Alverno Presents Molly Shanahan’s World Premiere

ChoreographerMolly Shanahan founded her Chicagocompany Mad Shak knowing she had something to express in dance.  Fifteenyears later, she’s crystallized her vision. After years of collaborative workwith large groups of dancers and live musicians, during which she built anational reputation, she made a full length solo for herself in 2003. The“simultaneity of exhilaration and fear” she felt while performing it inspiredher to look more closely at what happens to a dancer in performance.

 It tooktwo years to conceive an approach, and two more to evolve a movement vocabularyfrom her deep experiences while dancing. The result was a new soloin 2007. Working like a jazz musician,trusting to intuition guided by the values she’d developed from years of work,she found she could compose each performance uniquely as she danced it,responding to authentic psycho-physical impulses and the moment-to-momentexchange of energy with the audience. To do this, she had to sustain an intensecuriosity about all that was occurring while she danced.

The next stepis Stamina of Curiosity, a fulllength piece for four dancers which will have its world premiere in Milwaukee on Saturday,Oct. 24 as part of Alverno Presents’ 50th Anniversary Season. Two male and twofemale dancers have worked with Shanahan since the start of 2008 to absorb hermovement vocabulary, which is focused in the core of the dancers’ bodies, andher performance technique.

Alverno Presentshas played a nurturing role.  Director David Ravel met Shanahan in 2007 ata conference for nationally recognized artists and presenters. After seeing hersolo, he offered to support the creation of “the next chapter.”  Hearranged an extended 2008 residency at Alverno for the ensemble to concentratefully on the work, and another two weeks of finishing time prior to thepremiere on Saturday.  Shanahan calls Ravel “a fabulous steward of thisproject who has made sure the work gets the attention it needs from theartists. He’s helped me deepen my process and trust my wild geekiness.”

Meditation ispart of each rehearsal. One common assumption about dancers is that they aremerely bodies in service to a choreographer’s vision. Shanahan’s dancers have trainedthemselves to “witness” all that happens to them in performance. She comparesit to a luge ride at the Winter Olympics: the choreography creates the track,but the uncontrollable bumps and shifts are the real ride. If the dancers areclosed to their own psychic responses, the audience will see only line, spaceand movement patterns. If they are open, the audience receives thatspiritual/physical energy and dances along to its own deep places.  

The show starts at 8 p.m. at Alverno College’sPitman Theatre.