In Other Words - 14 minutes
Choreographed and Performed by Joel Smith and Liz Casebolt - casebolt and smith
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach
Commissioned by The Wooden Floor (Formerly Saint Joseph's Ballet), 2008
Premiered at New Dance Festival, The Wooden Floor (Formerly Saint Joseph's Ballet). Friday, February 22, 2008. Santa Ana, CA.
This Performance: Eleven Missing Days Festival, Unknown Theater. Los Angeles, CA
"In Other Words" is a table duet. Two performers sit side by side and negotiate the available space on the table through quickly timed and complex partnering and gestures. Seated the entire time, the two vie for space, perform and challenge conventional roles of gender, and draw their representational gestures from the news desk. In 5 parts, this duet is highly musical and danced to Bach Cello Suites. Dozens of toy army men line the table at the start of the piece, establish context for the power plays and strategies to be employed in the piece. "Having Words" has been performed at: Joyce Soho in New York City, Looking Left Dance Festival in Santa Cruz, CA; Tempe Center for the Arts in Tempe, AZ; Fringe Festival at the Southern Theater in Minnapolis, MN; Unknown Theater in Los Angeles, CA; The Moth Storytelling event at Farmlab/Metabolic Studios Downtown, Los Angeles; and at the Commuter Festival at Cal Arts in Valencia, CA among other places.
Having Words...for six - 11 minutes
Choreographed by; Joel Smith and Liz Casebolt - casebolt and smith
Performed by dancers at Scripps College
Music: "Weather" by Michael Gordon
Commissioned by Scripps College Dance Department, 2012
Premiered at the American College Dance Association Festival, hosted at Modesto Junior College Performing Arts Center. Modesto, CA, March 2012
This Performance: Scripps Dances at Garrison Theater. Claremont, CA, April 2012
"Having Words..for six" is adaption of "Having Words" for six people. New music, new characters, recycled vocabulary, play on the musical canon, variations of themes.