate the dance in such a way that would be easy and obvious to see and understand.

Instead, this dance asked the viewer to come into the work with senses attuned, ready to

pluck out the dance from the atmosphere that Reitz and Turrell set up. It called for

patience, concentration, and heightened consciousness.Severe Clear explored the

underdeveloped and underseen areas of highly structured improvisational performance.

Margaret Reeve recognized that Severe Clear was an exploration into the uncharted so

that “each time [Reitz] dances, more unknown territory emerges. By deliberately shifting

accents and moods, she creates unfamiliar situations.”128

In Severe Clear, there was something new to see each time the work was

performed. It was an explicit acknowledgment that environmental conditions, such as

personal timing, mood, tempo, weather, temperature, and audience response were

constituent elements of the choreography and lighting. In writing for theVillage Voice ,

Deborah Jowitt explained that Severe Clear delivered something that was unexpected to

audience members. She credited both Reitz and Turrell, noting that “Turrell doesn’t

127 Lisa F. Hillyer, “Box Steps: Clear and Present Dancing,” Boston Phoenix, June 25, 1985. 128 Margaret Reeve, “James Turrell and Dana Reitz: A Collaboration in Dance and Light.” Art New England , June 1985, 5.

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‘light’ a dance; he creates a place, or places, in which Reitz and Skaggs exist and

move.”129 Severe Clear boldly suggested that light and dark are equally “illuminating”

elements, that what one does not see is as important as what one does see. As an

audience member one could leave the theater with an irrepressible image, or the

remembrance of the struggle to decipher an image from the gradated light and shadows.

129 Deborah Jowitt, “Denizens of the Twilight,” Village Voice , July 9, 1985.

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“[I] like the edges of the darkness more and more., .and the mystery in between the lights.”

—Dana Reitz

Less than a year later, in March o f 1987, Reitz was ready to perform again.

Circumstantial Evidence was a solo dance on which she collaborated with famed lighting

designer Jennifer Tipton. The costume was designed by Sally Ann Parsons and painted

by Mary Macy. There were no sets. There was no music. The sole prop was the riding

crop fromSevere Clear. The only other “dancer” was the lights. Ann Daly writing for

Lighting Dimensions picked up on the kinetic partnership:

The first time I saw Dana Reitz dance, she did an evening length solo. But she was not alone. There were hovering shapes of light, strong beams of light, gentle baths of light. These were her partners, and together they breathed more palpable energy into the cavernous performance space of the Kitchen in Downtown Manhattan than I had ever experienced there before.130

Jennifer Tipton who had worked with Reitz to create this extraordinary

“ensemble” was already well established as a designer in both theater and dance. She had

won a “Bessie” award for dance lighting, and had worked with choreographers including

130 Ann Daly, “Dancing in the Dark,” Lighting Dimensions , May/June 1989, 84. 97

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Jerome Robbins, Jiri Kylian, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp and Dan Wagoner.131 Her theater

work also had brought her a Drama Desk award, an Ohie award, and a Tony award. As

artistic associate with the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts and

with the Goodman Theater in Chicago, she had received grants from the National

Endowment for the Arts. Like Reitz, she was also a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial

Foundation Fellow. In addition, Tipton taught lighting design at Yale University School

of Drama.

Circumstantial Evidence marked the beginning of the relationship between

Reitz and Tipton. For Reitz, Tipton would come to be her preferred collaborator for the

projects investigating the relationship between light and movement. For Tipton, the work

with Reitz would provide a laboratory to extend her lighting into sculptural dimensions,

and to move away from lighting others’ visions into a truly collaborative process. In

Circumstantial Evidence , Reitz took the theories on light and movement that she had

been developing in Field Papers and Severe Clear and began a process of refining and

honing that would carry her through a series of collaborative projects with Tipton.

As was the work with James Turrell, this hour-long exploration of light

and movement was true collaboration. Circumstantial Evidence focused on an

investigation of the quality of light, and the quality of movement, and an exploration of

how one affects the other. For Reitz, light was more than just an instrument of

illumination. It was an actual, moving partner in her dance that could affect her mood

131 Biographical information on Jennifer Tipton found Circumstantialin Evidence [program], Garden Theatre, Spoleto 1987, May 26-27, 1987. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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and temperament. Reitz believed that light is something more than can be described in

terms of physics, that it also has emotional, kinetic, and metaphysical properties. For

Reitz this exploration was “about how I get pushed and pulled by Iight~how my

temperament is changed by light. All I keep wanting to do is chip away at it. finding out

about light. I experience it, observe it, and see what happens with it in a space.”132

Tipton’s lighting process in this collaboration was equally intricate and nuanced, delicate

and revealing. In Circumstantial Evidence , it became very difficult to separate the

lighting from the dancing, and the dancing from the lighting. In the New York Times,

Jack Anderson captured the audience’s wonder at what Reitz and Tipton had created. To

him, Reitz seemed outside of the realm of what was previously known. She was

mysterious, a part of the light itself: “She was no ordinary mortal dancing. Instead, she

was an apparition bom of the darkness and to the darkness returning.”133

Circumstantial Evidence began much in the same way as had Severe

Clear—i.e., in darkness and silence. Waiting expectantly in the darkened house, the

audience scoured the space for a visual indication that the dance had begun. In fact, Reitz

was onstage and already moving before the audience could perceive her in the

deliberately muted light. Then, the audience could just begin to zero in on her location

and her barely perceptible movement. Writing for Contact Quarterly , Marianne

Goldberg described the first moments of Circumstantial Evidence-.

Reitz began in an attenuated silence of near-complete darkness that reiterated its impact, black on black, like a Constructivist painting. Finally, an

132 Dana Reitz, quoted in Ann Daly, “Dancing in the Dark,-’ Lighting Dimensions , May/June 1989. 89. 133 Jack Anderson, “The Dance: Dana Reitz,” Sew York Times, March 29, 1987.

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intimation of her body appeared~a smudge of white, wavering at the edge of visibility. With the slow, determined increase of light, her form became apparent like a sound reaching the level of audibility available to the ear.134

Jowitt was also struck by the gradual way that Reitz eased the audience into the work,

making them sense rather than see that the work had begun. “In the intimacy of the

Kitchen,” Jowitt wrote, “you can feel her begin. A very dim, warm glow reveals her

I moving quietly, tentatively, with that inimitable fluidity.” The idea that the

choreography was already in progress as the piece became visible intentionally suggested

that the dance-making process was ongoing. The lighting, too, invited the audience to

look in on what was merely a slice of this process—one that was without beginning or

end.

Gradually, the movement builds and Reitz’s subtle “rippling as though a

salmon swimming upstream”136 fades into a larger, more full-bodied swaying and

twisting. In the rhythm of this upsurge, Tipton’s lighting fades in and out, separating the

choreography into discrete scenes. Goldberg noted how these movement vignettes

framed by darkness kept the watchers engaged in suspenseful and attuned communication

with Reitz : “When periodically the space returned to blackness Reitz seemed to ask that

the audience rigorously wait and watch for an image to enter the horizon of perception,

never knowing quite when or what it would turn out to be.”137 After one blackout, Reitz

134 Marianne Goldberg, ‘‘The Threshold of Visibility: Dana Reitz’s ‘Circumstantial Evidence’." Contact Quarterly, Winter 88, Vol. XIII, no. 1, 8. 135 Deborah Jowitt, “Public Rites and Private Ceremonies,” Village Voice, April 21, 1987. 136 Lucia Dewey, “Dance Spectrum,” Drama-Logue, May 21-27, 1987. 137 Marianne Goldberg, “The Threshold of Visibility: Dana Reitz’s ‘Circumstantial Evidence’," Contact Quarterly, Winter 88, Vol. XIII, no. I, 8.

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appeared lying on the floor completely motionless, one leg propped up slightly, beneath a

vast horizontal swath of light that extended from stage right to left. This light illuminated

everything higher than two feet from the floor, and although white and invisible, a

smattering of dust particles in the air revealed its shape and size. For a full three minutes,

Reitz lay in semi-darkness with only the beams of the horizontal swath providing ambient

illumination, indirectly exposing Reitz. The only “movements” were the changes in

lighting from this broad swath to a sharp, amber-colored rectangle that framed Reitz

perfectly as if she had fallen asleep basking in the sunlight of an uncurtained window.

In another section, a head-high horizontal cut of light along the back of the

stage lit only Reitz’s head, neck and face. As this light came up, she could be seen

craning her neck backward and forward as she crossed the back of the stage wearing a

bathing cap with sequins sewn into it, glistening and shimmering. To add an element of

mystery to this visually arresting scene, Reitz and Tipton added color and light focused

on the air between Reitz and the audience rather than on her body. Jowitt describes how

the light worked at seeming cross-purposes to shroud the image in a cloud of poetry:

“Suddenly altered by a subtly glittering cap, she gradually progresses across the back of

the room, along a beam of red light. Another crossbeam in front of her fogs the

image. ,,138

The movement in Circumstantial Evidence was eloquent, deliberate and

deeply moving. At times, Reitz would stand motionless in a darkened part of the stage,

138 Deborah Jowitt, “Public Rites and Private Ceremonies,” Village Voice, April 21, 1987.

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simply waiting for the light to reveal her. As the lighting came up, she would begin to

move slightly, effortlessly, and as she became more visible, the audience’s perception of

what she was doing, what the choreography was evoking shifted. Throughout the piece

each time a movement or lighting change unfolded another image would be revealed.

This was the deliberate nature of the piece and exactly the non-traditional work that Reitz

was trying to access. Jowitt captured how Reitz’s movement style and quality were

unique in defying traditional notions of virtuosity and technique in order to create an

alternate mode of kinetic experience: '‘Her softly treading feet are always busy, her

remarkably expressive arms busier still, her body and head alive to the moment, and the

subtle modulations in rhythm, attack, speed, focus are as clear as a whisper in the night.

She’s dancing your dream.”139 [Figure 34].

In order to maximize the interplay between light and movement, Reitz

chose a silk costume forCircumstantial Evidence. For Reitz, less expensive fabrics such

as cotton, rayon, and other blends did not have the highly complicated and

complementary qualities for which she was looking in the fiber’s interaction with light.

Reitz’s costume captured and reflected the light, at the same time revealing the shadows

within the ripples and creases of the fabric. While it possessed these interactive qualities,

silk also possessed an elegance and simplicity that matched Reitz’s movement.

Indeed, all elements of production were carefully designed to avoid extraneous

image and peripheral distraction. It was a minimalist marshaling of carefully chosen

139 Deborah Jowitt, "Public Rites and Private Ceremonies,” Village Voice , April 21, 1987.

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theatrical resources that together produced what Elizabeth Zimmer in the Los Angeles

Herald Examiner described as “like watching a photograph come up on paper in

developing solution.” In the collaboration with Tipton, Zimmer saw that Reitz and

Tipton had “found ways to conceal and reveal a body in plain sight.” Zimmer was

astonished by the way “you could see the air in which the dancer, wearing a simple white

satin [sic] shirt and skirt, cut swaths of simple movement. Minimal, yes, but rich in

emotion, not because of what it pretended to be but because of what it was.”140

Others also noted Reitz’s ability to pull her movement out of the air; in

Goldberg’s phrase, she was “in constant conversation with the space around her.”141

Jowitt also noted this phenomenon, describing moments when Reitz “rubs her fingers

together...brushing away something or plucking the dance out of the air.”142 Sasha

Anawalt spoke of this ability in terms suggesting that Reitz was becoming legendary for

this alchemy: “It is said that Reitz is like a human diving rod, discovering energy and

responding to it by moving as it directs.”143 In Pastoral Psychology, James B. Ashbrook

noted that the choreographer herself “claims that she choreographs ‘what’s in the air’.”144

Much as Michaelangelo said of his sculptures that he only freed the figures that were

already within the marble, Reitz works within the same vein, serving as a conduit for

kinetic energy and producing movement out of the “thin air” within the theater space.

140 Elizabeth Zimmer, “New Dance Takes Center Stage in Montreal,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, September 25, 1989. 141 Marianne Goldberg, “The Threshold of Visibility: Dana Reitz’s ‘Circumstantial Evidence’,” Contact Quarterly , Winter 88, Vol. XIII, no. 1, 8. 142 Deborah Jowitt, “Public Rites and Private Ceremonies,” Village Voice , April 21, 1987. 143 Sasha Anawalt, Dancer Receives Her Cues From the Sounds of Silence in Audience,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, May 4, 1987. 144 James B. Ashbrook, “Half Brains and Split Minds,” Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 34(1), Fall 1985, 9.

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Much of the critical response suggested that, while Reitz’s and Tipton’s

contributions were equally marvelous, they were, in fact, separate entities. Indeed, most

audience members expect light to be fixed, stationary, and designed to illuminate a

particular area of the stage. In Circumstantial Evidence, the reality was that Reitz and

Tipton were both active and integral to each other’s design for the project. The “Bessie”

award committee recognized this fact in bestowing awards on Reitz and Tipton for the

collaboration. Deborah Jowitt, an early observer, embraced this idea in writing that

“Jennifer Tipton provided lighting so arresting and so sensitive to Reitz’s work that it

amounted to choreographic collaboration.”145 The truth was that Reitz’s and Tipton’s

work was so intricately interlaced that on the performance level, one could not live

without the other.

Circumstantial Evidence bonded light and dance in a way that perhaps

only previous Reitz projects had suggested might be possible. In the Los Angeles Herald

Examiner, Sasha Anawalt saw that Reitz’s solo was “guided by the extraordinary lighting

design of Jennifer Tipton: it cues her, she cues it.”146 Ann Daly noted the magical nature

of the lighting in conjuring something out of nothing. “The movement appeared and

disappeared,” noted Daly, “just like the suspended shapes of light created by Jennifer

Tipton. Reitz floated in and out of these light sculptures, emerging into them for a

145 Deborah Jowitt, “Public Rites and Private Ceremonies,” Village Voice , April 21, 1987. 146 Sasha Anawalt, Dancer Receives Her Cues From the Sounds of Silence in Audience,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, May 4, 1987.

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sequence, only to be swallowed into darkness again.”147 Lucia Dewey, in Drama-Logiie ,

also recognized that she was in the presence of an entirely new level of collaboration:

Jennifer Tipton’s lighting slowly fades, framing this and the following passages (set in different parts of the space), hinting that although unseen, the movement continues endlessly. Tipton’s light is a full partner, painting shapes with shadows and editing images by focusing on a hand or the head (an eerie, quirking decapitation) and hiding the rest in darkness.148

While Dewey does recognize the collaborative nature of the project she also suggests that

it is Tipton’s choice that the light focus on a certain part of the body. In actuality it may

have been Tipton’s choice to focus a light beam three feet off the ground or at hand level,

but it may also have been Reitz’s choice to enter that beam supported on her knees, thus

making the light focus at head level.

The “magical” qualities ofCircumstantial Evidence much noted in

reviews were dependent upon a collaborative mix, including Reitz’s temperament during

a particular performance, or the color or intensity of the light Tipton chose to bring up on

stage. And this is ultimately what Circumstantial Evidence was all about. As Reitz

explained, the piece was concerned with the kaleidoscopic nature of perception: “As in

memory, some things remain clearly, and other things are washed out. Fractions, little

Ann Daly, “Dancing in the Dark,” Lighting Dimensions, May/June 1989, 84. 148 Lucia Dewey, “Dance Spectrum,” Drama-Logue, May 21-27, 1987.

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moments of color and gesture remain. What’s visible to the audience, what’s not visible

to the audience—it’s all circumstantial.”149

149 Dana Reitz, quoted in Jody Leader, “Dancer Goes Through Motions From the Inside Out,”Los Angeles Daily News, May 1. 1987.

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“If a piece of country is possibly exotic and possibly not~if it is so enigmatic that no one can say whether it has come from near or far--it is known as suspect terrain.”

—John McPhee. In Suspect Terrain

During a two-week residency at Bennington College in March 1989, the

seeds for Reitz’s next major collaboration,Suspect Terrain , were planted. Reitz’s initial

idea for Suspect Terrain actually had been in her thoughts three or four years earlier,

inspired by the collaborative discoveries made during Circumstantial Evidence which

seemed to call for further investigation. In this work, Reitz greatly expanded the scope of

her collaborative process. As inCircumstantial Evidence Reitz worked with lighting

designer Jennifer Tipton, costume designer Sally Ann Parsons and costume painter Mary

Macy. In addition, Reitz chose to collaborate on the additional element of sound with

Hans Peter Kuhn.

Kuhn was bom in Kiel, West Germany. A composer and designer of

audio environments, he was best known in the United States for his collaborations with

Robert Wilson, including Death, Destruction and Detroit at the Schaiibuhne in Berlin;

The Golden Windows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music;the CIVIL warS (Cologne

Section); and Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien at the Metropolitan Opera House. Kuhn also

108

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produced his own gallery works, made three radio plays, directed sound recordings and

composed scores for several German feature films.150 Speaking of why she wanted to

work with Kuhn, Reitz emphasized the ambient qualities of his music that matched the

ways she had been experimenting with movement and light. “One of the reasons I chose

him” she told Elizabeth Dempster, “was because he dealt so environmentally with sound.

He really could move the sound beautifully around the room in terms of distance and

closeness and height and texture.”151

Reitz also invited three other dancers, Steve Paxton, Laurie Booth and

Polly Motley into her collaborative process. All three were experienced and

accomplished improvisers who brought their own styles and experiences to the work.

Paxton’s roots in improvisation were particularly deep. He had been a member of Merce

Cunningham’s company in the early 1960s where he had encountered the ideas of Marcel

Duchamp and John Cage which came to have a strong influence on his own working

methods. Paxton had gone on to co-found the legendary Judson Dance Theater and its

improvisational offshoot, the Grand Union. Possibly his most lasting mark on dance

came in the mid-1970s with his initiation and development of the artistic and social

movement known as contact improvisation.152

150 Biographical information on Kuhn found inSuspect Terrain [program], SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center, July 20-23 & 27-30, 1989. Collection of Dana Reitz. 151 Dana Reitz, quoted in Elizabeth Dempster, “Situated Knowledge: An Interview with Dana Reitz,” Writings on Dance 7, (Winter 1991): 32. 152 Cynthia J. Novack, Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1990, 52-62.

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A direct descendent of the 19th-century Booth theater family and native of

London. Booth studied there with Steve Paxton at Dartington College.153 He also

worked in theater and film and often collaborated with sound and visual artists for

performance projects. His own choreography combined Aikido, the Brazilian martial

arts-dance form Capoeira, and contact improvisation. Motley, too, had a background in

interdisciplinary collaborations, and in sound and movement improvisation. Having

performed with James Clouser and the Space-Dance-Theater in Houston for six years, she

was an accomplished dancer. Moving to Boulder, Colorado to focus on her own work,

she had garnered two choreography fellowships from the National Endowment for the

Arts, two National Endowment for the Arts dance video grants, and a choreography

fellowship and several dance grants from the Colorado Council for the Arts and

Humanities.

Another figure in the overall architecture ofSuspect Terrain was project

manager Marie Cieri who assisted in fundraising. Once again, the scope of the project

meant that the planning phase ofSuspect Terrain was a formidable undertaking in itself—

in Reitz’s own words, “a lot of years of administrative gathering of forces.”134 A

substantial grant from PepsiCo enabled Reitz to get Suspect Terrain up and running.

The performers first got together in March 1989 for a two-week residency

at Bennington College. Polly Motley described that initial working situation as a process

i5j Biographical information on Booth and Motley found Suspectin Terrain [program], SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center, July 20-23 & 27-30, 1989. Collection of Dana Reitz. 154 Dana Reitz, quoted in Jennifer Dunning, “Setting the Ground Rules For a Dance Improvisation,” New York Times, July 21, 1989.

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of becoming acquainted through movement and then moving on to understanding and

intimacy. Motley told Jennifer Dunning that “the first day at Bennington, we gathered in

the middle of a huge, wonderful space. We were not sure how to begin. We danced for

each other. Then we danced with each other.”155 Consolidating the working relationship,

the group continued to meet sporadically until the project’s commissioner, PepsiCo

Summerfare 1989, brought the dancers, designers and technicians together for a final,

intensive six-week residency at SUNY Purchase in preparation for the world premiere of

the 70-minute longSuspect Terrain on July 20, 1989.

The element that made Suspect Terrain remarkable was that it was

improvisational for Tipton and Kuhn as well as for Reitz and the other dancers. What

Reitz was trying to do with Suspect Terrain was to set up an environment where all three

designers could participate in an equal improvisation. She was attempting to set up a

working process to stretch boundaries, to simultaneously push at the limits of dance, the

limits of lighting and the limits of sound, and to do this anew during each performance of

Suspect Terrain. In answering the question of how, or if, light and sound were to play an

integral part in Suspect Terrain, Reitz replied that these elements were very much a part

of the collaborative process and said, “They’re not just added on. I’m trying to get these

basic elements together in a different way from normal stage work where there is light

155 Polly Motley, quoted in Jennifer Dunning, “Setting the Ground Rules For a Dance Improvisation,” New York Times, July 21, 1989.

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that shines on a particular dance that plays to particular music. What we are trying to do

is mix it in around there so that they affect each other differently.”156

Reitz wanted each performance to be distinct—for dancer, designer and

audience member. What she was hoping to achieve was that audience members would

shift their focus across the various elements, both within a single performance as well as

during different performances. Burt Supree in the Village Voice noted the variety of

experiences this shift created: “Having watched a run-through, a dress rehearsal, and the

opening night performance, I’m surprised at how utterly different the performances are,

how varied the material is, yet how consistent the substance seems to be.” While Supree

was aware that the performances were different, he was unsure where these differences

were coming from. He guessed that “the lights are reliable each night, I think, but the

music seems differently mixed each time (one long, stormy section that crashes around

overhead disappeared the second time around—but maybe it just wasn’t quite so

booming).”157

Reitz spoke of the core experience ofSuspect Terrain being centered in

“the change of light and the change of sound and how we change with each other and

i jg [with] that sound and light.” She told Jennifer Dunning that the “three way

interaction,” would lead to unexplored territory: “What I’m hoping is that there will be

156 Dana Reitz, quoted in Elizabeth Dempster, “Situated Knowledge: An Interview with Dana Reitz," Writings on Dance 7, (Winter 1991): 33. 157 Burt Supree, “Magic Box,” Village Voice, August 1, 1989. 158 Dana Reitz, quoted in Georgette Gouveia, “Changes and Suspect Terrain," Gannett Westchester Newspapers, July 16, 1989.

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phasing in and out of each other, that this mix is going to be the unknown.”139 Burt

Supree identified that this way of working created an entirely new genre of performance,

leading artists and audience into previously unsuspected theatrical possibilities. This

allowed the magical qualities of the Reitz-Tipton-Kuhn collaboration to become

something larger than the sum of its parts: “It isn’t, and isn’t meant to be, a piece of

choreography, though it’s very much about dancing. It’s an occasion, a place, an

environment that’s very much alive and in which things happen,” Supree wrote. “Even

the empty theater seems vibrant....The space is magic.”160

From the start of the collaboration forSuspect Terrain , the piece was

about exploring the unknown. Reitz felt that the most effective tool to achieve that goal

was an improvisational process that was developed over a lengthy preparatory period. It

was this process that gave the work its integrity. During a conversation with Mindy Aloff

for The New Yorker, Reitz spoke about the real power and depth that improvisation has

and how it can help create “magic.” Reitz noted that “improvisation can have a bad rep

in this field, but this is not just ‘do what you feel like.’ The process of working gives you

a lot of information, not about a core group of steps, per se, but rather about various

manners of working. We want the dynamics of our dancing to be real, not some fakey

story. That’s what’s taking all the time.”161

159 Dana Reitz, quoted in Elizabeth Dempster, “Situated Knowledge: An Interview with Dana Reitz,” Writings on Dance 7, (Winter 1991): 32-33. 160 Burt Supree, “Magic Box,” Village Voice, August 1, 1989. 151 Dana Reitz, quoted in Mindy Aloff, “Going On About Town,” The New Yorker, July 24, 1989.

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Critic Jon Cummings sensed that the inherent power ofSuspect Terrain

was the result of the long preparatory process in which the collaborators had immersed

themselves. He realized that the foursome got together for as long as they did “not to

choreograph the piece, but to become familiar with each other; not to figure out what

each performer should do in a particular situation, but to enable each dancer to anticipate

what the others might do.”162 It was not only the dancers who engaged in this preparatory

process. During the six weeks prior to the world premiere, “Ms. Tipton, Mr. iCuhn and

their assistants attended each rehearsal, grounding themselves in the dancers’

improvisational world so they could improvise almost as freely.”163 Indeed, living, eating

and working together became as much a part of the collaborative process ofSuspect

Terrain as were the actual rehearsals, which were eventually honed to one highly

intensive hour of improvisation each day and several half-hour segments.164 The nature

of the title was explained by Paxton as reflecting the ongoing nature of this discovery:

“You’ve got a situation in which we have moved improvisation into a full performance

arena in which it is not normally seen, that’s one way of taking the title. We are for each

other also''Suspect Terrain.'' Our histories—who we are—are very much an unfolding

story.”165

162 Jon Cummings, “PepsiCo Summerfare: Purchase, NY, July 6-August 6,” Bulletin: The Association o f Performing Arts Presenters, September 1989. 163 Jennifer Dunning, “Setting the Ground Rules For a Dance Improvisation,” New York Times, July 21, 1989. 164 Ibid. 165 Steve Paxton, quoted in Jennifer Dunning, “Setting the Ground Rules For a Dance Improvisation,” New York Times, July 21, 1989.

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As the house lights faded to black and the dance began, each performance

ofSuspect Terrain became a journey into the unknown. Each dancer had his or her own

individual style and characteristics that together related the geography of Suspect Terrain.

There was no attempt to amalgamate these styles or to homogenize the qualities. Jon

Cummings noted that it was the uniqueness of these styles that created Suspect Terrain:

“Motley with adventurous, puckish leaps; Paxton with stately gestures and non-gestures;

Booth with angular moves and sudden contortions; and Reitz with a catlike grace and

curiosity. Their work was at sometimes awkward, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes

magical.”166 Burt Supree wrote of the solitary nature that the choreography seemed to

embody, rather than the ensemble work that he expected from the foursome, remarking

that he felt it was because they were all so different: “Motley dances from deep in her

body and enjoys getting a little dramatic. Grim-faced Booth is partial to rather designed,

deliberate moves and silky contortions.” In many ways, Reitz performed as if Suspect

Terrain was an extension ofSevere Clear and Circumstantial Evidence. Supree goes on

to describe her movement: “Like a stalky, preening bird, Reitz is characteristically

pristine and cool in her subtly circumscribing arm gestures and precise, elegant legwork.

Yet she’s the most animallike in the way she noses into the space, constantly probing it

with the bony edges of her body.” Conversely, Supree describes Paxton, “odd and

knightly,” who “remains mysteriously opaque in his crooked investigations and often

backs his gestures with very little force, leaving the faintest of imprints.” 167

166 Jon Cummings, “PepsiCo Summerfare: Purchase. NY, July 6-August 6.” Bulletin: The Association o f Performing Arts Presenters , September 1989. 167 Burt Supree, “Magic Box,” Village Voice , August 1, 1989.

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At the opening ofSuspect Terrain each of the four dancers “enters from a

IAB separate comer of the space, like cardinal points of reference.” Over the course of the

work the dancers improvisationally performed their movements within the same highly

structured parameters that previous Reitz pieces had incorporated. Overlaid on these

structures were each dancer’s personal timing, individual response to silence and music,

and unique sensing of light. Each had the freedom to change attitude or timing, to choose

to go with a particular rhythm or against it completely. While the dancers worked

individually in making choices, they did so in the context of the partnership that had been

forged over the long rehearsal period. The result was an array of duets, trios and quartets

with intricate partnering and lifts. Indeed, the dance was so highly complex and

sensitively performed that it misled radio critic Moses Schonfeld into believing that the

work “hardly could have been produced spontaneously.” (Schonfeld questioned whether

the term improvisation “is misapplied if not abused.”)169 Apparently, Schonfeld was

unable to conjure how such intricate movement could not have been pre-plotted. It is a

testament to Reitz and her colleagues that their improvisational virtuosity seemed

inexplicable except as meticulously rehearsed and planned. Noting that while “structured

improvisation doesn’t always hold an audience’s attention,” Camille Hardy declared

Suspect Terrain to be “a spellbinding encounter” with Reitz and her colleagues.170

168 Camille Hardy, “PepsiCo Summerfare, Purchase, NY, July 20-23, 27-30, 1989,” Dance Magazine , February, 1990, 105. 169 Moses Schonfeld, “Dance: Suspect Terrain at PepsiCo Summerfare,” WVOX-AM Radio review, July 26, 1989. 170 Camille Hardy, “PepsiCo Summerfare, Purchase, NY, July 20-23, 27-30, 1989,” Dance Magazine. February, 1990, 105.

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While the dancers were making their choices, Tipton was busy in the

lighting booth and Kuhn on the apron of the performing space improvising their

environments within the parameters of Reitz’s structures. The critical responses were all

very positive in regard to this unique approach to collaboration. As Reitz wished them to

do, each critic found different elements on which to focus each time they saw the piece.

Appreciative of these improvisational techniques, Supree wrote:

What’s absorbing about improvisation when it’s skillful and honest—not necessarily successful—is the nakedness of the dancers’ work, their exemplary courage at flying without a safety net....This improvisation business is demanding, infinitely complex, and terribly real. It’s a matter of making order out of chaos while keeping the options of chaos open. The dancers need to act spontaneously in the moment with all the skills and knowledge of a lifetime. They must give themselves to others yet not lose themselves. Only gods might achieve this, but we can damn well be inspired by these dancers’ attempt.171

Kuhn was very successful in creating different sound environments with

sounds that ranged over a vast array of images: from percussive and industrial to a

thunderstorm; from what sounded like underwater bubbles to voices whispering; from a

duck quacking to a symphony tuning; from people laughing to car traffic. From Kuhn’s

score, Supree was able to identify “a quiet, instructional voice, snatches of classical

music, the occasional sounds of buzzing flies...the faint, pastoral, aural landscape near the

end with its tinkles, drips, distant children’s voices and barking dogs.” He also noted a

particular section in which Motley danced “around while engine-room music knocks at

172 the walls.” In the New York Times, Jack Anderson took note of Kuhn’s “noises that

171 Burt Supree, “Magic Box,” Village Voice , August 1, 1989. 172 Ibid.

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recalled the roaring of winds and the creak of ship’s rigging.”173 In one section, Kuhn

evoked a terrestrial environment with a lone beep, followed by a hushed voice, beep,

voice, beep, voice. This was accompanied by what sounded like the low engine roar of a

rocket blasting off. Kuhn also incorporated silence into the piece, using it in contrast

with more chaotic moments. Kuhn’s choices created an environment in which the

dancers could move according to their own individual impulses. For example, at one

point Reitz and Motley seemed to be dancing the Yin and Yang of the same score.

Motley kept with the tempo, moving in a quick, staccato, marionette fashion. This was

juxtaposed against Reitz’s internal connection to the same music, somehow finding its

soothing, paced groove as if she were underwater, feeling the vibration and bass line of

what others were perceiving as noisy and chaotic.174

Referred to by one critic as “the Picasso of lighting,”173 Tipton was

singled out for her contribution to the collaboration. Jon Cummings noted Tipton’s

brilliant contribution, citing how she “constantly adjusted the texture of the performance

by softening or shifting the space’s illumination, sometimes in conjunction with the

music, sometimes on her own.”176 InDance Magazine , Camille Hardy enthused over the

magnificence of the lighting design and described Tipton’s accomplishment as “the most

173 Jack Anderson, “Four Who Risk the Unpredictable,” New York Times, July 22, 1989. 174 Dana Reitz, Suspect Terrain , PepsiCo Summerfare, Purchase, NY, July 27, 1989. Videocassette. Collection of Dana Reitz. 175 Georgette Gouveia, “Changes and Suspect Terrain ,” Gannett Westchester Newspapers , July 16. 1989. 176 Jon Cummings, “PepsiCo Summerfare: Purchase, NY, July 6-August 6,” Bulletin: The Association o f Performing Arts Presenters, September 1989.

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magical aspect ofSuspect Terrain .”177 Jennifer Dunning wrote that Tipton “has devised

1 lighting that promises to rival her designs forCircumstantial Evidence .”

What the critics were responding to was Tipton’s use of light to create

images previously familiar only from the visual arts. Gouveia saw that Tipton’s light

“seems to caress the dancers’ bodies, like a sculptor modeling clay. (Is there anything

more sensual than the play of light on muscle and bone?).”179 Supree described how

Tipton’s environment was gradually revealed over the course of the work to resemble an

eighteenth-century painting: “You hardly notice the changes early on. But then the space

is split into three ovals areas; hard light glares down strongly from one comer; faint pools

appear on the floor; lights on the ceiling grid and intermittent patches of light on the side

walls turn the theater into a streamlined Piranesi prison.”180 For Gouveia. the painting

that came to mind was more contemporary. She described how the space could be lit to

look like silver bands across the stage floor, or only one side of the stage “scalloped in

* O | shadows, giving it the haunting, cavernous look of Giorgio de Chirico’s painting.”

It was this contrast of brightness and shadow, of clarity and fog, of soft

and hard edges, of white and color, of shimmer and matte that distinguished Tipton’s

lighting, creating new kinds of environments and sensations for dancing. Theater D at

SUNY Purchase was a mammoth, 80 foot-by-80 foot black box theater that Tipton

177 Camille Hardy, “PepsiCo Summerfare, Purchase, NY, July 20-23, 27-30, 1989.” Dance Magazine , February, 1990, 106. 178 Jennifer Dunning, “Setting the Ground Rules For a Dance Improvisation,”New York Times, July 21, 1989. 179 Georgette Gouveia, “Changes and Suspect Terrain ,” Gannett Westchester Newspapers, July 16, 1989. 180 Burt Supree, “Magic Box,” Village Voice , August 1, 1989. 181 Georgette Gouveia, “Changes and Suspect Terrain ,” Gannett Westchester Newspapers , July 16, 1989.

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transformed into an enigmatic ground for dancing. Supree spoke of the “inset lights

almost as multitudinous as stars,” when he described Tipton’s lighting as “the dancers’

true home.”182 Anderson wrote that, as inSuspect Terrain , “there were always shadows

at the edge of the light, shadows from which the dancers emerged and into which they

occasionally returned.”183 In describing another scene from Suspect Terrain , Supree

wrote of how the “side lights make a layer of solid mist, like a ceiling that decisively

divides the space, creates a special hush, and leaves the dancers below it in near

darkness.” Supree captured another element of Tipton’s lighting in describing a scene in

which “Paxton dances more lushly in a red glow, from time to time catching the blinding,

silver edge of a beam we cannot see as he cuts across the space.”184 The audience caught

glimpses and flashes of people leaping and twisting, jumping and spinning through a

solitary crossbeam of light.183

The other quality of Tipton’s light that moved the critics so deeply was its

evanescence, which was seen as a perfect metaphor for the nature of dance. Hardy

described how Tipton “conjured a central sphere of light, soft edged and glistening....As

if choreographed by a wizard, incandescence pulsed and drifted with a life of its own:

revealing, obscuring, enticing surrender to the dancer’s art that shapes itself as we watch

' Burt Supree, “Magic Box,” Village Voice , August 1, 1989. 183 Jack Anderson, “Four Who Risk the Unpredictable,” New York Times, July 22, 1989. 184 Burt Supree, “Magic Box,” Village Voice , August 1, 1989. 185 Dana Reitz, Suspect Terrain, PepsiCo Summerfare, Purchase, NY, July 27, 1989. Videocassette. Collection o f Dana Reitz.

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and then evaporates with the moment.” 186 In an interview with Gouveia, Reitz and

Tipton addressed the idea of reveling in the transitory nature of improvisation:

Light and sound are fleeting. ‘But then, so is performance,’ Tipton says. And that’s a good thing, Reitz says. What matters is the moment. ‘In a sense,’ she says, ‘you don’t need to remember.’187

Georgette Gouveia inGannett Westchester Newspapers astutely observed that what she

believed was at the core of Reitz’s work was the attempt to create a work that would

reflect “the impermanence of things and the fragility of perception in a world of

188 constantly shifting contexts.”

In all, Suspect Terrain was a huge critical success. For Reitz, Tipton and

Kuhn it would forge the bonds for them to lay the groundwork for their next collaboration

much in the same way that Circumstantial Evidence had laid the foundation for Suspect

Terrain. And so the pattern began to solidify for Reitz, with each piece in essence being

a continuation of the previous piece and a preparation for the next. If she followed the

present project it would reveal to her the outline of her next exploration. Her

choreography shows Reitz her next area of interest—which in turn leads her back to her

choreography in a circle of cyclical growth.

186 Camille Hardy, “PepsiCo Summerfare, Purchase, NY, July 20-23, 27-30, 1989,” Dance Magazine , February, 1990, 106. 187 Georgette Gouveia, “Changes and Suspect Terrain ,” Gannett Westchester Newspapers. July 16, 1989. 188 Ibid.

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“The artist must learn to trust and take seriously what she finds in herself; she uncovers it, believes it, performs it.”

--Elizabeth Dempster

The next step in the process of Reitz’s artistic growth was the creation of

Lichttontanz which was co-produced by the Hebbeltheatre in Berlin and the Festival

d’Automne in Paris in April 1991. The title for Lichttontanz came from the German

words for light (licht), sound (ton), and dance (tanz). A collaboration amongst Reitz,

Tipton and Kuhn, Lichttontanz was bom directly out ofSuspect Terrain. In fact, the only

significant design difference was that the costume was designed by Dorothea Katzer

rather than Sally Ann Parsons.

As a collaboration,Lichttontanz kept intact the exploratory qualities that

were set in Suspect Terrain. As in Suspect Terrain, Reitz, Tipton and Kuhn were free to

improvise with their respective elements during each performance. However, in

Lichttontanz, Reitz decided to return to performing solo. She wanted to increase

audience accessibility to the core elements of the collaboration. Reitz had learned from

Suspect Terrain that the presence of four dancers “obstructed access in any depth to the

122

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I OQ given elements of the work.”

Reitz wanted to open access to these elements because she saw

possibilities for even deeper exploration of their abilities for cross-fertilization. She

described the essence of Lichttontanz as blending “sound waves and light waves with the

energy waves of the dancer.”190 Once again it was the process of improvisation that

allowed these elements to mix and re-mix, creating a vital life force of its own. However,

Reitz was pushing further at the boundaries of what improvisation could accomplish.

Carin Kuoni recognized Reitz’s efforts to extend improvisation, writing that “the

improvisatory technique...is there to provide the inflow and outflow, the constant

blending and separation, of the three elements.”191 In other words, improvisation

provided the culturing medium in which these elements would join to create a new form

of performance. Kuoni also noted that “it was a flock of geese, flying overhead in precise

formation, that led Dana Reitz to pose the central question: ‘What is it that connects?’ In

many of its passages Lichttontanz affords an intuition of the basic unity and coherence of

meaning that she so consistently, courageously, and intelligently seeks.”192

The opening ofLichttontanz is a mysterious blend of light, sound and

movement.193 The distant ringing of a ship’s bell is heard over what sounds like a large

189 Dana Reitz, quoted in Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, “Overstepping,” Parkett 30. (1991): 158. 190 Ibid. 191 Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, “Overstepping,” Parkett 30, (1991): 158. 192 Ibid, 159. 193 Except where noted, description of Lichttontanz is based on Dana Reitz, Lichttontanz , 58 min., Hebbeltheatre, Berlin, April 3, 1991. Videocassette. Due to the improvisationa! nature o f the work, details would, of course, have varied from performance to performance. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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animal grunting, panting and tearing at wooden walls. The scene is mostly backlit as

Reitz’s silhouette emerges slowly from the darkness. Her supple, elongated arms extend

from her body like the tentacles of some underwater sea creature gently billowing in an

unseen current. As the lights brighten, her costume--a dress cut just above the ankle,

straight cut across mid-sternum with two wide straps that cross in the back-comes into

view.

As the piece progresses, distinct vignettes emerge. Structured according to

sectional organizing principles, Kuhn’s audio environment provides a soundscape of

complex layering. Kuoni described how “acoustically, Lichttontanz is divided into ten

definable sections. Almost every one of these begins with a simple, flat aural image-

such as rain drumming on a roof, or the rush of a train—over which Kuhn lays strongly

rhythmical elements.” 194 In one section, dripping water can be heard over a train engine.

The sound intermittently lapses into silence or into a sound suggesting that snow is being

compacted underfoot.

Mostly lit from the side, Reitz increases the complexity and momentum of

her movement but still resembles a sea creature, only in a slightly stronger and more

turbulent current. During a synthesized instrumental section accompanied by barely

audible voices chanting ghostly nothings into the auditorium, Reitz appears centerstage

under a spotlight that is focused straight down. The shadow of her head extends for the

length of her body, leaving her entire torso in darkness. From this shadowy central core,

194 Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, “Overstepping," Parkett 30, (1991): 158.

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her arms and legs tassel in the space immediately surrounding the body. Her limbs are

elegantly accentuated by the white down light.

At two points during Lichttontanz, Reitz emerges into the light carrying

long sticks as props. The first time she comes out carrying a six-and-a-half-foot long

bamboo stick. The stick is highly reflective, providing dramatic horizontal contrast to the

tall, slender length of Reitz’s vertical image. Mechanical music was Kuhn’s choice for

this section, providing the impression of being inside the works of a clock. Like a planet

rotating on its own axis as it orbits around the sun, Reitz slowly rotates around herself,

stick at her side, as she simultaneously revolves around the perimeter of the stage.

However, Reitz and the stick turn at different speeds, creating a fascinating juxtaposition.

After a brief blackout, Reitz re-appears wearing her dress pinned up on the

sides and gathered in the front, exposing her legs to the knee. The back of the dress trails

behind like coattails and billows as she prances in repetitions of the same diagonal pass

toward a faint, high-diagonal light from the downstage right comer. Her movement is

fast and quirky, simultaneously moving her torso up and down while her arms and legs

sweep and swing into the lateral space. She then walks back and makes another pass, this

time slightly more urgent in her effort. Trotting back, she makes another pass along the

swath of light as it increases in intensity. After a final pass, she hops downstage out of

the light, turning upstage to watch as the stage fades to black. Throughout this section, a

synthesized scratching sound can be heard under the roar of a far-off jet—or is it perhaps

bubbles traveling upward underwater, or the low roar of water going over Niagara Falls?

The ambiguity of the sound underscores Reitz’s intentional construction of the

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collaboration so that each sound cue, lighting cue and dance movement would be open to

individual interpretation by each audience member. The improvisationa! nature of the

work of each designer virtually guaranteed this outcome. This active search to construct

a personal interpretation is at the core ofLichttontanz 's meaning.

During the next section, the soundscape is that of a train rolling down the

tracks. As the high diagonal light from upstage left begins to grow in intensity, Reitz

emerges walking toward it, an opposite orientation from the path that she had faced in the

earlier scene. Abruptly, the train sound stops and a vast silence opens. Suddenly, Reitz

jumps into quirky, fast-paced, side-to-side gestures as though she were responding to

some unseen, mysterious force. She keeps her orientation toward the high diagonal light

in a theatrical form of sun worship. Allowing the light to warm her face and soften her

shoulders, her movement slows and the high-diagonal light fades. As she gently melts

toward the floor, a simultaneous downlight comes up casting a soft pool of light around

her. As this image grows more and more still, suddenly a synthesized, percussive beat

interrupts the proceedings. In a moment of perceptible decision-making, Reitz chooses to

turn toward the audience and squat with her entire body between her knees as she slowly

retracts her arms and tucks in her head like a giant praying mantis. Evolving from this

image, she remains grounded and low, only standing briefly to reveal a red crossbeam of

light focused just over her head. As she is struck by the beam, she scrambles around

quickly staying low to the ground, gradually slowing until she comes to rest, lying on the

stage for the first time in the piece.

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Reitz lies motionless for a moment before making her way back to her

feet, continuing the exploration of the red beam. Her movement takes her across the

entire width of the stage, in and out of the garnet light. Periodically, she rests on the floor

before embarking on another playful exploration until, finally, she stands in the red light,

obviously resisting the urge to go back below the beam as if she has found some sort of

resolve.

Another shift in the soundscape reveals a vocal jumble of half shouts and

tribal scats. As Reitz stands, one of Tipton’s exquisitely forming pools of downlight

illuminates the lower half of Reitz’s body with white light, while the stronger intensity

red crossbeam illuminates the upper half, dramatically dissecting her at the waist. Reitz’s

movement is very slow and deliberate, again taking her to the floor, where she briefly

settles down cross-legged, before standing again and crossing downstage into the

darkness near the orchestra pit.

From the orchestra pit, Kuhn hands Reitz a prop. During the following

section the sounds of a synthesized organ fill the darkened auditorium, and as the lighting

comes up, Reitz re-emerges from the darkness carrying a four-foot-long copper stick.

Walking directly upstage in very dim sidelight, she begins to swirl the air as if stirring up

the contents of a great soup kettle. Her image is barely discernible. As she stirs and turns

from right to left, an intense crossbeam of light is exposed. She places the stick in the

light and the tube appears to glow red hot against Reitz’s more gently lit body. Kuoni

describes the fantastic moment when the reflective nature of the copper tube is fully

exposed: “It is so brightly lit it becomes a needle of light that seems to be an extension of

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her senses.”195 As the lighting fades on her body and the crossbeam intensifies, each time

the tube passes into the light it showers Reitz with a brilliant orange-red hue from head to

toe. The effect is scintillating and magical. In a bizarrely funny dialogue between dancer

and musician, Reitz meanders about the stage stirring and conjuring as Kuhn’s music

choice shifts into the muffled sound of someone muttering in his sleep, breathing heavily

into a microphone, and finally sampling excerpts ofDiamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend

and humming along. Kuoni noted this odd assembly of soundscape and movement,

remarking that the interconnection had grown over the course of the performances:

The relationship between music, light, and movement in Lichttontanz changed during the season in Berlin. Jennifer Tipton’s lighting remained a constant, but in the last performances Hans Peter Kuhn sometimes responded directly to the dancer’s movements. The interplay of the different elements at once became easier, more tranquil; the dialogue between sound and movement became humorous and rich, especially at one point, where Kuhn whispered gentle popular tunes.196

During the last section, the audio featured a loud wooden cog clicking at

various speeds with distant thunder underneath, which is transformed into wooden

raindrops hitting a wooden roof. Throughout most of this section, there is a faint smile

on Reitz’s face as if she knew a secret she was not going to tell or as though amused at

the thought of something she “picked up” in the air. Perhaps she is simply enjoying that

particular moment of the music, light or movement. At this point, Kuhn seems to take

over and clutter the piece with many different sounds: from a static-filled radio signal to

a yeoman’s whistle blowing in the distance; from a clown horn to a barking dog; from

1,5 Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, “Overstepping,” Parkett 30, (1991): 159. 196 Ibid.

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potato chips being crunched to the clacking of wooden blocks and an assortment of other

kinds of tinks and knocks and bleeps. A.11 the while Reitz seems to be listening to another

music, some inner music that she follows without reservation. In an interview with

FCuoni, Reitz spoke of the loneliness between the internal and external environments of

the piece and how she counters this phenomenon with intense inner focus: “When I’m

working I hear the sound in the body. I am concentrating quite hard and there is a

musicality that is revealed that I keep playing on. Once you get away from pattern and

story-telling in dancing, you can see the phrasing, you can see the breathing.”197

In the ending scene, Reitz dances and is lit in much the same as in the

beginning of the piece which ends, as it had begun, in silence. Suddenly, as if responding

to one of those unseen cues, or perhaps finding her final resolve, she stops moving and

simply walks off across the apron of the stage and exits out a downstage left wing.

Lichttontanz provided a plethora of imagery for the audience. It allowed

the collaborators to create new performance situations, to venture further into uncharted

territory, by creating and deconstructing new ideas through the improvisational structure

provided by Reitz. Kuoni acknowledges this process and explains how Reitz’s

collaborations consistently achieve both critical and artistic success: “Dana Reitz defines

new issues with crystal clarity; she then sets her parameters tightly so as to ensure that the

‘investigation’ bears fruit.”198 What this collaborative environment sets up is a piece that

moves forward in a linear fashion and at the same time never builds on that which was

197 Dana Reitz, quoted in Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt. “Overstepping,” Parkett 30, (1991): 158. 198 Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, “Overstepping,” Parkett 30, (1991): 158.

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just experienced. Kuoni suggests that the process ofLichttontanz is akin to Minimal Art:

“The space in its physical presence is deconstructed: suddenly, although the spectator

does not notice it at first, the stage itself begins to turn. Concepts of space and time, valid

just a second before, collapse; the spectator loses herself or himself in a sphere without

dimensions.” She goes on to say that “as the floor and walls recede, Dana Reitz switches

her own sense of orientation to an inner system of polarity. Its ‘markers.’ as she calls

them, consist of her own intentions, her moods, her bodily sensations, and her

memory.™199

Reitz goes on to explain that one of the parameters she uses in her

choreographic method is grounded in her theory of memory function. Reitz believes that

there are three different types of memory: physical, verbal and the actual image. Once

these ways of interpreting memory are overlaid on top of the choreographic structure that

she devises for a particular piece, Reitz is able to draw on the variation according to need.

When she does a certain movement in a specific part of the stage, it is cataloged into the

different memory receptors. Then, Reitz explains, “later on I hit the same place and the

body just remembers it and does it. Or I may decide with my verbal mind that it’s too

corny and then I interfere with it. It’s this constant fluctuation between interfering,

deciding, listening, holding back, waiting, going forward.”200

In fact, Reitz had been working on this principle for several years with the

goal of perfecting the improvisational technique of giving herself permission to listen to

199 Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, “Overstepping,” Parkett 30, (1991): 158. 200 Dana Reitz, quoted in Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, “Overstepping,” Parkett 30, (1991): 157-8.

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her body’s memory. Taking these kinds of risks in front of an audience was a courageous

experience, but Reitz was convinced that this was indeed a legitimate way to create an

artwork. Reitz’s overarching interest in movement, lighting and music collaboration was

experimental, improvisational and exploratory. It was a process of research and

development, designed to move ahead in a linear fashion, with each collaboration

building on the information that the previous collaboration had panned out.

However, during each individual project the process of finding

information was deconstructive in nature. Earlier, Reitz had explained how she was

examining the contextual and interactive dimensions of light and movement: “You can

take the same kind of movement and hit it with different kinds of light and it will have a

different meaning and a different feeling, even though it’s the exact same movement (or

as close as you can get).”201 In makingLichttontanz , Reitz was essentially functioning as

a scientist concerned with exploring the elements of art. She explained that in

Lichttontanz , “there are modules of time and space and environment and psyche. They

collect for a moment, and then it’s gone. It’s the collection and how it works that I’m

interested in.” This unique process of setting parameters and then entering into a live­

time improvisational situation allows Reitz to engage in internal dialogue with a variety

of aspects of the self which in turn produces an external product for the audience. Kuoni

201 Dana Reitz, quoted in Ann Daly, '‘Dancing in the Dark,” Lighting Dimensions , May/June 1989, 89. 202 Dana Reitz, quoted in Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, ‘'Overstepping,” Parkett 30, (1991): 157-8.

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describes this process as well in saying that the dialogue “constantly enables her body to

bring to the surface surprising images that the spectator perceives as concrete actions.”203

The stick created a new element that could alter the sequence and timing

of the movement. Reitz consciously allowed the stick to be a separate element saying that

“I really try to have the stick have its own time. You have to be really patient for the stick

to turn without being forced.”204 From T’ai Chi principle comes the notion that one can

occupy a space without really physically being in that space. InLichttontanz, Kuoni

identifies this concept as the basis for her analysis of Reitz’s manipulation of the pole as

“secure[ing] for herself a place outside her own body; there is equilibrium between total

concentration on herself and projection into an external space: she takes possession of a

space without ever physically entering it.” Kuoni went on to add that the bamboo pole

also signified the process of the collaboration which she described as “the adoption of a

position at the point of transition between inner and outer environment.” 205 For Reitz,

the pole allowed access to both internal and external conditions: “My position is the shift

from the inside, my internal environment, to the external environment. And with the

stick these two come together. It’s a different kind of tool I use, and it breaks up the

loneliness of it.”206

Kuhn used his computer to create and mix different kinds of music and

sound scores forLichttontanz. Throughout the work he experimented with silence or

203 Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, “Overstepping,” Parkett 30, (1991): 158-9. 2M Dana Reitz, quoted in Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, “Overstepping,” Parkett 30, (1991): 159. 205 Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, “Overstepping,” Parkett 30, (1991): 159. 206 Dana Reitz, quoted in Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, “Overstepping,” Parkett 30, (1991): 159.

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with abruptly cutting off music just as it led to a crescendo as if to directly contradict

what he was trying to create. Kuoni explains that Kuhn was deliberately striving for

effects that would shake the audience’s expectations: “Kuhn has chosen this essentially

destructive position because, as he puts it, this enables events on stage—like events in life-

-to be ‘revitalized’.”207

The Oxford English Dictionary defines imagination as “forming a mental

concept of what is not actually present to the senses.’ Lichttontanz presented the

viewer with an array of visual images that allowed one to conjure an infinite variety of

such conceptions. The collaboration of the three artists presented an array of information

to be processed by the individual imagination. It gave the audience member the

opportunity to formulate his or her own ideas from the raw improvisational material that

Lichttontanz presented. As such, Lichttontanz delivered an abundance of sensory

experiences that allowed each audience member to engage the imagination.

207 Dana Reitz, quoted in Carin Kuoni, translated by David Britt, “Overstepping," Parkett 30, (1991): 159. 208 The Compact Edition o f the Oxford English Dictionary , Vol. I, A-O. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971, 1377.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER TEN-RE-ENTRY

“Believing that underneath what you know already, there's more; and if you trust it, that it will tell you something—Now that’s hard to do.”

—Dana Reitz

After the six-week residency in Berlin, Reitz came back to the United

States and began working on her next choreographic project. By November of 1991, she

was performing again, sharing a bill with Vicky Shick at Judson Church. The

performances had no budget so there were no lights or risers, and visibility was difficult.

The importance of seeing the event regardless of technical accouterments was captured

by Deborah Jowitt when she wrote, “...people stood and craned uncomplainingly. And no

wonder. These days, when too much movement—whether on the big ballet stages or in

downtown black boxes—can seem facile or shapeless, it’s inspiring to see two dancers

who work so deeply in the body, whose every decision seems to come from a powerful

center where movement and feeling understand and respond to one another.”209

Reitz introduced her work by explaining that some day it would have

lighting by Jennifer Tipton and that Tipton’s collaboration would be integral to the

209 Deborah Jowitt, “Rhythm Feasts,” Village Voice, November 21, 1991, 101-102.

134

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overall idea of the, as yet, untitled work. By this time in her twenty-year dancing career,

Reitz had established her unique style of choreography and performance which was based

in improvisational exploration. Her years of commitment to this highly individualized

process had brought her enough critical success that even her presentation of this work-

in-progress was, in Jowitt’s view, a performance not to be missed. Writing in a more

personal tone, Jowitt explains that because she is “busy until eight on Mondays, I’ve had

to bypass all sorts of potential goodies, but willpower and luck got me to most of the

program...”210

Jowitt focused solely on Reitz’s dancing. This simply presented, bare-

bones production signified the first time in years that Reitz had appeared without

elaborate production elements. Jowitt found herself acknowledging the finer techniques

of Reitz’s internal transformations of energy and movement through improvisation: “As

she develops motifs in the silence, she lets us see her thinking, listening, feeling out the

room’s vibrations with her long, sensitive body, pushing her chin into some unseen

current of air, treading gently.” She continued by noticing that through repetition of

motifs, Reitz was able to create unique sequences of movement from one common theme:

“Her gestures—more with arms, head, body, than with legs—invoke different meanings

every time you see them.” In summary, Jowitt remarked that Reitz’s movement alone

could sustain an evening’s performance. She also pointed out how it could stand alone

from its lighting counterpart in writing that “without resorting to any artifice, Reitz

210 Deborah Jowitt. “Rhythm Feasts,” Village Voice , November 21, 1991, 101.

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presents herself as a woman full of emotional tides, responsive to everything in herself

and in the room at the moment of performing.”211

Throughout 1991 and 1992, Reitz was also doing residencies on college

and university campuses across the country and in Canada. In January 1992, Reitz was

brought to American University for a three-week residency. While there, she

choreographed a dance/light piece entitled Light Field on seven graduate students in the

Department of Performing Arts. Reitz was billed as the Director of Movement and Light

and, as in her other projects, the improvisational piece revolved around a specific and

tightly organized structure devised by Reitz. During the residency the students worked

daily with Reitz, both in the rehearsal studio and under theater lights in an attempt to

comprehend the improvisational process that she had perfected. The movement phrases

that were used during the performances were individually created by the performers

during this process, although each had permission to slightly alter his or her timing and

movement during each performance. Light Field premiered in Washington, DC on

March 26, 1992 at the Experimental Theater on the campus of American University.

As an extension of her residencies, Dana Reitz and Jennifer Tipton put

together two workshops entitledDance in Light: Lighting Dance, for Choreographers

and Lighting Designers from September 8-18 and September 22-October 2, 1992.213 The

workshop allowed both Reitz and Tipton the chance to luxuriate with time, to find out

211 Deborah Jowitt, “Rhythm Feasts,” Village Voice , November 21, 1991, 102. 212 Information based on author’s experience andSpring Dance Concert [program]. Experimental Theater, American University, March 26-29, 1992. 213 “Dance in Light, Lighting Dance,” Lighting Dimensions, July/August 1992, 60.

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how to sculpt light, to allow designers to see what light looks like on a choreographer,

and to allow choreographers to light the designers. The entire workshop was designed as

an experimental laboratory for Reitz and Tipton to work with Sarah Rudner on what

would become their next collaborative project as well as an opportunity to allow the

designers to get on stage and be performers and the performers to get into the lighting

booth and be designers. The workshop gave Reitz and Tipton the opportunity to explore

further how light and movement related to each other. During the workshop, Reitz

explained how the process of traditionally lighting dance was based on speed, with little

or no consideration given to the blending and bonding of movement and lighting. In

traditional technical rehearsals, movement and lighting were kept separate until they

collided one week before the premiere. Reitz and Tipton were actively searching for

what would be panned out with patience on the stage and in the lighting booth. In her

own words, Reitz defined the workshop as the chance “to see what actually happens if

you give it time.”214 At the conclusion of the second workshop, Reitz, Tipton and Rudner

presented a culmination of their workshop experience in an informal work-in-progress at

the Kitchen for invited guests that was closed to the press.

When not collaborating with Tipton and Rudner, Reitz continued her solo

investigation into the fields that had been precipitated by the workshops and eventually

presented the resultant work, Re-Entry , at the Painted Bride Arts Center in Philadelphia

on November 20, 1992. Re-Entry was shorter than traditional Reitz pieces, consisting of

214 Dana Reitz quoted from post-performance discussion ofRe-Entry , New Arts Program, Painted Bride Arts Center, Philadelphia, PA, November 20, 1992. Videocassette. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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twelve “states of light” that were focused in different areas of the stage and in different

combinations of color and direction. Each had a pre-set time of one-minute-and-thirty-

seconds with a twenty-second crossfade.215 The entire piece ran about twenty-five

minutes and was performed in silence. During Re-Entry , Reitz’s major focus was to play

with the rhythms and ideas of entering a pool of light then leaving it, coming back and

leaving, coming back and leaving. The piece was an amalgam of every movement that

Reitz had ever done. Since Reitz only performs every few years, rationing out her

movement repertoire, the viewer’s eye tends to identify certain sequences and memory

phrases that Reitz re-visits as being exclusively Reitz’s. The movement repertoire is at

once relatively small and at the same time infinite because of the work’s improvisational

nature.

In her review of Re-Entry, Nancy Goldner pointed out how small

movements generated a dramatic flair: “Reitz moves in small increments, and her range

of movement is small. But the precision with which she moves, magnifies everything she

does....she is one of the best improvisers in the business, because she does, indeed, make

thinking physically palpable.” Continuing, Goldner noted how the post-performance

discussion was almost as riveting as the performance itself: “Most of the questions dealt

with her use of light. She answered them as meticulously as she moved, going as far as

to cite the brand names of gels she favored and their specific numbers.”216 During the

215 Dana Reitz quoted from post-performance discussion ofRe-Entry, New Arts Program, Painted Bride Arts Center, Philadelphia, PA, November 20, 1992. Videocassette. Collection of Dana Reitz. 215 Nancy Goldner, “At the Bride, Reitz Trips the Light Fantastic,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 23, 1992.

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discussion, Reitz described that one of the hardest things for her to do was to take the

time while performing to wait for an emotional response to initiate her physical

movement:

I love taking the time and I think that’s been the hardest thing over the last twenty years that I’ve been doing this. I remember the first years of panicking all the time about ‘waiting’, that the adrenaline would surge and then the fear would be that I’d have to, quick get it in, or you’d be bored. And it would kill it every time. The impulse to prove or to show destroys the real moment. As in music, or anything else, that if you try to predict the outcome, if you try to force the resolve- -it’s flat. In dancing, it’s so strange that so much of the training is to be either on the beat or to present and it’s awfully hard to believe that you have enough material, tons of material, underneath all of that if you just let go of that idea. And it’s just an incredible bunch of stuff down there to do and it’s such a relief finally to step out o f the predicting point of view and to give in, in a way, to the unknown. It’s very frightening. But in the end if you have a simple structure, you set yourself up in a way that’s comforting and allows you to dig deeper and you set your frame and you set your limits. Then you can go for it. 17

Reitz went on to describe how Re-Entry was a piece dealing with trusting

emotionally what was underneath the surface within herself. She said that all her works

were about giving herself the chance to take the time and to discover what she could from

the experience. Reitz also knew that there were precise conditions under which these

investigations were best suited and she built her career on creating and performing in

those environmental conditions. The resident lighting designer at the Painted Bride said

of Reitz’s performances that it was “the first time that the Painted Bride has ever had a

full black-box theater where you can work with the darkness and light at the same time.

She asked me to do that, and no other artist has asked me to do that before but we did it

217 Dana Reitz quoted from post-performance discussion ofRe-Entry , New Arts Program, Painted Bride Arts Center, Philadelphia, PA, November 20, 1992. Videocassette. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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and it was beautiful. It works in terms of the dialect between darkness and light just like

between silence and sound.... You have to understand your darkness and I think this is a

i t o performer that well understands that.”

218 Post-performance discussion ofRe-Entry, New Arts Program, Painted Bride Arts Center. Philadelphia, PA, November 20, 1992. Videocassette. Collection o f Dana Reitz.

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“Necessary Weather is a completely original work-one of those breakthroughs that teaches us to question our assumptions about what we thought possible in theater, and that expands the possibilities of the dance universe.”

—Suzanne Carbonneau

In July 1993, Reitz’s next major collaboration.Necessary Weather,

premiered at the Festival d’Avignon in France. Like most major works by Reitz, it was a

collaboration, this time involving contributions by Reitz, Tipton and Sarah Rudner. The

costume for the piece was designed by Santo Loquasto and the work was performed in

silence.

Sarah Rudner, best known for her pioneering work as a dancer with

choreographer Twyla Tharp, had also been choreographing her own work since the late

1960s. 219 In this earlier work, she had been interested in exploring silence as

accompaniment, in collaborating with visual artists, and in creating works that would

break with conventional time frames and occasions. These included the five-hour quartet

Dancing On View, and three evening-length solos, Some “ Yes ” and More; 33 Dances',

and As Is As Solo. In 1975, she founded the Sara Rudner Performance Ensemble which

219 Biographical information on Sarah Rudner found inNecessary Weather [program]. New York City, The Kitchen, March 3-6 & 9-13, 1994. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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presented more conventional dance forms throughout the United States and Europe. Like

Reitz. Rudner was a John Simon Guggenheim fellow and had received choreographic

fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. She also had received a “Bessie”

in 1984 for outstanding achievement in dance in acknowledgment of her performing

career with Tharp.

After twenty-four years of honing and perfecting this highly individual

style of choreography and performance, Reitz put a name to the new performance form

that she and Tipton had created. Necessary Weather was subtitled “A Choreography of

Light and Movement.” The program described the work as:

an inquiry into the climates of light and movement....Each artist has contributed to the creation of the movement, lighting design and performance of the work. This work aims in part to dispel some preconceived ideas of what the interrelationship of movement and light actually is, what the color of light does or means in an emotional context, how the external forces of environment (as created by light) mix with the internal forces of self (as evidenced in movement), how the interrelationship of the performers affects and is affected by the whole. It further aims to find a way to present these elements to “begin to touch the mystery.” The atmosphere is continually shifting; the “climate” is always in flux. Necessary Weather is a journey, in silence, along the edges of dream and real time.220

After Avignon and performances at the Dance Umbrella in London during

October 1993, Necessary Weather received its American premiere at the Kitchen on

March 3, 1994. For the performances, Reitz and Tipton had transformed The Kitchen

into a black box that was not only sealed off from every bit of extraneous light but that

also seemed to swallow up the beams as they left the lighting instruments. In preparation

220 Necessary Weather [program], New York City, The Kitchen, March 3-6 & 9-13, 1994. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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for the work, Tipton and Reitz had meticulously covered all the lighting instruments with

half-hats—cylindrical metal cans, cut lengthwise in half and muzzled onto the barrel of the

lighting instruments so that they shielded the source of the emission of light from the

audience. By focusing the lights slightly higher than the floor, Tipton kept any spill from

becoming visible to the audience. The result was, in Jowitt’s words, that when “Rudner

and Reitz dance in and out of low beams, their passages into brightness or dark take us

utterly by surprise.”221

In Necessary Weather, there seem to be no true, constant light beams, but

rather pulses that slowly, gradually, gently arise at the location of the lighting instrument

and travel along the trajectory on which the instrument is focused. While in the air, the

light illuminates Reitz or Rudner, before it is swallowed up by the blackness on the other

side of the theater. One gets the impression that, as these invisible bullets of light fly

through the air, Reitz and Rudner are acutely aware of their existence even if the audience

is not. Only when the dancers want to use the light to reveal something—a movement

phrase, an eruption of the psyche—was the audience made aware of existence of these

beams which were dubbed the “third partner” by the collaborators. In an interview

Tipton explained how the project was about “going deeper into the place within us—the

psyche.” Tipton went on to speak about the meaning of the titleNecessary Weather: “It

did not set out to be an exercise. It was about doing the movement and responding to the

energy, color, the intensity of the light, and how that light makes you feel. In that sense,

” ! Deborah Jowitt, “Alight,” Village Voice , March 22, 1994, 87.

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222 it is indeed weather.” These philosophies of lighting and attention to detail elevated

Tipton from a lighting designer to a full collaborator.

Necessary Weather begins with Reitz and Rudner on the stage

contemplating the light as it comes up. Reitz rises to her feet and dances a solo, followed

by Rudner doing the same. These solos established the core motifs of the dance. In a

report for the National Endowment for the Arts, Suzanne Carbonneau described the

stylistic differences that formed the basic choreographic material of the work: “Rudner’s

[solo] is sensual and expansive, seeming to enlarge as the light strikes her; Reitz is all

fluid responsiveness, seeking out the warmth of the light with all parts of her body—neck,

elbow, side of head, toes; she seems to scent the air for the light, gathering it to her with

Zen-like concentration and serenity.” As she had in previous work, once again, Reitz

created a tightly structured set of rules from which she and Rudner generated movement.

These rules were designed to allow the performers to retain their distinct styles. Jowitt

observed these differences in movement quality, writing that “even dancing in unison,

they might be speaking bewitchingly different dialects.”224 Together, they created a

constantly shifting movement climate, responsive to the light and to each other, that had a

meditative tone. Jowitt described this quality: “Reitz and Rudner—by turns meditative,

matter-of-fact, playful, conspiratorial—never relinquish the thoughtful serenity that makes

their every action luminous in its own right.”225 [Figure 35].

222 Jennifer Tipton quoted in Anna Kisselgoff, “A Dance That Literally Lights Up,”New York Times, April 24, 1994. 223 Suzanne Carbonneau, “Dana Reitz,” Unpublished report. National Endowment for the Arts, 1994. 224 Deborah Jowitt, “Alight,” Village Voice , March 22, 1994, 87. 225 ,u : a

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After each had finished her solo, the two dancers bowed to each other,

then briefly met to touch hands. The work went on to explore variations on the solo

material as evoked by the various “climates” that Reitz and Rudner encountered over the

course of the dance in Tipton’s lightscapes. Throughout the work Reitz and Rudner

countered dramatically different lighting designs with various shifts of emotional energy.

Jowitt described how Tipton manifests “a world of lights to respond to: barely visible

glimmer, glare, magic circles, beams that weighed the dancers down, a small glow that

could nest in an inverted hat, gleaming waterfalls.”226 Interspersed throughout Necessary

Weather's lightscapes are sections where Reitz and Rudner are lit by various intensities

and angles of sidelight. The light is so expertly crafted that the dancers seem to be the

source of the light. Light becomes palpable as Reitz and Rudner knife through severe

cones from above; touch the light like water, pouring it over themselves; and use its

edges and its shadows to make entrances and exits. One lightscape featured a big pool of

central light that the collaborators called “the pond” and four smaller circular pools they

called “lily pads.”227 Carbonneau described the pond as a climate that both divided and

united the dancers, writing that it “creates physical and emotional demarcation between

the dancers.” 228 In one scene, Rudner, illuminated by a soft wash of side light, crosses

from stage left to right at the same time that Reitz is crossing along the back of the stage,

her silhouette created from the dimly lit blue cyclorama which acts as backlight. In one

of the works most dynamic images, the silhouetted Reitz walks circles into upstage

226 Deborah Jowitt, “Cardiac Arrest,” Village Voice , January 3, 1995, 78. 227 Anna Kisselgoff, “A Dance That Literally Lights Up,” New York Times, April 24, 1994. 228 Suzanne Carbonneau, “Dana Reitz,” Unpublished report. National Endowment for the Arts, 1994.

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center, she takes a straw hat from her head and holds it inverted in her hands at waist

height. Simultaneously. Rudner enters from the opposite side and, as the two meet at

centerstage, the hat (which is actually catching an intensely focused pin-spotlight before

it hits the floor) begins to glow as if it were the source of the light. The critical timing of

both dancer and lighting designer required to achieve this effect bear testament to the

meticulous care, craftsmanship and experimentation that Necessary Weather demanded of

its collaborators.

As important as the visual elements ofNecessary Weather were, the

emotional elements (i.e. the way in which the lighting made the dancers feel) was

regarded as equally important by its creators. What they were after in the work was no

less than discovering the mysteries of the dynamic interplay between light and

movement. In the process of creation, the collaborators used the theater as a laboratory,

conducting experiments to discover what would happen as they varied the elements of

light and movement. When working out her designs, for example, Tipton would always

stand in the lighting she created in an attempt to uncover the interconnectedness of light

and movement. The result of this intensive experimentation were discoveries that

allowed Tipton to create effects that made the dance and light inseparable to the extent

that the dancers themselves seemed to be conduits for the light. Kisselgoff wrote that

Reitz and Rudner “seem, in fact, to radiate light, and more significantly, the viewer’s

perception is that light and movement are perfectly fused, that one cannot be considered

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229 without the other.” Carbonneau captured this relationship between light and

movement, describing how Necessary Weather was breaking new ground in the dance

world: “Its achievement is to demonstrate a complete fusion between light and

movement, that one medium does not exist independently of the other. It is at once

radically experimental, and perfectly and professionally realized.”230 [Figure 36].

Tipton had enjoyed enormous critical and artistic success prior to

Necessary Weather, but this collaboration superseded even her best work by an order of

magnitude. Kisselgoff noted the conceptual and technical leaps Tipton had made here:

“Many of her productions, including Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room , have virtually

revolutionized our view of how choreography can be affected by an external element. In

Necessary Weather, she goes one step further. The dancing here becomes a function of

the lighting, which is made to look as if it emanates from the dancer’s bodies or becomes

the dominant force that determines their behavior.”231 Noting that if the lighting had not

changed throughout the work, the image simply would be that of two dancers wearing

white shirts and pants, Kisselgoff pointed out how “the viewer’s expectations are

constantly challenged by the changing relationship between dancing and lighting. The

choice and quality of movement become as important as what could be only called the

light’s own choreography, so extensive is its range of texture and intensity.”232 Tobi

~ Anna Kisselgoff, “Chemistry of Movement and Light,” New York Times, March 9, 1994. 230 Suzanne Carbonneau, “Dana Reitz,” Unpublished report. National Endowment for the Arts, 1994. 231 Jennifer Tipton quoted in Anna Kisselgoff, “Chemistry of Movement and Light,”New York Times, March 9, 1994. 232 Anna Kisselgoff, “Chemistry of Movement and Light,” New York Times, March 9, 1994.

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IGDRE 36

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Tobias also noted the magical lightscapes that Tipton generated, writing that she had the

“ability to make illumination create a world of wonders.”233

It is rare for dance critics to even notice lighting, but in this case they

focused as much on the stunning lighting design by Tipton and how it functioned as

weather for the piece as they did on the tightly structured, improvisational movement.

Arlene Croce recognized Tipton’s collaborative efforts as providing the emotional carpet

of the work: “There was no music, but the lighting acted as a kind of music, now

enclosing the dancers in space, now casting them adrift in an ambiance of shadows.”234

Jowitt, too saw the light as providing the kind of tone usually associated with music:

“Tipton shows us in mysterious, startlingly beautiful collisions how light affects the

temper of movement.” She went on to describe how “Tipton’s ravishing Iight-paintings

nudge at them like• dreams.” 235 Throughout the work, the dancers were affected by

numerous lighting climates. From this exposure, they explore both movement and

emotion while “they respond to a variety of exquisitely modulated landscapes of light

provided by Tipton.”236

The critical acclaim for Necessary Weather was nothing short of

extraordinary. It was unanimously acknowledged that Necessary Weather represented an

exciting new approach in dance that left a lasting impression on its viewers. In her year-

end wrap-up for the Village Voice, Jowitt led off with Necessary Weather: “This unusual

233 Tobi Tobias, “Dance: Necessary Weather," New York, March 21, 1994, 65. 234 Arlene Croce, “Behind White Oaks,” New Yorker, March 28, 1994, 103. 235 Deborah Jowitt, “Alight,” Village Voice, March 22, 1994, 87. 236 Suzanne Carbonneau, “Dana Reitz,” Unpublished report. National Endowment for the Arts, 1994.

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collaboration between two great dancers and a brilliant lighting designer who was once a

• » 1 1 7 dancer illumined 1994 in the most profound way.” Kisselgoff noted the necessity for

serious dancegoers to see the work, writing that “in a season filled with tired ideas, this

genuine experiment...is* • not to be missed.” 238 Kisselgoff was struck so profoundly by the

work that she revisited it in an extensive essay in which she addressed its originality,

writing that, “every dance performance uses theatrical lighting, but none has explored the

interaction of light and movement with such striking originality asNecessary

Weather.” 239 Carbonneau searched for the words to describe the impact of Necessary

Weather on the art form: “It is difficult to describe how startlingly original this concept

is because it goes so far beyond what any of us have experienced about stage light and

how it makes us see movement.” She emphasized that Necessary Weather was a huge

leap forward in theatrical experimentation that would change how people thought of

dance. She called it “a work of rare beauty and daring, which asks us to re-imagine the

possibilities for fusing form and content, and which succeeds in making us do so.”240

Jowitt finished her year-end wrap-up by noting the way in which Necessary Weather

achieved its haunting effects: “This beautifully considered, thoroughly contemporary

work slid into the mind and heart—as haunting as if these were creator priestesses

I brushing earth from rituals buried in the collective unconscious.”

237 Deborah Jowitt, “Cardiac Arrest,” Village Voice , January 3, 1995, 78. 238 Anna Kisselgoff, “Chemistry of Movement and Light,”New York Times, March 9, 1994. 239 Anna Kisselgoff, “A Dance That Literally Lights Up,” New York Times, April 24, 1994. 240 Suzanne Carbonneau, “Dana Reitz,” Unpublished report. National Endowment for the Arts, 1994. 241 Deborah Jowitt, “Cardiac Arrest,” Village Voice , January 3, 1995, 78.

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Necessary Weather was the collaboration that permanently etched Reitz

into the consciousness of the dance world. The dance community openly embraced the

work as historically significant, ground-breaking and revolutionary. In assessing the

significance ofNecessary Weather and its historical impact on the dance field,

Carbonneau wrote, “The discourse of the field is forever changed by the existence of this

work.”242

242 Suzanne Carbonneau, “Dana Reitz,” Unpublished report. National Endowment for the Arts, 1994.

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“As dancers, we don't have to prove anything to anyone. At least I don't. I want to do work that is important for me, and hopefully for the audience.”

—Mikhail Baryshnikov

On June 29, 1995, Reitz's next work, Unspoken Territory , a twenty-minute

solo, had its premiere at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. As were most of her previous

works, it was danced in silence and had lighting by Jennifer Tipton. Like Necessary

Weather, it was costumed by Santo Loquasto. Reitz, however, did not perform the piece.

The great dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov had attended a performance of

Necessary Weather in New York and had found himself so captivated by the work that he

returned for a repeat viewing. Nine months later, he approached Reitz about working

with him, requesting that she choreograph on him in her intense, highly structured,

tremendously individualized style of work.

From his first appearances in Russia, Baryshnikov had been regarded as a

phenomenon, and “the aura of legend hovered over each turn of his career in Russia and

in the West.”243 He is usually spoken of, along with Nijinsky, as possibly the greatest

classical dancer of all time. When he had defected to the West in 1976, he had declared

243 Gennady Smakov, The Great Russian Dancers. New York: Knopf, 1984, 239.

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himself in search of new artistic challenges, and performed with modem choreographers

including Twyla Tharp, Martha Graham, Paul Taylor and Frick Hawkins. Since retiring

from classical dancing, he had been exploring the modem dance repertory through his

White Oak Dance Project. Up until that point, the White Oak repertory had been, for the

most part, aesthetically mainstream, with a focus on highly technical dancing. In

describing his latest exploration, Mike Steele wrote: “It was 22 years ago that Mikhail

Baryshnikov...made his celebrated grand jete across the Atlantic, leaving the Kirov Ballet

for the United States and a chance to explore his artistic curiosity freely. This week

Baryshnikov...[will be] dancing an austere modem work alone with no sets, in silence-

still exploring.”244

His request of Reitz would take Baryshnikov as far afield aesthetically as

he had ever gone. Reitz’s dance values—moving from the inside out with a focus on

immediacy—were almost the complete opposite of ballet and of those qualities of bravura

dancing on which Baryshnikov had built his legend. Deborah Jowitt identified how far

afield this commission was for Baryshnikov. He had, she wrote, “invited a variety of

choreographers—many from modem or postmodern dance—to use him, work him, feed

him new ideas, transform him. Of these adventures, none has been more unlikely or

braver than commissioning Dana Reitz to make a solo for him.”243 Reitz, commenting on

the artistic chasm in style between herself and Baryshnikov, said of working with him: “I

enjoy it very much. I think it’s interesting. I think it’s risky. He’s a border-crosser.

244 Mike Steele, “Baryshnikov Leaping Into New Dance Roles,”Star Tribune , April 26, 1996. 245 Deborah Jowitt, “Take It Away!,” Village Voice , July 18, 1995, 69.

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He’s brave in a lot of choices. We’re from completely different worlds, yet we’re in the

same place at the same time. I think that’s what makes it work. We’re connected, but

we’re different.”246 In many ways, Baryshnikov proved much more adventuresome than

some critics and viewers who found themselves unable to accept this new image of their

favorite ballet superstar.

On the other hand, in some ways the commission made perfect sense.

Baryshnikov, “unquestionably the greatest male dancer of our generation,”247 was seeking

to work with Reitz “one of the most rigorous and brilliant choreographers of her

generation.”248 Both Reitz and Baryshnikov were 48 years old and had developed

reputations as dedicated artists pursuing highly honed visions. Baryshnikov spoke of

why he sought out Reitz, saying, “I’ve always liked her work and style. After one show,

I approached her about working together, and she asked if I minded working in silence. I

said I would love to try it.”249 Marianne Flagg explained that Baryshnikov “had long

wanted to perform the boundary-stretching modem dance of choreographers like Dana

Reitz.”250

Both artists connected on a level of artistic maturity. Recognizing their

ages as a positive force, Reitz said that “it’s real, and I’m not afraid of it. And neither is

246 Dana Reitz, quoted in Anne Marie Welsh, “Baryshnikov About to Turn Up the Light,” San Diego Union-Tribune , April 16, 1996. 247 Robert Freedman, quoted in L. Erik Bratt, “Baryshnikov to Bring Tour to Escondido,”San Diego Union-Tribune , February 29, 1996. 248 Mike Steele, “Baryshnikov’s Eloquent Program Focuses on Essentials of Dance,”Star Tribune , April 26, 1996. 249 Mikhail Baryshnikov, quoted in R. M. Campbell, “At 48, Baryshnikov Still Loves Dancing,” Des Moines Register , April 28, 1996. 230 Marianne Flagg, “Baryshnikov, Reitz Stretch the Boundaries,” Idaho Statesman, April 5, 1996.

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he. I mean you struggle with it, but then you make pieces that are suited to you. You just

take away several expectations and try a different approach. There’s a depth to the

questioning and the emotions. You don’t want to be cute about it.” 251 Baryshnikov also

saw his age as a positive factor in performance, noting that “as an older dancer you learn

tricks of the trade. I can afford to do less now, to make silences and static moments

communicate, take things easier and, hopefully, deeper. It’s a very exciting time for me,

full of challenges. It’s keeping me on my toes.”252

Although Unspoken Territory showcased the virtuosity of Reitz, Tipton

and Baryshnikov, the underlying importance of the work, as in any of Reitz’s creations, is

that of revealing its performer. In order to do this, the performer needs to achieve a level

of consciousness where exploration of self can take place and that can be a very difficult

task—no matter the “technical” competence of the dancer. Baryshnikov had never before

approached performance from this perspective and he was taken aback when he

discovered what was involved in it. He had expected that Reitz would simply

demonstrate steps that he would be able to reproduce, but Reitz let him know that that

way of working bypassed the essence of her choreography. She spoke about their initial

contact, explaining that Baryshnikov had to allow himself to enter theprocess rather than

the product of creation: “I think at first he thought I’d just make a piece for him, but I

said, T don’t know you, so it will take a while.’ I’m used to doing my own solos, very

251 Dana Reitz, quoted in Mike Steele, “Baryshnikov Leaping Into New Dance Roles,” Star Tribune. April 26, 1996. 252 Mikhail Baryshnikov, quoted in Mike Steele, “Baryshnikov Leaping Into New Dance Roles,” Star Tribune , April 26. 1996.

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personal work. So I had to spend time with him, see who he is, what his natural timing

was, how he entered a room, his speed, his humor; it takes a while. And I asked him how

he felt about dancing in silence.”253

Reitz, who usually does not choreograph for other people, was faced with

a tremendous challenge in working with the former ballet superstar, but she admitted that

she “was very interested in finding out who he was, really, and to make a solo that suited

him, to try to find out his timing....You know he’s very distinctive and different.”254

After long, intense hours in the studio together working improvisationally—something

Baryshnikov had never done before and which he found extremely difficult— Reitz and

Baryshnikov created Unspoken Territory. The piece proved a tremendous challenge to

Baryshnikov who was being asked to reveal himself improvisationally with no technique

to “hide” behind. Arlene Croce has observed that “Baryshnikov’s dancing is in his own

showmanship. His acting tends to be a cover for his personality, not a revelation of it,”233

and here Reitz was structuring a work in which he appeared “naked” and vulnerable, as

he was asked to draw on his own inner resources, personality and temperament to create

the work anew with each performance. In speaking of the development of the piece,

Reitz said: “I created it with him. It’s not me—it’s him. For me, creating dance is all

about concentration. You’re always deciding things, even in performance. It’s about

233 Dana Reitz, quoted in Mike Steele, “Baryshnikov Leaping Into New Dance Roles.”Star Tribune , April 26, 1996. 254 Dana Reitz, quoted in Jean Lenihan, “Dancing with Baryshnikov—Choreographer Dana Reitz Creates Some New Moves for the Ballet Star,”Seattle Times, April 11, 1996. 255 Arlene Croce, quoted in Gennady Smakov, The Great Russian Dancers. New York: Knopf, 1984, 242.

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discovery. I’m on a journey. Always.”256 Baryshnikov addressed the challenge of

working with Reitz: “It was a great challenge, certainly, because she was a minimalist

choreographer and she uses an improvisational technique, and I’ve never done anything

like that. I’ve never tried to work in silence before, either.” Baryshnikov understood that

Reitz’s work is “controlled improvisation—it’s not just anything goes. There are certain

moments where you take chances with the timing; that’s very much in your

discretion.”257

Baryshnikov had never before performed in silence, and the experience

was revelatory, both for himself and for his audience who were able to see him dance

based on his own rhythmic impulse. In addressing the use of silence in Unspoken

Territory Reitz said: “Silence is very musical and it allows for so many things, so many

different phrasings. You aren’t locked into musical time. It’s an internal music that

emerges, but it isn’t easy. You can’t hide the music. It forces you to create, to feel

things, to take risks. At first, Misha [Baryshnikov] worked on the shape of the dance, the

mechanics. Over time, he’s performed it a lot, throughout Europe, and he’s brought more

and more nuances to it.” Reitz spoke of the impact that silence would have on

Baryshnikov, saying that “silence reveals his musicality. The nice thing about silence is

that you can hear your own timing, the pulse of the movement. It’s a nice open field for

256 Dana Reitz, quoted in Marc Shulgold, “Dancer’s Partners are Silence, Light," Rocky Mountain News, April 19, 1996. 257 Mikhail Baryshnikov, quoted in Jean Lenihan, “Dancing with Baryshnikov-Choreographer Dana Reitz Creates Some New Moves for the Ballet Star,”Seattle Times, April 11, 1996. 258 Dana Reitz, quoted in Mike Steele, “Baryshnikov Leaping Into New Dance Roles,” Star Tribune, April 26, 1996.

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many possibilities.”259 Baryshnikov also addressed the use of silence: “A solo in silence

is a great responsibility. You have so many choices to make in each second and it

changes depending on the size of stage, the depth, the audience response. It’s never the

same, and that’s cool.”260 Describing the focus and concentration required to perform in

silence Reitz said, “It’s an intense experience and one that doesn’t require music.”261

Steele also pointed out that the use of silence helped in “creating mysterious, emotional

pieces motored by the dancer’s inner harmonies.”262 Reitz believes that Baryshnikov was

courageous in “allowing me to take away some of the trappings, like music, that you

usually see when Baryshnikov performs. And the movement chosen for him was very

different from his usual style, there’s a kind of finesse there.” Reitz continued,

explaining that when the audience experiences Baryshnikov dancing in silence “more of

his own timing, his music, comes through in the work. So you sort of see him more.”263

Unspoken Territory began the same way as did most of Reitz’s and

Tipton’s collaborations--in absolute darkness, silence and anticipation. As Baryshnikov

becomes visible, the audience sees him dressed in a yellow-orange, pleated tunic “that

makes him look like a figure off an Egyptian wall.”264 As the lights come up,

Baryshnikov begins to move purposefully around the stage responding to and guided by

259 Dana Reitz, quoted in Anne Marie Welsh, “Baryshnikov About to Turn Up the Light,” San Diego Union-Tribune, April 16, 1996. 260 Mikhail Baryshnikov, quoted in Mike Steele. “Baryshnikov Leaping Into New Dance Roles,” Star Tribune , April 26, 1996. 261 Dana Reitz, quoted in Marc Shulgold, “Dancer’s Partners are Silence, Light,” Rocky Mountain News, April 19, 1996. 252 Mike Steele, “Baryshnikov Leaping Into New Dance Roles,” Star Tribune , April 26, 1996. 253 Mikhail Baryshnikov, quoted in Jean Lenihan, “Dancing with Baryshnikov—Choreographer Dana Reitz Creates Some New Moves for the Ballet Star,”Seattle Times, April 11, 1996. 254 Deborah Jowitt, “Take It Away!,” Village Voice, July 18, 1995, 69.

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Tipton’s various lightscapes. The choreography of the piece made it seem as if he were

on some kind of journey. Many critics likened Baryshnikov to a time-traveler as he

progressed through the expedition with a succession of movements that resembled has

relief from ancient Greek or Egyptian times. For Jack Anderson, the choreography

“suggested that Mr. Baryshnikov was making an expedition through a wilderness of light

and darkness.”263 Deborah Jowitt described Baryshnikov in Reitz’s work as an Egyptian

figure,

maybe thrown into outer space. Intent, aware, deliberate, he probes Tipton’s spare, luminous landscape—tracking along the edges of a triangle, dipping into a pool. Sometimes he seems soft enough to melt, his arms lightly brushing the air around his head; the next minute he may explode in a chain of wrenching turns or reiterate floppy, spraddle-legged jumps or walk matter-of-factly towards us.266

Douglas McLennan also noted the inner focus of Reitz’s work in describing Baryshnikov

as “a kind of private muse, a dancer working on the meaning of his movements. He

executes turns, jumps, spins, then ponders what they mean, how they fit together. He

even ‘corrects’ himself in mid-dance, changing his steps in search of expressing

himself.”267 Describing how Reitz’s choreography in Unspoken Territory was at once

pedestrian and artistic, Lewis Segal said that she “exploited contrasts between

deliberately mundane gesture and heightened, engulfing expressivity.” " Anderson

265 Jack Anderson, “Light, Shadow and the Music of Silence,” New York Times, August 20, 1995. 266 Deborah Jowitt, “Take It Away!,” Village Voice , July 18, 1995, 69. 267 Douglas McLennan, “Baryshnikov Explores Music-Dance Connection,”News Tribune , April 15, 1996. 268 Lewis Segal, “Dance Review; Mastering Modernism; White Oak Troupe Toys With the Rules,” Los Angeles Times , April 18, 1996.

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noted that “the whirlings in passages of wild turns could be physical counterparts of

spinning thoughts.”269 Welsh described how the niece “creates an expansive world,

aurally and visually.”270

Indeed, as in all of Reitz’s works, lighting played an essential part. By this

time Reitz and Tipton had been involved in collaborating on many projects and had spent

countless hours in darkened theaters honing their unique performance form. In Segal’s

review o f Unspoken Territory, he pointed out how the nature of Reitz’s work exhibits

what “Reitz has called ‘the fluctuating dynamics of motion, thought and intuition,’

emphasizing processes of change that are often defined by the lighting designer as much

as the choreographer. Where music and dance are partners in other people’s work,

lighting and dance form the essential relationship in Reitz’s.”271 Writing in the

Washington Post about the lighting and the shadows that it created, Sarah Kaufman noted

Baryshnikov’s inner choices: “Mostly he toyed with the darkened expanse, experimenting

with repeated gestures, giving them a ritualistic treatment.”272 Segal also described how

“Baryshnikov often danced just outside the light, as if he didn’t belong in its warmth and

was trying to circle it or (at one point) measure it.”273

269 Jack Anderson, “Light, Shadow and the Music of Silence,” New York Times, August 20, 1995. 270 Anne Marie Welsh, “CCA Debut Shows the Other Side of Misha.” San Diego Union-Tribune, April 18, 1996. 271 Lewis Segal, “Dance Review; Mastering Modernism; White Oak Troupe Toys With the Rules,” Los Angeles Times , April 18, 1996. 272 Sarah Kaufman, “Baryshnikov, by Reitz,” Washington Post, May 3, 1996. 273 Lewis Segal, “Dance Review; Mastering Modernism; White Oak Troupe Toys With the Rules,” Los Angeles Times , April 18, 1996.

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Reitz said of her collaboration with Tipton that “both of us are exploring

new ground. Working together, we were driving each other forward.”274 As Anderson

pointed out: “Together, Ms. Reitz and Ms. Tipton have made light and shadow perform

as distinctively as the human beings who dance in their productions.” Acknowledging

the tight relationship of the collaborators inUnspoken Territory , Marc Shulgold said that

“it is the incorporation of a complex, ever-shifting lighting scheme that brings a fresh

perspective to the dancemaker’s choreographic approach.” Welsh described Unspoken

Territory as “one of the most original things I’ve ever seen—adventures around and

within light.”277

Accustomed to the conventional concept of dance lighting, most critics

who were new to the collaborations of Reitz and Tipton noted that the lighting was

“spare.” However, Margaret Putman also remarked that “spare, though, does not mean

plain. The lighting alone was thrillingly eloquent, particularly those sections created by

Jennifer Tipton in collaboration with choreographer Dana Reitz. The light shifted from

narrow beams that seemed to pinion the dancer to a misty vapor that turned dancer into

fluttering moth.” Many of the images the audience saw could be altered by the use of

silence as well as by the use of lighting. Reitz pointed out that silence “heightens

awareness. And by using light as a partner, I can alter an audience’s sense of time.

274 Dana Reitz, quoted in Marc Shulgold, “Dancer’s Partners are Silence, Light,” Rocky Mountain News, April 19, 1996. 275 Jack Anderson, “Light, Shadow and the Music of Silence,” New York Times, August 20, 1995. 276 Marc Shulgold, “Dancer’s Partners are Silence, Light,” Rocky Mountain News, April 19, 1996. 277 Anne Marie Welsh, “Baryshnikov Will Be Up Close, Personal,”San Diego Union-Tribune, March 5, 1996. 278 Margaret Putman, “Solo Power: Baryshnikov Focuses on Simple Pleasures,"Dallas Morning News, April 16, 1996.

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Thinking happens—thoughts and dreams. There is time to see and feel something

different.” Reitz also noted how lighting helps the performer access an inner focus: “The

feeling of light works on you, and in you. I have a strong visual sense. I’m involved in

the feeling and texture of the light.”279

Once accustomed to the process, Baryshnikov also noted the physical and

emotional influences of the piece and how they were directly affected by lighting: “Light

becomes the partner, and when it’s done by lighting designer Jennifer Tipton, it becomes

a powerful element. In a way, it is like an ensemble piece because light gives such a

different impulse to the images. That is what the work is: moving images. Almost

musical phrases come out of it because Tipton changes the tempo and approach to the

280 movement all the time.” Making a comparison toNecessary Weather, Anderson wrote

how “these two fine works reveal the range of expression that Ms. Reitz and Ms. Tipton

are capable of.”281

In comparison to other collaborations by Reitz and Tipton,Unspoken

Territory showed how the unique and focused performance form they had created would

translate to other performers as well as to larger audiences. “Using his fame to attract

mainstream dance audiences to works by the modernist innovators who otherwise would

never be seen in the American culture palaces monopolized by ballet,”282 Baryshnikov

279 Dana Reitz, quoted in Marc Shulgold, “Dancer’s Partners are Silence, Light,” Rocky Mountain News, April 19, 1996. 280 R. M. Campbell, “At 48, Baryshnikov Still Loves Dancing,” Des Moines Register, April 28, 1996. 281 Jack Anderson, “Light, Shadow and the Music of Silence,” New York Times, August 20, 1995. -jo-) ' ' Lewis Segal, “Dance Review; Mastering Modernism; White Oak Troupe Toys With the Rules,” Los Angeles Times, April 18, 1996.

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toured Unspoken Territory with other modem pieces in a solo tour during the fall and

winter. It was produced under the auspices of the White Oak Dance Project which he had

co-founded with modem dance choreographer Mark Morris.

During the tour, Baryshnikov enjoyed the challenge of expressing himself

so much in Reitz’s movement and Tipton’s light that he decided to deepen and extend the

collaboration, inviting Reitz to create more work and to tour with him the following

spring. Baryshnikov “envisioned a short, unprecedented solo tour to further explore

Reitz’s artistic ideas.” 283 After a brief appearance at the Festival d’Automne in France

during late October and other European stops where Baryshnikov performed Unspoken

Territory, White Oak announced the nine-city North American tour which ran from April

9-May 2, 1996 with performances in Victoria, British Columbia; Boise; Seattle;

Escondido; Boulder; Berkeley; Minneapolis; Burlington; and Washington, D.C. This

duet tour focusing on a single choreographer was an unprecedented venture for White

Oak, and signaled a deep trust in Reitz and a commitment to her vision on Baryshnikov’s

part. The touring program,Solos With and Without Music, consisted of three performers:

Reitz, Baryshnikov and pianist, Nicolas Reveles. [Figure 37]. For the tour, Reitz

performed two solos—a twenty-minute work in silence,Private Collection (which had its

premiere in London in 1995), as well as Shoreline, a new solo to the music of Domenico

Scarlatti’s Piano Sonata in F minor, which she created for the tour. Baryshnikov

performed Unspoken Territory, and Meeting Place, a duet with Reitz, which was also

283 Anne Marie Welsh, “Baryshnikov About to Turn Up the Light,” San Diego Union-Tribune, April 16, 1996.

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Washington Performing Arts Society in association with White Oak Dance Project i a

With Music and Without

FIGURE 37

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commissioned for this program. (In addition, Baryshnikov performed solos by Jose

Limon, Mark Morris and Kevin O’Day on a revolving basis.)

Private Collection was a piece that signaled a changing-of-the-guard.

Instead of Jennifer Tipton, the lighting design was done (in collaboration with Reitz) by

Tipton’s protege, David Finn. Finn was a former student of Tipton’s at Yale University

and had been Reitz’s production stage manager for many years. In this capacity, he had

set up most of Jennifer Tipton’s designs on Reitz’s tours. Currently, he is the lighting

supervisor for the White Oak Dance Project. The costume was by Santo Loquasto.

Running at twenty minutes, Private Collection was shorter than previous Reitz works.

Descriptions of the dance suggest a resemblance to Re-Entry, the transitional work from

1991-2.

In writing about Private Collection, Putman described how the dance was

“like long conversations that fold back on themselves and repeat...she emerges from

blackness into a pool of bright light, flicks her wrists, dips, edges sideways and skitters

backward into the pitch-black emptiness. Again and again she emerges, moving

sometimes very gently, sometimes with great agitation. The light flows through her

gauzy pants and top, turning her jumps into vapor trails.”284 Pointing out how the piece

appeared to be reflective of the internal, emotional choices of Reitz’s psyche and how

they affected her as she performed, Michael Winter called the work a “myriad of moods

and movements interwove [n] with light and shadow as her only partner.” 285 Mike Steele

284 Margaret Putman, “Solo Power: Baryshnikov Focuses on Simple Pleasures,”Dallas Morning News, April 16, 1996. 285 Michael Winter, “Baryshnikov Brings New Artistry to Boise,” Idaho Statesman. April 12, 1996.

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noted how Private Collection exemplified Reitz’s “fascination with the inner dynamics

of movement, the way movement creates a rhythm, the way it shifts and changes, the way

a movement can ripple across the shoulders and down the arms and flow out the hands,

and with light that she uses almost like music.” Anderson remarked how throughout

her career Reitz had revealed to the audience her innermost essence. Describing this

unique exchange, he wrote how Reitz would fill her pieces “with intricate movements

2 0 7 that look like calligraphic messages written on air.” Segal’s description ofPrivate

Collection offered a very telling view of how its structure was similar to that ofRe-

Entry.

Private Collection found Reitz repeatedly striding out of darkness into sequences of brightly illuminated activity: bold, swooping arm-driven motion, for the most part, with each stride-entrance beginning a new chapter of personal revelations. The components included realistic pantomime, intense dodging/ fighting/teetering sequences in which she repelled some unseen adversary, and most memorable, perhaps, the moments when she threw her arms over her head as if too much in pain to even be seen.288

But it is Reitz herself who revealed the most telling aspects of howRe-Entry was the

precursor toPrivate Collection in saying that works are “sort of journeys through things.

But the dance goes through many identifiable gestures all the way through it.” In

286 Mike Steele, “Baryshnikov’s Eloquent Program Focuses on Essentials of Dance,”Star Tribune, April 26, 1996. 287 Jack Anderson, “Silence and Light Are Partners In a Solo for Baryshnikov,”New York Times, July 1, 1995. 288 Lewis Segal, “Dance Review; Mastering Modernism; White Oak Troupe Toys With the Rules,”Los Angeles Times, April 18, 1996.

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describing her entrances and exits from the central pool of light, she says that “every time

i o n I enter it, there is a different mood.”

Shoreline was a collaboration by Reitz and Tipton, with costume by

Barbara Matera and music by Domenico Scarlatti. In answering why she chose to

perform Shoreline with music after all her years of presenting in silence, Reitz said, “I

wanted to balance the program. I felt it was time to put a piece to music, since my first

solo and Misha’s big solo were both silent. It’s simply another way to use music. I use it

the way I use light: I’m not driven by it, but I’m partnering it.”290 As its title would

indicate, Shoreline was a work concerned with the edge of where one element (water)

meets another (land). Reitz said of her newest work: “It’s fluid and very repetitive. It

recedes and comes forward. It’s sort of like water.”291 As she performed, she emanated

energy in a way that more than one critic likened to Isadora Duncan. Welsh wrote of

Reitz’s movement as having “the tactile quality of fine silk, shimmery and buoyant....In

her quiet lyricism and stillness...Reitz’s energy flows like the brush strokes of a

watercolorist, not the powerful gestures of, say, an abstract expressionist...[but] filling the

stage with the resonance of her movement.”292 Lenihan also noted the radiant qualities of

Reitz’s performing: “Whether she’s bouncing on her toes, fanning her hands, or stopping

289 Dana Reitz, quoted in Marianne Flagg, “Baryshnikov, Reitz Stretch the Boundaries,” Idaho Statesman , April 5, 1996. 290 Dana Reitz, quoted in Marc Shulgold, “Dancer’s Partners are Silence, Light,” Rocky Mountain Mews , April 19, 1996. 291 Dana Reitz, quoted in Marianne Flagg, “Baryshnikov, Reitz Stretch the Boundaries,” Idaho Statesman , April 5, 1996. 292 Anne Marie Welsh, “CCA Debut Shows the Other Side of Misha,” San Diego Union-Tribune , April 18, 1996.

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gently to rest in silhouetted profile, she radiates expansiveness and calm. She’s keeping

her head above water, and the final beautiful gesture is of peaceful, endless treading.”293

Describing the imagery of Shoreline, Segal wrote how it was “a work of

quicksilver moods in which small quivers—tiny hops in place—kept suggesting a

trembling expectancy, as if she were watching or remembering something that stirred her

deeply.” He went on to describe how her simple movements gave the audience a

multitude of images, saying, “she could have been a little girl caught up in happy secrets

or someone letting her arms drift in the wind to feel connected to something larger than

herself. Reitz imposes no meaning but they open up, infinitely, the more you watch.”294

Kaufman summarized Shoreline ''s choreography, imagery, use of music, lighting, and the

quality and style of Reitz’s movement:

I wasn’t prepared for just how eloquent her brand of movement is; after watching her arms ripple like sea grass in the silence that opened Shoreline , I found myself bracing against the intrusion of the music I knew was coming. But the score, Scarlatti’s Piano Sonata in F Minor, was as soft as summer rain, perfectly suited to the soothing motions Reitz traced as she stood barefoot in the gathering shadows (the subtle lighting was designed by Jennifer Tipton). Can she make a false move, look stiff or gawky? Probably not. You’d love to watch her toss a salad.295

For critics in some cities Reitz’s work proved difficult to grasp. Expecting

the Baryshnikov of old, they failed to see the deeper layers of Baryshnikov that were

being revealed through Reitz’s work. Contented with pointing up the fact that the two

293 Jean Lenihan, “Baryshnikov and Reitz: An Evening of Contrasts,” Seattle Times, April 15, 1996. 294 Lewis Segal, “Dance Review; Mastering Modernism; White Oak Troupe Toys With the Rules,” Los Angeles Times, April 18, 1996. 295 Sarah Kaufman, “Baryshnikov, by Reitz,” Washington Post, May 3, 1996.

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had extremely different styles, some critics tried to extinguish Reitz’s accomplishments,

to suggest that she was undeserving of collaboration with the great Baryshnikov, and took

her to task with an how-dare-she attitude. Complaining bitterly about the lack of

“entertainment” in Reitz’s work, Allan Ulrich wrote that Reitz was “little known on the

West coast and now we understand why.” 296 Clearly looking for bravura, Clement Crisp

wrote that Unspoken Territory “is less than stimulating.” 297 Also searching to revisit

what his mind’s eye remembered of Baryshnikov’s thrilling technique, Octavio Roca

compared Reitz’s use of Baryshnikov to “Olivier reading the phone book or Horowitz

playing chopsticks: a curiosity at best, and a waste of a great artist’s time.”298 These

critics seemed to forget that it was Baryshnikov who had sought out Reitz. On the other

hand, Marianne Flagg was able to acknowledge what it was that was upsetting her

colleagues, while addressing Reitz’s style without resentment or hostility: “Reitz’s dances

may be a bit of a hurdle for people who prefer traditional ballet or modem dance with a

story. Her work is cutting edge in its silence, changes of tempo, use of light and abstract

structure.”299 In an interview with Anne Marie Welsh, Reitz herself had anticipated some

of the hostility: “You never know how people are going to react. They may think

[Baryshnikov] is still doing ‘Giselle.’”300

296 Allan Ulrich, “Uneven Evening of Dance; Two’s a Company in Baryshnikov’s White Oak Project.” San Francisco Examiner, April 24, 1996. 297 Clement Crisp, “Bravura of Baryshnikov—Ballet,” Financial Times, November 3, 1995. ^98 Octavio Roca, “One Light in a White Oak Night Baryshnikov Buoys a Sold-Out Show,”San Francisco Chronicle, April 25, 1996. 299 Marianne Flagg, “Baryshnikov, Reitz Stretch the Boundaries,” Idaho Statesman, April 5, 1996. 300 Dana Reitz, quoted in Anne Mane Welsh, “Baryshnikov About to Tum Up the Light,” San Diego Union-Tribune, April 16. 1996.

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Reitz tried to smooth some of these difficulties. Recognizing that people

in these larger venues who were attracted there by Baryshnikov’s star power might be

intimidated by her unique style of choreography, she attempted to cross some boundaries

with the audience by easing them into the work. Thus, the dances began slowly, serving

as an introduction of the audience and the performer to one another. Reitz said, “I can

sense immediately (when they relax). I put in an introduction so that we can all settle in

together and know it’s not going to be radical treatment. I need to set up a place so the

work can go deeper, so they can see it and hear it. After a while, they sort of get the

gist.”301

The choreographic idea forUnspoken Territory was much more than just a

conglomeration of visual pictures for Baryshnikov’s fans to remember. Welsh noted that

earlier in his career Baryshnikov performed in Twyla Tharp’s Pergolesi in which the

choreographer had given him “a montage of dance-history images that he performed

dazzlingly, as if he were a lens snapping pictures of his own image.” Welsh felt that,

while it might seem less than spectacular, Unspoken Territory reached the audience with

a greater depth than Tharp’s acclaimed work. She wrote that “Reitz goes Tharp one

better. As Baryshnikov interacts with the lighting, and even once with the audience, he

creates montage effects, dynamic shadings, shifts in speed, changes in mood and

color.”302 [Figure 38].

301 Dana Reitz, quoted in Marianne Flagg, “Baryshnikov, Reitz Stretch the Boundaries,” Idaho Statesman, April 5, 1996. 302 Anne Marie Welsh, “CCA Debut Shows the Other Side of Misha,” San Diego Union-Tribune, April 18, 1996.

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What Reitz had accomplished in the Solos tour with Baryshnikov was

remarkable. The tour was touted by the critics who grasped its revelatory nature as “a

risky and meaningful exploration of movement and its relation to sound,”303 and “an

eloquently austere one that focuses on the essentials of dance: the dancer, the space and

the lighting.”304 In addressing the individual road each performer took to arrive at the

place that culminated in the Solos tour, Segal wrote: “Dana Reitz and Baryshnikov each

venture unaccompanied 20-minute solos choreographed by Reitz in the mercurial,

nonlinear, postmodern style that earned her an enthusiastic international following during

the same period when Baryshnikov first dazzled and then dominated American ballet.”303

Sarah Kaufman linked Reitz and Baryshnikov as artists traveling on individual journeys

who also possessed a co-dependence as performers: “Brave Dana Reitz, sharing the stage

with the undiminished brilliance of Mikhail Baryshnikov....Brave Baryshnikov, tackling

one of Reitz’s meditative, enigmatic, soundless works. Kudos to the two of them for

creating an evening of dance...challenging, riveting, and deeply satisfying...”306 For

Kaufman the tour was a showcase for Baryshnikov, “but it is the partnership with Reitz

that gives the concert its throbbing heart.”307

After the curtains were down and the lights extinguished, after the heated

debates about Baryshnikov’s bravura or lack of it and about Reitz’s quirky post-modern,

303 Douglas McLennan, “Baryshnikov Explores Music-Dance Connection,”News Tribune , April 15, 1996. J

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minimalist style, as Kaufman wrote, ‘‘the night belonged to his partnership with Reitz and

fittingly the program of solos closed with a duet,Meeting Place. It’s but a few moments

long, wherein the two lightly jog around each other, he compact and coiled, she willowy

and seemingly boneless. Standing nearly shoulder to shoulder, they march in place, she

silently, he stamping out a rhythm, which he accents by slapping his thigh. Then, smiling

broadly, they give each other a high five. What better way to celebrate the team?”

308 Sarah Kaufman, “Baryshnikov, by Reitz,” Washington Post, May 3, 1996.

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CONCLUSION

Dana Reitz has contributed more research and insight into the way that

dance and lighting relate to one another than any other artist or designer in modem

history. Her intelligence and determination to explore such a rich vein of her art has

yielded volumes of invaluable, if not previously inconceivable material for dance- and

theater-going generations to come. Tmly, “the discourse of the field is forever changed

by the existence”309 o f Reitz’s work.

Utilizing the principles of the ancient Eastern philosophy of the Way of

the Warrior, Reitz’s collaborations with Jennifer Tipton have uncovered immeasurable

insight into the interplay between movement and lighting through application of patience,

practice, and perseverance to yield progress. Reitz has dedicated her artistic life to the

research and development of the ideas that she and Tipton reveal in their collaborations.

From these intensive explorations, Reitz has come up with an entirely new

performance style based on structured improvisation. Reitz’s uncompromising devotion

to avant-garde principles has earned her the reputation of an artist’s artist—one who opens

new ways of conceiving of the art form. What Reitz has accomplished with the use of

silence as accompaniment is the real-world application of John Cage’s theories. Using

309Suzanne Carbonneau, “Dana Reitz,” Unpublished report. National Endowment for the Arts, 1994.

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silence as a tool in order to enhance the musicality of the dancer’s body, Reitz has forced

the audience to focus on the internal energies of the performers as well as the

performance.

Dana Reitz began her career the way most serious young dance artists do.

She moved to New York and began auditioning for companies and was picked up and

utilized by an upcoming choreographer, Twyla Tharp at a subsistence salary. She spent

only a very short time, however, dancing for other people before making the commitment

to her own singular artistic vision. From that time on, Reitz has followed her own path,

and her subsequent career has been a reflection of the struggle of American artists to

make art in their own country, particularly for those whose work is aesthetically forward-

thinking. Like other American avant-garde artists, including Robert Wilson and Trisha

Brown, Reitz has had a flourishing career in Europe, receiving major opera house

commissions and regular performance opportunities. At home, however, the continual

struggle for commissioning funds has made production of the work difficult. Even

though she left New York City for financial reasons several years ago, Reitz has managed

to keep her career moving forward.

In a sense Reitz has always been able to create something out of nothing:

exploring, discovering, sensing her next move and building upon her experiences.

Remaining steadfast to her inner beliefs, she refined and honed her visions in an

unwavering fashion until something was revealed that just a moment before had been

concealed. Each step in her development as an artist has built upon this steady process of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177

research and development, each discovery building upon the last in a systematic and, at

the same time, spiritually enriching fashion.

Reitz has perfected the art of living in the present. By allowing herself

permission not to have all the answers immediately, she has never missed the next step

because she was focused on the last. Reitz’s artistic career has been based on the simple

investigation into a series of narrowly focused questions of clarification, perception,

exploration and connection. Along the way she has done something so remarkable with

collaborator Jennifer Tipton that it seems to have created its own performance form.

Using her internal strength and intuition, Reitz’s work defeats the complex with

simplicity.

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Field Papers, Inc. “ Severe Clear: A Collaborative Work by Dana Reitz and James Turrell with Sarah Skaggs.” press release, n.d. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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______. “Whose Couch Is It?.” Soho News, March 26, 1980, 73.

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______. “No To Homogenized Dance.”Performing Arts Journal 2, no. 2 (Fall 1977): 3-12.

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______. “Mining One Clear Vein.” Village Voice, May 18, 1982, 83.

______. “Public Rites and Private Ceremonies.” Village Voice, April 12. 1987.

______. “Rhythm Feasts.” Village Voice, November 12, 1991. 101-102.

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______. “Set Your Foot on Brother Earth.”Village Voice, March 1, 1983.

______. “Take It Awav!.” Village Voice , July 18, 1995, 69.

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______. “Chemistry of Movement and Light.” New York Times, March 9, 1994.

______. “Dance: Anonymity and Virtuosity.” New York Times. October 10, 1981.

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______. “Dancing with Baryshnikov-Choreographer Dana Reitz Creates Some New Moves for the Ballet Star.” Seattle Times, April 11, 1996.

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______. “Dance Umbrella '83.” Dance Theatre Journal 1, no. 4 (Autumn 1983): 4-6.

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______. “Danse: Dana Reitz at the Festival d'Automne.” Le Monde. November 19, 1981.

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Necessary Weather [program]. New York City, The Kitchen, March 3-6 & 9-13, 1994. Collection of Dana Reitz.

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______. “Reitz: Journey for Two Sides.” Soho Weekly News, March 30, 1978.

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______. “Looking for a Pattern.” Dance and Dancers, January 1982.

______. “Quelling a Monkey Uprising.” Observer, November 2, 1986.

Percival, John. “Dana Reitz: Almeida.” The Times, November 11. 1981.

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______. “Signposts Mark the Way.” Soho Weekly News, June 11, 1980, 45.

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______. “Conn Tribute/Breif Reitz.” Other Stages, October 19, 1978.

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______. Danspace Project 10th Anniversary Benefit Concert. Program Director: Terry Fox. 80 min. Danspace, St. Mark's Church, 1984. Videocassette.

______. “Description and/or artists’ statement about the work for the catalogue entry.” Haleakala, Inc. March 1978.

______. “Edwin Denby Remembered-IV.” Ballet Review 12:4 (Winter 1985): 84-87.

______. Interview with the author. February 20, 1994.

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. “Journals of a Road Worrier.” Village Voice V, no. 1, Dance Supplement, April 18, 1989.

. A letter to Brenda Way, April 10, 1976. Collection of Dana Reitz.

. Letter, [n.d.]. Collection of Dana Reitz.

. Lichttontanz. 58 min. Hebbeltheatre. Berlin, April 3, 1991. Videocassette.

. The Making o f Severe Clear. Directed by Ellen Sebring. 23 min. WGBH/Boston's New Television Workshop. Radcliffe College, 1985. Videorecording.

. Necessary Weather. Bennington College, March 13, 1993. Videocassette.

. “On the Dispersion of Artists from New York: An American Issue.”Contact Quarterly 15, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 1990): 9-15.

. Phrase Collection 1978. Directed by Dennis Diamond. 47 min. Dance Theater Workshop, 1978. Videocassette.

. Program note inField Papers [program]. Brooklyn Academy of Music, February 10-13, 1983.

. Re-Entry. New Arts Program. PBAC. The Painted Bride Arts Center. Philadelphia, PA, November 20, 1992. Videocassette.

. Solo Improvisation. 53 min. June 6, 1986. Videocassette.

. Steps (II)—Single Score—Steps (II). The Performing Arts Garage, May 5-6, 1981. Videocassette.

. Suspect Terrain. PepsiCo Summerfare. Purchase, NY, July 27,1989. Videocassette.

. Tuesday Project 1978. Directed by Dennis Diamond. 45 min. Dance Theater Workshop, 1978. Videocassette.

. Une Heure Tres Danse. 59:50 min. November 28, 1990. Videocassette.

. Weather (rough cut). 13 min. 10,000 ft. Rocky Mountains. Videocassette.

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Robertson, Allen. “Filling in the Blanks.” Soho Weekly News, April 29, 1981, 47.

______. “Human Reitz.” Time Out 844, October 22-29, 1986.

______. “Reitz-On/Pan-Off.” Minnesota Daily, August 3, 1979.

______. “Dance Program Goes to Extremes.”Minneapolis Star, October 6, 1981.

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Roca, Octavio. “One Light in a White Oak Night Baryshnikov Buoys a Sold-Out Show.” San Francisco Chronicle, April 25, 1996.

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______. “Today’s Blank Art Explores the Space Behind the Obvious.” New York Times, July 17, 1977.

Rubidge, Sarah. “Dance Umbrella 1983.” Dance Theatre Journal 2, no. 1 (January 1984): 36-37.

Sadownick, Douglas. “Improv Dancer Dana Reitz: Change is Her Life.” Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1987.

Schmidt, Jochen. “What Moves Them and How: On Several Trends and Tendencies of the '81/,82 Dance Season.” Ballett International 5, no. 6/7 (June/July 1982): 6- 13.

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Segal, Lewis. “Dance Review; Mastering Modernism; White Oak Troupe Toys With the Rules.” Los Angeles Times, April 18, 1996.

Severe Clear [program]. Radcliffe College, June 9, 1985, Collection of Dana Reitz.

Severinghaus, Wendy. [Organizers behind a dance...] Bennington Banner, March 16, 1989.

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Shulgold, Marc. “Dancer’s Partners are Silence, Light.” Rocky Mountain News, April 19, 1996.

Siegel, Marcia B. “Creative Doodling.” Soho Weekly News, May 10, 1979.

Simpson, Herbert M. “Dancer Gives Avant-garde Performance.” Democrat and Chronicle, April 15, 1988.

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Smith, Amanda. “Collaborations, Meanderings and Gratuitous Nudity.” Dance Magazine, March 1976, 22, 25, 28.

______. “Seven Evenings.” Dance Magazine, January 1978, 34-37, 78-82.

______. “Two-Faced Woman.” Village Voice, May 15, 1978.

Sonntag, Douglas. Interview with the author. July 22, 1992.

Sommers, Pamela. “Less Is More, Is Dana Reitz.” Washington Post, January, 23, 1987.

Spring Dance Concert [program]. Experimental Theater, American University, March 26-29, 1992.

Stagebill for Einstein on the Beach at Lincoln Center. November 1976, vol. IV, no. 3. Collection of Dana Reitz.

Steele, Mike. “Baryshnikov’s Eloquent Program Focuses on Essentials of Dance.”Star Tribune, April 26, 1996.

______. “Baryshnikov Leaping Into New Dance Roles.” Star Tribune, April 26, 1996.

______. “In ‘New Dance,’ Art Moves Beyond More Experimentation.” Minneapolis Star, October 8,1981.

Steinman, Louise. “Dana Reitz' 'Duet For Two Sides'.” The Knowing Body, (Boston Shambhala 1986), 85-88.

Steiner, Ulrike. “Charming and Irratating Dialogue.” Nachrichten, September 21, 1983.

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Supree, Burt. “Dana Reitz Steps into the Same River.” Village Voice, February 15, 1983.

______. Excerpt from: “Dana Reitz Steps into the Same River.” Reprinted in Dance Paper 1, no. 1, December 1986-February 1987.

______. “Inquiring Hands, Inquisitive Feet.” Village Voice. May 14. 1979.

______. “Magic Box.” Village Voice, August 1, 1989.

Suspect Terrain [program]. SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center, July 20-23 & 27- 30,1989. Collection of Dana Reitz.

Sutter, Esther. “Dance of the Spidervvoman.” Easier Zeitung, December 2, 1981.

______. “Next Stop Big Performance.” Basler Zeitung, April 5, 1983.

Sykes, Jill. “A Magical Week With a Quartet of the Best.” Sun Herald, February 3, 1985.

______. “Post-Mod Dance Cuts New Steps.” Sydney Morning Herald, February 1, 1985.

______. “Subtlety and Light in a Symphonic Poem of Dance.” Sydney Morning Herald, May 12, 1987.

Temin, Christine. “Choreographer Dana Reitz Sees Her Way Clear.” Boston Globe, June 7, 1985.

______. “In an Unfathomable Twilight.” Boston Globe, June 15, 1985.

Thibaudat, Jean-Pierre. “Dana Reitz: Dancer to the Tips of Her Fingers.” Liberation, November 21 -22, 1981.

Tobias, Tobi. “Dance: Necessary Weather.” New York, March 21, 1994, 65.

______. “Games People Play.” New York, October 29, 1984, 74-75.

Tomkins, Calvin. The Bride and the Bachelors. New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 1977.

______. O ff the Wall. New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 1980.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 191

Tour Schedule for Einstein on the Beach, 1976. [European Tour]. Collection of Dana Reitz.

Ulrich, Allan. “Uneven Evening of Dance; Two’s a Company in Baryshnikov’s White Oak Project.” San Francisco Examiner, April 24, 1996.

[Untitled]. “Choreographer/dancer Dana Reitz...” Harvard News 4, no. 24, May 10, 1985. Vaughan, David. “Dancespace Project at St. Mark's Church, New York City.” Dance Magazine, February 1985, 20.

Vincent, Genevieve. “Americains a' Paris et Ailleurs.” Pour la Danse , no. 76 (January 1982): 16-19.

Welsh, Anne Marie. “Baryshnikov About to Turn Up the Light.” San Diego Union- Tribune , April 16, 1996.

______. “Baryshnikov Will Be Up Close, Personal.” San Diego Union-Tribune, March 5, 1996.

______. “CCA Debut Shows the Other Side of Misha.” San Diego Union-Tribune, April 18, 1996.

Winter, Michael. “Baryshnikov Brings New Artistry to Boise.” Idaho Statesman, April 12, 1996.

Wittman, Juliet. “Dana Reitz: A Review.” New Ideas—New Dance, Colorado Dance Festival [program], n.d. Collection of Dana Reitz.

Woodard, Stephanie. “Dana Reitz: Phrase Collections, Versions 2-5.” Soho Weekly News, November 9, 1978.

______. “Made in the USA.” Soho Weekly News, June 2,1977.

______. “Inside Out.” Soho Weekly News, November 9, 1978.

Zimmer, Elizabeth. “New Dance Takes Center Stage in Montreal.” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, September 25, 1989.

Zuckerman, Don. “Dana Reitz.” Unicorn Times, (April 1981).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.