In early May, Daniel Phoenix Singh and the Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company will be premiering a dance theater work at Dance Place and at Reston’s CenterStage. The new work is inspired by Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS co-edited by Philip Clark (from the DC area) and David Groff (from NYC). The anthology includes poems from eight DC poets. The poetry deals with AIDS and other topics.
Singh is combining choreography, poetry, multi-media and visual designs to explore the effect of AIDS in our lives.
I recently asked Singh why he decided to develop choreography inspired by the poetry from “Persistent Voices.” He responded that he had heard “the poems from Persistent Voices anthology at a reading organized by one of the co-editors Philip Clark and was immediately drawn to the power of the words to take us to a place and time in the history of the LGBT community.”
He went on to say, “I’ve been letting the poetry and the words germinate in me for almost 3 years now. Through Clark’s work, the book bears witness to this part of the LGBT history, and I hope the dance theater work will continue to honor and memorialize the work and lives of these poets.”
Singh went on with a request and I taking this opportunity to bring to readers attention as quickly as possible. His request is in full below for readers:
“If the readers have any gestures of their loved ones they’d like us to work into the movement, I’d love to make that happen. So for example, if the remember the way a friend who they lost to AIDS pushed back their eye glasses, twirled their hair, had a hand on their waistband, or cocked their head a certain way, we’d love to get little vines of these gestures and try to work them into the dance. I would very much like to make the dance reflective of the gestures and movement memories of the larger community. So please do send us any videos of any memory you have of a loved one’s signature gestures. You can simply make a vine and email us at [email protected]g.
Dance Place: Dakshina performs Persistent Voices on May 2, 2015 at 8 p.m. & May 3, 2015 at 7 p.m.at Dance Place-3225 8th Street NE, in Washington, DC. For tickets call (202) 269-1600, or purchase them online.
Reston CenterStage: Dakshina performs Persistent Voices on May 6, 2015 at 8 p.m. at Reston Community Center’s CenterStage – in Hunters Woods -2310 Colts Neck Road, in Reston, VA. For tickets call (703) 476-4500, or purchase them online.
