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‘Ascend’ is a full-evening programme of 14 solos in 3 acts – ‘earth … woman … one’.
It is an ‘arc’ – a journey of transformation, liberation and awakening – curated from her repertoire of twenty solo dances created ‘through’ her and ‘for’ her by choreographers including Serge Bennathan, Sandra Neels, Anna Wyman, Judith Marcuse, Gisa Cole, Iris Garland, and Cornelius Fischer-Credo.
‘Ascend’ was first produced in 2003 at the Waterfront Theatre in Vancouver, Canada as Ariole’s victorious ‘comeback’ performances following a 14-year ‘temporary retirement’. The original production included 10 solos in 3 acts.
The full 14 solo version is currently in production as part of the ‘global project’ that Ariole has been passionately immersed in since 1988.
Click here to view the Ascend Programme with formatting and images.
Ariole Alei Dance
presents the World Premiere of
‘Ascend’
“Easily one of the most alluring performances of the year.” – Monday Magazine
“Brilliant … a master.” – The Georgia Straight
Programme
Choreographer and Performer * – Ariole K. Alei
earth
“Dragon Fly”
Music – Pat Metheny “Oasis”
Premiere – July 1989
A voyeur view of a dragonfly beetle shedding its skin.
~
“Was … Is”
Music – Ayub Ogada “Kothbiro”
Premiere – September 2003
Waking to the first rays of dawn on a new planet, a lone creature discovers its ‘Self’.
~
“Lost”
Music – Mark Isham “In The Blue Distance”
Premiere – July 1989
“Lost” speaks of a universal human pain, a weeping emptiness, as if someone had torn a part of us from our own bellies, and we were left, bleeding.
~
“Ziyarah”
Music – A.D. Perry (A.D. Perry, prepared piano)
Premiere – September 2003
Wound up like the “accelerated change” premonition of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, “Ziyarah” lives up to David Suzuki’s ‘a frog in boiling water’ analogy of humanity’s numbness to its insane pace. It winds and winds
… until finally … it ‘pops’.
* Intermission *
woman
“The Times After”
Music – A.D. Perry (Toni Stanick, violin; A.D. Perry, piano)
Premiere – May 1988
“The Times After” first came to me as a vision at night. It persisted. It wouldn’t let me rest until I had listened to it, honoured it, and ‘created’ it. A prayer for the end of sexual and physical abuse and domestic violence, “The Times After” was the first solo dance ‘I’ created.
~
“Back from the Edge”
Music – Andreas Vollenweider “Drown In Pale Light” and “The Secret, The Candle, And Love”
Premiere – July 1989
Inspired by my recovery from a fractured knee, “Back from the Edge” is a dance of sheer joy and deep appreciation, a celebration of life. It is dedicated to the will to thrive which lives in all of us.
~
“The Passage”
Music – Howard Goodall “She Moved Through The Fair” (traditional Irish song)
Premiere – September 2003
A young maiden on the eve of her rite of passage – her wedding.
~
“Woman Awakening”
Music – Andrea Bocelli “L’Ultima Ré”
Premiere – April 2004
An intimate view into the awakening of true woman, the goddess within all women, the ‘Divine Feminine’ revealed.
~
“the missing solo”
New Commission – details tba
* Intermission *
one
“The Great Escape”
Music – Marillion “The Great Escape”
Premiere – September 2003
Mesmerized by this music, I began choreographing to it before I had a conscious sense of what this dance is about. Once ‘in’ it … I listened within myself more deeply. The story which presented itself is this: Faced with death, the dancer realizes she has not lived so many of the moments which she has already been given. Delving back into the empty moments of her past, she fully lives them, ready, ultimately, to be taken by death. Death is a transformation; an invitation. It is a door, and a mirror. It beckons us and challenges us to actually live this gift of life which we have been given. Living life to its fullest … with no regrets.
~
“Umbrella Solo from City Piece” *
Choreography – Anna Wyman
Music – Edgar Froese
Premiere – 1985
Created for me by Anna Wyman, Artistic Director of the Anna Wyman Dance Theatre, with whom I toured internationally in 1983-86. This solo is an excerpt from a full evening ensemble production entitled “City Piece”. My passionate exploration within it is the limitless soaring of the uplifting effects of air and wind.
~
“above the clouds”
Music – Clannad “In A Lifetime”
Premiere – April 2004
The Ascension. The journey through the portal … to omni-dimensionality of the spirit, of consciousness, of Light …
~
“Infinity”
Music – Robert Coxon “Infinity”
Premiere – August 2003
Timeless, effortless, floating … as spirits we are eternal, endless, omni present …
~
“The Is The Sea”
Music – Mike Scott “This Is The Sea”
Premiere – April 2004
The arrival. Beyond space, beyond time. ‘Home’. (At last …)
Ascend is a ‘journey’ of the soul. Akin to a loon carrying its babies upon its back, Ariole respectfully carries each individual in the audience through a passage of self-discovery and transformation. Dropping deep into meditative absorption ‘on the stage’, Ariole creates a ‘vacuum’ inviting individuals into the depth of their own awakening *
“Brilliant … a Master!” – Gail Johnson, The Georgia Straight