Support Terry Beck's Harbour Dance Premiere

My decades-long journey with dance began at Temple. I am an alumnus of Temple University’s Dance Department and a former member of Zero Moving Dance Company (under the direction of Hellmut Gottschild). After leaving Zero, I formed my own company, which toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. My choreography has been commissioned by companies such as the Pennsylvania Ballet, has been reviewed favorably in publications including the Inquirer and Dance Magazine, and has been supported by grants at the federal, state, local, and foundation levels. Most recently, I concluded 14 years of teaching technique and improvisation to dance and theater majors for the State University system of New York.

Just prior to the COVID lockdown, I was invited to participate in a tribute concert for Hellmut called Zero to Sixty. During that concert, I performed a sketch of a new solo, continuing my dive into the concept of time. This new work, Harbour, is based on a work I set on Rubicon Dance in Cardiff, Wales several years ago. The Welsh cast ranged in age from 59 to 84. Both of these efforts received such positive feedback that I felt compelled to make an evening-length version of Harbour.

For example, Merilyn Jackson wrote for the Broad Street Review: Finally, Terry Beck saved the day in the most amazing way. The Philadelphia premiere of his Harbour harkened back to Gottschild’s clear and crisp choreographic viewpoints. His set (by Mitch Fitzgibbon) consisted of an old boat, oars shipped upwards in the rowlocks and an assortment of old clocks piled up against it. I hadn’t seen Beck dance since the ‘80s at the Painted Bride, and he stunned me as he stepped onstage. To his own soundscape of foghorns, David Rudge’s music, and text taken from a Louise Gluck work, he danced with the bluesy cool of a Leonard Cohen song…. He ended sitting upright in the boat ready to row into the future.

My theory is that once a person identifies as a dancer, the drive to use physicality to express what can’t be expressed in other ways remains burning for many of us. Despite this, there are very few opportunities to make work for mature professional dancers. Fewer still recognize how important it is to provide support for this work, not just for the performers, but for an audience who, just by viewing, are invited to update their own ideas of the meaning of aging.

 

The casting of Harbour has been to mine the experiences and expressiveness of dance artists in Philadelphia and its surrounding communities. The ensemble continues to develop the basic movement vocabulary along with the soundscape, which will include their impressions of their lives and careers, and now aging. From there, I am creating sections of the work that will cohere into this evening-length exploration of time, aging, and the development of meaning. The premiere of this evening's length piece will happen on September 6 and 7 2024 at 7PM on the stage of Tomlinson Theatre at Temple University, Philadelphia PA.

This cast of Harbour ranges in age from 60 to 84. Original music is from composer/violinist David Rudge with a soundscape I developed with various artists I have worked with for many years.