PATIENCE IMPATIENCE (2014)

Choreography: Alison Cook-Beatty
Music: Composed by Avner Finberg
Costume Design: Mary Carney
Conceptual Design: Paul B. Goode
Performance Info: Three dancers; ten minutes
Commissioned by Columbia Ballet Collaborative
1st Original Score of PATIENCE IMPATIENCE composed by Alan Green
2nd Original Score of PATIENCE IMPATIENCE composed by Avner Finberg
Premiered at Manhattan Movement and Arts Center in New York City

This piece began when Alison wrote a poem, titled EAST RIVER BANKS, and shared it with composer Allan Greene, who then created a musical composition from it, with different languages reciting the poem and overlapping water and ocean sounds. Alison then choreographed a work-in-progress that was performed at an dance festival held outdoors in front of the East River at Socrates Sculptural Park.
Composer Avner Finberg was then brought onboard to compose a new piece of music, to which Alison created a revised dance composition that she then decided to call PATIENCE IMPATIENCE.

PATIENCE IMPATIENCE deals with basic human emotions: loss, fortitude, patience, impatience, endurance, hope, and resilience. In this music and dance collaboration, Alison and Avner are trying to create a joint experience of motion and sound, to explore what “patience” and “impatience” means to us. Dancers dance with ropes and weights, in what is probably Alison’s most prop-heavy piece thus far. The electronic score mirrors the sombre mood onstage, as the sounds of bells compliments the sounds of the weights being dragged. Two solo instruments, the flute and the violin, represent the struggle between patience and impatience. The ten minutes score is conceived as a set of variations, exploring the different moods suggested by the title.

Photo credit: Dariel Sneed