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Liss Fain’s work fuses modern dance’s forceful energy with the kinetic precision of ballet. A formal structure exists in her work—non-narrative yet emotionally and physically powerful—in which the dance, the music and the visual environment are an indivisible unit. Follow the creative process, company activity and research on our blog written by Artistic Director Liss Fain. www.lissfaindance.org
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Liss Fain Dance

English - Dance, Culture, Arts
https://lissfaindance.wordpress.com/
Liss Fain Dance · 1d ago

What This is About–The Water is Clear and Still

The Water is Clear and Still creates a portrait of a woman and her history and a sense of a place, using the soft and long cadences and the unsettling, beautiful and eerie images in Jamaica Kincaid’s stories. The rhythm of her writing cradles descriptions that shift suddenly from gentle to harsh. Ja
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Liss Fain Dance · 2W ago

The Water is Clear and Still: Progress

This piece has taken an unanticipated turn. When I began choreographing, I had in mind images that are eerie, unsettling and beautiful; and that is why I chose Jamaica Kincaid’s At the Bottom of the River. The stories are sharp-edged and beautifully written; the cadences are long and gentle despite
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Liss Fain Dance · 2W ago

Workshop at 826 Valencia

On Saturday April 21st, the dancers and I taught a workshop on the creation and integration of text and movement to students, 13-17 years old, at 826 Valencia. We began by showing them some of the gestures we have used and performed a short section of movement with text. I talked about gestures and
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Liss Fain Dance · 1M ago

The Water is Clear and Still

The Water is Clear and Still is a new performance installation using Jamaica Kincaid’s short stories from At the Bottom of the River as text.  In January, I began reading short stories all of sorts, trying to determine a style, imagery, cadences and subject matter that would work for my ideas and mo
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Liss Fain Dance · 6M ago

A New Prologue and a Re-Working–The False and True Are One

I have added a prologue, Art is Not in Some Far-Off Place, that creates an environment of calm and inexorable forwards momentum. The prologue, quiet and brief, is structured as two long diagonal lines of continuous movement. One line moves pristinely and inevitably forwards in unison; the second lin
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Liss Fain Dance · 7M ago

Rehearsals–New Energy

We are reworking and adding on to The False and True Are One. The first two weeks of rehearsal have been a transition—adding three dancers to replace two who have left.  I have added a seventh dancer to accentuate the sense of an invisible observer that I feel when I read the stories. As I [...]
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Liss Fain Dance · 8M ago

Art is Not in Some Far-Off Place

I have been thinking about the prologue for The False and True Are One.  I am using, as the text, a chapter in a Lydia Davis story, comprised of one sentence: “Art is not in some far-off place”. The prologue is about the simplicity of being alone with your thoughts—you choose what to focus on [...]
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Liss Fain Dance · 1Y ago

A Prologue–Marie Curie Developing Movement and Ideas

We have been rehearsing for two weeks now, on movement that will become the prologue for The False and True Are One at our next performance at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in November.  In this very short rehearsal period, I am seeing where my ideas go and am videotaping the movement and structur
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Liss Fain Dance · 1Y ago

April 1, 2011: The Recent Past, the Future and a Quick Thought

The Recent Past We performed The False and True Are One at the Mill Valley Public Library on February 4.  All the furniture in the reading room was removed so that we could lay down the four sections of Marley in front of the imposing fireplace, the floor to ceiling windows that overlook the redwood
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Liss Fain Dance · 1Y ago

A Final Word on the Progress of The False And True Are One

There was turmoil this week when I felt that Happy Memories, the last story being performed, was too long a monologue for the dance.  Although I looked for another story to replace it, I realized that the piece has to end with Happy Memories, because that story is the summation of  the ideas in all
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