Butterflies from my Hand

Premiered September 2003 at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) in Portland, OR

Butterflies from my Hand examines ideas of "surrender". The work explores movement using personal experiences surrounding resistance, loss, power and uncertainty. These motivating forces reveal a physical language that gives the piece a sense of time, place and rhythm. As characteristic of Uchizono's work, the dance utilizes striking visual imagery as a metaphor for guiding its kinetic direction, creating an atmosphere imbued with layered fragility, bold gestures and emotional sublimity. Butterflies from my Hand opens with the image of a dancer suspended in air, hanging to a piece of fabric attached to the ceiling. The performer slowly cuts the fabric that she is clinging to, challenging ideas of resistance, giving way, and subsequent falling. The dance poses provocative questions about the possibilities that loss and vulnerability can offer and the power that can be gained through the act of letting go. It incorporates an original soundscore by “Bessie” award winning composer Guy Yarden, costumes designed by Wendy Winters, and lighting design by Stan Pressner.

A preliminary sketch of the work was shown at the Joyce Theater's Altogether Different Festival January 16, 18, and 19, 2003. The full evening-length work premiered in September 2003 at PICA in Portland, OR, and subsequently toured to Tigertail Productions, Inc., Miami, FL in March 2004; the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland in April 2004; and the Wortham Center’s Cullen Hall, presented by the Society for the Performing Arts, Houston, TX in May 2004. Dance Theater Workshop in New York City presented a two-week run of Butterflies from my Hand in April 2004 as part of its Main Event series.

Butterflies from my Hand was made possible through the Doris Duke Fund for Dance of the National Dance Project administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Altria Group, Inc. Butterflies from my Hand was also made possible, in part, by funding received from the Greenwall Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation MAP Fund. This project is supported in part by awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and Altria Group, Inc.

Butterflies from my Hand was originally commissioned by the Bessie Shönberg/First Light commissioning fund of New York’s Dance Theater Workshop and was developed during a creative residency provided at Dance Theater Workshop, with support from the Ford Foundation.

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