We currently have two touring programs: One includes My Serenade and Terminal and the second is an evening length piece, Coming Together/Attica with includes opportunities to collaborate with local musicians.

My Serenade • 35 minutes • Quintet • Music: Pytr Ilich Tchaikovsky, Serenade for Strings in C, Op. 48

“Full of cool sensuality” — Gia Kourlas, The New York Times

“It requires a lot of guts to remake a big, famous work with big, famous music by a big, famous choreographer; kudos to Lazier and her dancers for taking on the challenge! Totally cool!” — Margaret Fuhrer, Dance Spirit Magazine

My Serenade builds from the intimate to the grandiose, from a rehearsal to a performance. My Serenade is a response both to Tchaikovsky's score and to the choreography of the same name by George Balanchine. Lazier considers both works as artifacts, existing both within their historical context and torn out of that context, they provide a backdrop of expectations and set of ideals to question. The source of the sound score changes from movement to movement. First a television, then phonograph, and tape decks provide anachronistic images which layer onto the developing performance.

Terminal • 22 minutes • Quartet • Music by Gregory Spears, Canons (After Maurice Ravel)

“A state of mind… intriguing responsive environment transforms the theater into a shimmering pool of shadows.” — Gia Kourlas, The New York Times

“Lazier's choreography—its emphasis on sudden movement that pulls back, at an instant, into contained control—transcended to create a real and recognizable portrait of an emotional moment.” — Jacqueline Barba, Explore Dance.com

Terminal shifts dramatically between the dreamlike and the recognizable, between a sensory environment that is overwhelming and one that is subtle,and attempts to recall for the audience long-forgotten and vaguely remembered moments in their individual pasts. Audience members are enclosed in the same sound and light environment as the dancers. The music begins with a low-fi wash of drones produced by small tape recorders held by the dancers. As the sound builds, fragments of Ravel's Bolero melody emerge. They vanish again as the drone transforms into a dense C-major howl with grainy synthesizer pedal-tones rounding out the sound. Eight video projectors immerse the space in 360 degree images. Michael Clarke's design alternates drawing our attention to the dancers and to the alien, haunting and earthly worlds projected. Aaron Copp's lighting furthers the concept that each section of the dance takes place in a different environment.

Coming Together/Attica • 65 minutes • Quintet • Music by Frederick Rzewski

This new evening length dance uses Frederick Rzewski’s political and minimal scores Coming Together and Attica, composed in 1972 with text from prisoners letters, to frame the dystopia of the performers world. To be presented in the round with 12 musicians, arranged and conducted by Arthur Solari, the work juxtaposes the violence and tenderness that arises from isolation. Rzewski’s music of the 1970s is politically charged, socially concerned and works to reframe questions of minimalism. Full production will include lighting by Aaron Copp and costumes by Mary Jo Mecca in late 2010.

Presentation of Coming Together/Attica creates an opportunity to collaborate with local musicians. Music Director Arthur Solari is available to rehearse and conduct the piece with student and/or professional musicians. This non-traditional work is scored for speaker, bass instrument and ensemble and performers are able to self determine elements of their playing.

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