A Branch Dance

Inspired by her many days spent in Philadelphia's Wissahickon Park, Merian Soto creates slowly evolving "Branch Dances" as something of a meditation on movement and stasis. Marilyn Jackson, writing for Explore Dance, describesThree Branch Songs (2006):

"In a circle of light, Merian Soto ceremonially carries a large branch forward. She looks like an earth goddess draped in rust colors in her new solo work... It's a major departure from the post-modern, yet saucy Salsa-based dances that she's been known for in her work with Pepatián, the multidisciplinary Latino arts organization based in the Bronx...At first, her movement is in silence and seems in response to the shape the branch makes as she slowly moves it and it changes shape in shadow beneath her. It is more divining rod, leading her, not she leading it."

The latest branch dance, What Is Love?, is danced by a company of 5, all using several long branches. The electroacoustic score is based on filtered noise and ratios of the golden mean to derive timbres and scales. The 15 minute work combines a highly-detailed, pre-recorded sequence with sounds derived by a wireless microphone worn by one of the performers.

Listen to an excerpt (1.2 Mbytes, MP3) Recording copyright © 2007 by Maurice Wright