Partings: Dances of Letting Go

Premiering in the 2024 Capital Fringe, Partings: Dances of Letting Go is a dance showcase presenting work by Giselle Ruzany and Malcolm Shute/Human Landscape Dance of Washington DC, Stacey Yvonne Claytor/Claytor Company of Fairfax VA, and Joan Gavaler/Aura CuriAtlas of Williamsburg VA. The event takes place Friday July 12 at 7pm and Sunday July 14 at 8:50pm in Cafritz Hall of the DCJCC, 1529 16th St NW. Tickets $15: www.bit.ly/fringedance

Each artist takes a different approach to the theme of loss. Claytor Company exposes an open wound in “Place of Healing,” in which a large ensemble makes space for individual expressions of grief. In Aura Curi-Atlas’s “The We Inside,” Gavaler performs the gradual decollectivization of a woman’s mind as she suffers a stroke. Set to text drawn from My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Gavaler falters and recovers, finds and loses her voice.  In “Fiddleheads,” Shute and Katie Sopoci Drake scatter ashes as fern fronds scatter spores. The dance is a tribute to Shute’s father and the family gathering that marked his passing. Human Landscape Dance also premieres the quartet “Emerging,” a companion piece, which depicts sprouts growing from soil as a metaphor for emerging from grief.

Ruzany collaborates with media maven and sculptor Brian Davis to create “Connective Tissue,” an exploration of loss and connection between generations. Ruzany (generation x) covers her face in distress, while Antonella Garcia (generation y) slides through the stage with an open torso to interrupt Ruzany’s brooding. Each is attached by wire to an audio adapter, so that Davis’s ambient soundtrack is halted by the physical contact of the dancers, emphasizing profound moments of connection.

To live is to lose. Partings: Dances of Letting Go grapples with this fundamental conflict through the insights of four mature dance artists. Join us on Friday July 12 at 7pm or Sunday July 14 at 8:50pm at the DCJCC’s Cafritz Hall. Purchase tickets in advance through www.bit.ly/fringedance