Running Time: 5 minutes, 15 seconds

Music: Michael Nyman

       Concerto for Harpsichord & Strings, Tango

Dancer Requirements:

Three Women, strong in acting ability, ballet technique

and modern dance.

Technical Requirements:

Stage Size: 30 x 20 preferred

Costumes:

Women: Originally set in off-white dresses, torn and painted to look like filthy burned and ripped rags.  Bare-legged with flesh-tone ballet slippers.

Owned by: Gwinnett Ballet Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia

Description

Aftermath is a short piece choreographed in response to the tsunami tragedy on December 26, 2004.  The music is has three sections - though the work is one movement - the first section, played on the harpsichord uses a tango rhythm in a 5/4 meter.  It has a measured and slightly removed feeling until the strings enter over the harpsichord melody with an emotional, sad and beautiful melody.  The music then changes to an aggressive confrontation between the strings and harpsichord with harsh melodies and irregular time signatures.  The final movement is reminiscent of the first, but uses the strings more fully to create a very poignant, achingly beautiful finale. 

Aftermath explores the feelings evoked by the aftermath of the tsunami disaster in December –the emotions of both those who were there and those of us on the other side of the world, who watched in horror helplessly.  The first movement captures the feelings of loss and sorrow, through the use of emotional, introspective arm lines and long, drawn-out lines in adagio.  The confusion in the aftermath of the disaster is represented through dancers being held, lifted or bending upside-down and turning in canons that seem to lack a definite direction.  The second movement captures the anger brought about by the tragedy through aggressive movements, flailing arms, forceful leaps and strong unison moments.  In the final movement,  the dancers depict the world's desire to help others in humanity and compassion – through the use of lifts, pulling one another off the floor, covering one another in protective embraces and partnering dancers in weakened positions.  The hope for rebuilding and beginning life again is represented by the dancers’ ultimate heavenly gaze together, after working to help one another, as they exit, one by one, into the future.

The piece uses contemporary ballet and modern movement and because of the wide range of music and emotions represented, uses a wide range of movement qualities from floatingly lyrical to darkly aggressive to wrenchingly pensive.  Aftermath includes unison movement as well as canons, and each dancer has two moments when the other two dancers dance together and she has a short solo.   The dancers do some partnering including lifts, dips and drags as well.

History:

Aftermath was first commissioned by Lisa Sheppard's Gwinnett Ballet Theatre in 2005.  It was performed in the 2005 Gwinnett Ballet Theatre Spring Concert.