All join in

Falling in step with Fusionworks

by Johnette Rodriguez

If the name of the game in the non-profit world today is collaboration, then the performing arts organizations in Rhode Island have led the way. Cross-fertilization of talent (musicians, dancers, actors, choreographers, directors, etc.), as well as going out into the non-arts community with that talent, have resulted in some memorable productions.

Deb Meunier, founder and artistic director of Fusionworks: Women Dancing, gets excited about such collaborations. Whether it's working with students at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf to create a movement piece of their own, bringing dance teachers to pre-school Head Start classes in East Providence to give kids and parents a new way of learning about themselves, or finding contemporary choreographers from outside Rhode Island who will work with her company to challenge their skills, Meunier is open to almost anything that will stretch her vision for what dance can do.

Last summer, she hooked up with the Celtic band Pendragon, based in the Blackstone Valley, to create a riverside piece for the International Canal Conference. Meunier and Marty Sprague choreographed the performance, which moved along the historic tow-path, past one of the old locks and around a wooden bridge. After extensive research about the Blackstone Valley Canal, which was only in service for approximately 20 years in the 19th century, and about the mill life that surrounded the river itself, Meunier decided to explore four different ideas: women and the working day, seduction by a picnic basket, silent meeting, and modern dance meets Irish jig and reel.

Called Downstream . . . Along the Blackstone, the outdoor piece has been adapted to the proscenium space at Rhode Island College's Roberts Hall Auditorium, and will be presented as part of an evening of Fusionworks: Women Dancing. For the adaptation, only three of the four sections will be danced -- Meunier felt that the audience interaction the company had used with the picnic basket auction would not work inside an auditorium.

Accompanied by Pendragon playing live, the Fusionworks dancers will present the women and their mill life in dreamlike images of weaving fabric, then to the "silent meeting," representing the quiet life in a village, and end with a quicker-paced Irish-tinged modern dance sequence.

"This is an attempt to capture a sense of a time gone by," Meunier explained in a phone conversation last week from her Lincoln studio. "We are not trying to be Riverdance, though the Irish and the river are in our piece. We see this as a meeting of two worlds."

The other new piece is entitled Travelin', which Meunier created last spring with residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania. In Allentown, she worked with community members, both dancers and non-dancers, aged seven to 72. The first section is built around road signs Meunier had observed, such as "Have You Fastened Your Seat Belt Lately?" and "Dim Lights When You Meet Oncoming Cars."

Amused by these signs, first seen on the Maine Turnpike, Meunier presented their language to the 15 community members she was working with and began to develop postures and gestures that would represent a sense of traveling, of seeking directions, of going forward and backward. Set to Herbie Hancock and other '70s funk/fusion, the Rhode Island incarnation of this piece will have approximately 20 community members, from eight to 72, community, with the 72-year-old Pennsylvanian coming up as a "guest performer."

In the second section, "Are You Going With Me?," the traveling became more metaphorical, the representations more emotional, such as dealing with leaving someone or going away from them, whether it be lovers breaking up, a family member dying or just a long trip bringing about a separation. Meunier calls the third section "Wide Open Road" and uses the Fusionworks dancers to get across the feeling of getting into a car and driving very fast. "Community work stretches me to find movement structures that are beautiful but doable," she reflected. "It can seem simple on one level, but the restraints on my choreography have elicited completely different responses. How do I make something with non-dancers that has quality, that is not just pure mime or too corny?"

Completing the Fusionworks concert will be two repertory pieces, Lizard In the Window, with visual artists Jane Case doing body painting and Barbara Wong designing the set. Wanda, choreographed by the Freedman Coleman company from western Massachusetts, will be performed in trio with Meunier, Marty Sprague and Stephanie Stafford, and will also feature live music -- a trio, with Ron Schmidt on percussion, Joseph Podlesny on guitar and Peter Jones on keyboards.

Fusionworks will perform at Rhode Island College on Friday, December 5 at 8 p.m. Call 456-8060.