Black Border with Moving Figures (1994)
I had given Andrew Burashko a copy of Wassily Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art and our conversations around the provocations it offered served as the entry for a new work. Kandinsky proposed the act of painting as an improvisation with colour, shape, line and form “independent from visual reality” that brought into existence a painting that communicated with the viewer on such a deep and significant level that it had the power to raise their consciousness. Andrew and I both appreciated the scope of this proposal in relation to our own art practice, and set out to dismantle in some way the framework of a dance to music. Working in silence, I developed 15 choreographic scenes, while Andrew choose works by Liszt and Chopin that place especially heavy demands for subjective interpretation on the pianist.
Coming together for rehearsal, I started with my 15 scenes in chronological order and allowed them to migrate until they were arranged in a sequence that was exciting and fascinating to dance to the music of either composer. The costume pieces for me by Caroline O’Brien could be combined in various ways and each time I exited the stage I returned in a different variation of the many possibilities.
Black Border with Moving Figures was a grand experiment that opened important and far ranging conversations between Andrew and I. It pushed us each to think about our practice differently, and expanded and deepened our collaboration. But I was never convinced by the work we made, and after the premiere in Toronto and performances at The Kitchen in New York, we set this piece aside. - PB
"Baker in one of her most rigorously modulated performances complementing the fire of Burashko's interpretations of Liszt and Chopin..." Michael Crabb, Toronto Star
“Peggy Baker, who is performing at the Kitchen through tomorrow night with Andrew Burashko, a pianist and fellow Canadian, is a dancer of startling power and fascination. Audiences lost no time noticing her in Lar Lubovitch's modern dance company, where from 1981 to 1988 her big-boned dynamism was used with passionate sweep. Appearing since then as a charter member of Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project and as a soloist, she has evolved into a dancer of striking physical projection. Now in her own choreography, she knows how to focus on her expressive back and amazing long arms, fingers and legs; no one else dances with the same striking mix of formal severity, muscular force and strangely feminine allure.” Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times
related links
To learn more about Kandinsky, visit artsy.net.
credits
choreography and performance:
Peggy Baker
music:
Franz Liszt
(Petrarch Sonnets #47, #104, #123)
Frederic Chopin
(Impromptu No. 1 in A flat major, op. 29; Nocturne No. 2 in F sharp major op. 15; and Ballade No. 1 in G minor op. 23)
costume design:
Caroline O'Brien
lighting design:
Marc Parent
piano:
Andrew Burashko
premiere
Toronto
November 16 - 19, 1994
Betty Oliphant Theatre
Music for Piano and Solo Dancer
subsequent presentations
New York City
February 16 - 19, 1995
The Kitchen
music for piano and solo dancer
photography
As credited.
