Under the joint direction of Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, Big Dance Theater has been creating unique dance/theater works since 1991, interweaving dance, music, text, and visual design. The company and its associate artists, a long-standing group of actors, dancers, composers, and designers, have received many honors including multiple Obies and Bessies and the first Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award in 2007. Supernatural Wife, seen here in its U.S. premiere, is a characteristically rich and freewheeling adaptation of the Euripides classic, Alcestis. Not only does the work include Anne Carson’s translation of the original Greek text, but it also mixes in a bit of the screenplay from His Girl Friday, the gender-bending film adaptation of Broadway’s The Front Page. Re-thinking the profound nature of dance and music in tragedy, the creators of this work use the Chorus to restore dancing to its rightful place in Greek drama.
EXPLORE MAURA KEEFE’S MULTIMEDIA ESSAY ON ANNIE-B PARSON
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