spaces for dancing

The piece we're performing tomorrow (tomorrow! OH MY GOD.) has a really beautiful set. The stage, which is unusually deep, is divided into four rooms, each one containing a rectangular slab of white floor. The exterior borders are defined by tall panels of milky, translucent paper, and the interior ones by scrim fabric that turns green and blue and transparent under the lights.

Our tech rehearsal was an epic ordeal. For a 45-minute piece, our crew has to deal with at least 40-something lighting cues. The lights guide the audience's attention, change the pace, intensity, and flavor of the environment, and hopefully make us more beautiful than we deserve.

The audience is meant to walk between the rooms of the stage, making the choice to look at one thing or another. It should be interesting. It's both an extremely formal, artificial construct and a more casual experience than most performances that involve a proscenium stage. There will be wine and the element of chance. We're wearing white silk dresses splattered with grey and little ankle socks. We dance to stories about resolutions, sex, regret, women who turn into trees, women who turn into stone, carrying coal to Newcastle, boardgames, and petting cats. We have a crackling, insidious score.

I am so curious to know what this piece says to people. I'm not sure what it's saying myself. There's a lot of pretty movement, an interesting conceit, an appealing landscape, but what am I trying to say? I'm not sure...