“I woke up—I took my costume, I took a bath. That day we were ready. That day we were having a performance,” recalls dancer and choreographer Rigoberto Saura. It was Friday the 13th of March 2020, and Hedwig Dances was preparing to take the stage at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts for their program Lightplay, consisting of Raum, a premiere by artistic director Jan Bartoszek inspired by the work of László Moholy-Nagy, as well as a restaging of Saura’s 2019 The Flowering Mechanisms.
“When you’re dancing in the theater, the audience can feel the dancers—can almost touch them. You can feel the breathing, feel that sometimes they’re tired and try to keep going. The sounds and energies, you can feel.” In contrast, “on the screen, everything feels a little cold. You need to try to break that ice. People in their homes watching you dance need to feel you’re close to them. I want to create the feeling that you’re inside the piece, not alone. Your way of connecting with others changes because it’s through a screen.”
Sat 9/26, 3 PM CDT, hedwigdances.com, $5-$25.
