Dagmar Spain/ Dance Imprints presents

Melting and other stories...
an evening of film and dance
in collaboration with filmmaker Alexis Gibson

choreography by Dagmar Spain
with music by Fernando Otero, Adrienne Ramm
and singer Leandra Ramm

on July 23rd at 8:30pm
at the 92nd St. Y, Harkness Dance Center, Buttenwieser Hall
1395 Lexington Avenue/ 92nd Street
New York
(subway: 4, 5 & 6 to 86th Street)

$10
wine and cheese will be served

“ As my life has unfolded up to this point of my returning to the country of my origin, the Czech Republic, I recognize that every step along this path has guided me to ultimately create closure of my eternal state of being an “exile”. This new work is a personal story, however universal. Returning to the place of the causes of this exile, I have discovered so much beauty in it.”
Dagmar Spain

It is a great joy to collaborate with filmmaker Alexis Gibson on this project. We met first in New York, and later moved independently to Prague, where we met again last year. This time we deeply recognized that our lives somehow hold the key to each other’s further development as artists and human beings. Her featured short film 888 days × 2 is on one level a reflection on her experience in Bosnia a few years after the war. It is also an ongoing personal story, because in the end her search for deeper answers leads her back to where her life began, returning to her home country, the United States. In this collaboration, we combine our chosen fields with the intrinsic nature of our connection and shared commitment to shed more light on the complex legacy of people of the former East Bloc. We both believe, however, that the
only true revolution comes through a profound change within the life of a single human being. Melting and other stories... presents the documentation of these changes within ourselves, and thus the causes for possible changes from without.

Alexis Gibson began her arts involvement in theater and music, later gravitating towards still photography and poetry. She continued searching for a more complete means of expression, which she ultimately identified in the medium of film. After completing her Bachelor of Arts in International Relations in 1992, she spent a number of years living and working in Central Europe before deciding to pursue filmmaking more seriously.

888 days x 2 (2005) is the film resulting from the author's desire to grasp and convey the inner journey she underwent during and after a half-year stay in postwar Bosnia. Through the medium of a visual letter, she responds to the challenge posed by her one-time employer and closest contact in Sarajevo. The film is presented here in combination with a newly-choreographed live performance, in which she uncovers and examines the path her life has taken since the film’s original release.

The Last performance of Dance Imprints

"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. Oh, no! It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken." - Shakespeare

Dance Imprints presenting its latest work:

Re:turn

at the Kraine Theater, NY
85 East 4th Street (between 2 & 3rd Avenue)
May 7-10, 2009

Re:turn is a play with film projection, dance and live music

written, directed and choreographed by: Dagmar Spain

actors/dancers: Ernesta Corvino, Zsuzsa Gasparics, Mateo Gomez, Whitney Hunter, Iorgo Papoutsas, Alejandra Pineiro, Olivea Shure, Ritsuko Sato, Dagmar Spain and Ron Stratton
Stage Manager: Cherlyn H.T. Jones
Original score: John Leaman
Guitar and live composition: Jared Newman
Clarinet: Asuka Yamamoto
Film: Ai Ikeda and Dagmar Spain
Costume design: Karen Young
Lighting design: Jonathan Cottle