in her words
Tracks Three to Six
In Her Words is a four-movement work which – unlike my other dance pieces – incorporates spoken word. Four dancers, who lend their names to the four movements, each sent me a moving, sometimes highly intimate confession about their fears, their anguish, their darkest moments. I was honored to be entrusted with their narratives. I also wanted to respect their privacy because the material was emotionally sensitive, so I broke up their monologues into short fragments that hint at despair without becoming too explicit or too revelatory. Like women everywhere, their (our) voices are still struggling to be heard.
The initial idea of using the personal histories of dancers as part of the musical score came from choreographer Ariel Grossman, who explains: “For the last 14 years of Ariel Rivka Dance, I have had the privilege to process my own stories and experiences through movement on my company of dancers. Ready to hear someone else's story, I’ve chosen to work with four of my dancers, asking each to share and record something profoundly personal and send it to me and composer Stefania de Kenessey. Stefania created a composition inspired and sometimes dictated by the recording. The cadence, tone, speed, craft, and nuance of the dancer’s voice and words contribute to the score.”
In Her Words was funded in part by Nimbus Arts Center and the New Jersey Arts and Culture Recovery Fund of the Princeton Area Community Foundation, and the Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation.
Since I splintered the text, here is a brief comment from each dancer about her contribution: