Dear friends,
I have a new(ish) dance-for-camera that’s now online!
Apple Season was created and filmed in the fall of 2010. It was edited in 2011. It took a long time to come together. It was a one-woman production, and it got put on the back burner for while things in my life shifted, and changed, and generally had to be sorted out.
Originally, this work was inspired by my love of mystery and detective stories. I discovered that the first story considered to be a murder mystery is “The Tale of Three Apples” from The Arabian Nights. It was very interesting (and troubling) to me that the first murder mystery was about domestic violence towards a woman. Apple Season came from my idea of the voiceless victim also acting as the detective – telling her side of things as the clues are pieced together, working backwards from the murder.
Original costume design – click to enlarge.
Another driving theme of this piece is how the body tells invisible stories. Detective stories from Sherlock Holmes to CSI are popular because we, the audience, are blown away by how much information can be gathered from simple (or high tech) observations of the body. As a dancer and choreographer, I am very interested in how the body tells these stories.
I created the storyboards, costume, and choreography. I experimented with creating a dye from beets to stain the dress. I filmed myself in my apartment, using my roommate’s camera.
The San Francisco-based band, The Definite Articles, gave me permission to use a song they thought would be perfect for the project – The Calm, from their latest album, King Merriweather. It was a wonderful fit.
In fact, I almost gave up on this project altogether. Luckily, when I saw a live performance of the song that I had been given permission to use by The Definite Articles and it re-inspired me to finish the editing.
I submitted this to the SF Dance Film Fest, but it didn’t make it in. So now, a long time in coming it seems, it’s public! I hope you enjoy it. I’d love to hear your feedback.
Thanks! – LB
