Stage
jill sigman/thinkdance creates dance theater
works for stages of all sizes. These include solo shows and
group works. Dances involve text, live music, video, and
other visual elements.
Works for stage include:
ZsaZsaLand (2009): multi-media dance theater work for 6 performers
RT: 56 minutes
Sound: joro de boro
ZsaZsaLand is a darkly comic cultural commentary on decadence and decay, commercialism and cannibalism--- part dance, part club, part installation. It is an archeological experiment built out of colliding pieces of psyche and experience - kitsch, folk dance, fetishes, Balkan music, rituals, bones and youtube videos – where shimmying and fake flowers abound.
RUPTURE (2007): multimedia dance
for 5 performers set in a ring of broken eggshells
RT: 83 minutes
Music: Kristin Norderval
RUPTURE weaves together the story of an acute calf
injury with Sigman’s travels in India, Berlin, and New
Orleans to explore breaking and healing on personal,
architectural, and global scales. Staged for a dance venue
with arena seating, RUPTURE is set in a ring of over 3,000
broken eggshells.
I Cut the Rug in My Day
(2003): dance for 6 performers
RT: 31 minutes
Music: Colby Leider, Isle of Klezbos, Metropolitan Klezmer
The performance space is framed by a red runner. In a
physicalized version of live sound mixing, two performers
carry a boom box which plays Klezmer music while Leider's
electro-acoustic score plays on the main sound system.
Vision Begins (2002):
interdisciplinary solo show with movement, video, and text
RT: 62 minutes
Sound: Mary Tyler Moore theme song; Supreme Court recording
of Roe v. Wade; Petula Clark; Peter, Paul & Mary; Shaker
Spirituals
In this quasi-autobiographical collage, raw movement is
juxtaposed with images of Suffragettes and Hippies, poetry by
Adrienne Rich, and home-grown rap to address personal vision,
feminism, and the legacy of the 1960s for Sigman's
generation.
Athena, Goddess of Wisdom
(1999/2000): solo involving sound footage of
a philosophy seminar
RT: 18 minutes
Sound: Charles Trenet, Ray Ventura, Edith Piaf; live
recording of a philosophy seminar
Athena, Goddess of Wisdom is a wacky performance
journey from medieval alchemy to feminist camp. A postmodern
Athena navigates the polarized worlds of mind and body, armed
with a headlamp and a patent leather purse.
Shelter (1999): solo
RT: 20 minutes
Soundscape: Jan McLaughlin
Created for the inaugural season of the series New York on
New York, Shelter is a reflection on
freedom, community, and the complexities surrounding
homelessness in New York City. The original soundscore mixes
interviews with people living on the street with city sounds
and improvised vocals.
Ach, Rosalie! (1998): solo
involving 18 lbs. of mussel shells
RT: 10 minutes
Music: Walter de Buck
Set to a carnival-like backdrop of Flemish folk songs,
Ach, Rosalie! deals with gender stereotypes and the
sexual body as a tool of power.
The Big (1998): duet for
two performers and a large wooden bowl
RT: 10 minutes
Music: French Lullaby
Set in a world of play and gargoyle-esque monsters The
Big explores nightmares and repose.
Démaquillage (1998): dance
for five dancers
RT: 10 minutes
Music: Walter de Buck, Paisiello
Five women in black cocktail dresses draw on themselves with
lipstick in defiance, luxuriance, play, seduction, and
resistance.
Still Life (1997): dance
for six women and a table of fruit
RT: 7 1/2 minutes
Music: Handel
Six women in green gloves and white ruffs begin in tableau
around a table of fruit in this 17th century Dutch still life
painting come to life.
Embers (1996): solo set to
a Hungarian folk song
RT: 6 1/2 minutes
Music: Muzsikás
A sparse, dramatic solo set to an a capella Hungarian folk
song, Embers explores the question: how do we go on
in the face of devastation? Physical wrapping and contorting
suggest tying and untying our own personal knots. "Ember"
also means human being in Hungarian.