The Windows (1988)
Acclaimed dancer and choreographer Christopher House created The Windows on Peggy back in 1988. He is our guest writer for this Creation Catalogue blog entry:
The Windows is an eight-minute solo I made for Peggy Baker, set to Philip Glass’s gorgeous String Quartet #2. I can’t remember where the title came from, but I think it was Peggy’s idea. Watching a VHS recording of the piece, the first time I’d seen it in thirty years, I was blown away by her performance.
Making a solo for another dancer is an intimate act. In sharing your kinetic impulses with just one other artist, you often make them a surrogate for the dancer you imagine in your dreams. You always learn from this experience and when you work with a singular artist like Peggy, your habits and assumptions can be transformed.
Rediscovering The Windows, I was reminded that watching Peggy dance is a master class in space and phrasing. She carves, sculpts and extends the space around her with uncanny skill, using her hands, feet, limbs, torso and head with legato mastery. Every surface of her body participates in every gesture. The clarity of her trajectories leaves afterimages and her innate sense of time makes her body sing. When confronted with more challenging passages of fast footwork and percussive changes of direction, she unleashes her inner warrior, holding nothing back. Her presence resonates with her ardent commitment to each passing moment.
My favourite moment in this solo comes at the end of the third movement as she turns slowly to the floor and melts into a series of knee crawls on an upstage diagonal. Facing away from us, her expressive back compels us to join her on her mysterious, touching journey.
I love Peggy as a friend and as an artist. Working with her on this solo was a rare privilege. - C. H.
“Mr. House is superbly served by a dancer who more than completes every sharp, slicing gesture. A fast dance of enigmatic tension involving kicks, pounces and clenched fists, it plays up to Ms. Baker’s grace and power and goes beyond the traditional psychological study.” Anna Kisselgoff, New York Times, 1989.
Full review here.
For more about Christopher House visit CBC Gem here.
