Dense Terrain
Premiere: May 15, 2007
Music by Nathan Larson
Sets by Allen Moyer
Lighting Design by Jane Cox
Costume Design by Liz Prince
12 performers, 1 hour 15 minutes
Premiere: Carlsen Center at Johnson County Community College, KS May 15, 2007
Commissioned by Summerdance Santa Barbara and the Carlsen Center of the Johnson County Community College, Kansas, Charles R. Rogers, Artistic Director; and co-commissioned by the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington, Vermont.
Varone revealed a masterly ability to blend dance, music, video and set design with an idea about the human predicament. If ever there was a symbiotic team, this is it. - Bloomberg.com
Although Dense Terrain seems to me a flawed work, I was utterly gripped by it, as I always am by what Mr. Varone does. He's made a highly ambitious piece, employing all the impedimenta, film projections, sliding panels, voice-overs, that have become a symptom of so much modern dance. And yet, like all of his work, it's alive, exciting, moving. Varone dancers are kinetically thrilling. They go all the way, both when they're in vivid, rushing motion and when they're in deep stillness. - New York Observer
Some of the most provocative theater dance you're likely to see, Dense Terrain stretches the vocabulary of modern dance. - Kansas City Star
Photos by Julieta Cervantes