Dramatic Classics
As I Remember
(11:45 minutes) 3 female solos
These three solos were reconstructed from Anna Sokolow's extraordinary repertory when she was a solo performer in the 1930's and 1940's.
"The soloist doesn't move from her spot...her formal salutations define a dancer zone, her tightly coiling maneuvers wind the bull around her."
Deborah Jowitt ~ Village Voice
"...a wistful, lyrical excursion into jazz, at once subtle and exuberant, pure dance with no reason for being other than its rhythm and beauty of motion."
Larry Warren ~ The Rebellious Spirit
"Ms. Sokolow's gift for summing up loss and loneliness is captured in Kaddish with a searing simplicity and intensity."
Jennifer Dunning ~ New York Times
Sokolow Now!, MA
Photos: Tom Bowling
Dreams
1961
(40 minutes) 8 to large group piece, 1 female child
"Almost 50 years after its debut, Anna Sokolow's Dreams looks as fresh as ever. Sokolow's choreography strikes just the right note: she manages to capture the terror and the magnitude of that event without veering into the melodramatic. For much of the dance, the stage is dark save for a single square of light, making the dancers constantly appear confined. The music intentionally skips on and off, abruptly leaving them to push through uncomfortable silence. The piece closes with the dancers huddling close together and dropping slowly to their knees. In unison, they let out a quiet, chilling whimper."
Sarah Halzack ~ Washinton Post (May 10, 2009)
"Sokolow's vision is of the collective social experience and the power of this experience over the fragile human body. Sokolow's trademark is to distill movement and emotion, paring it down to something so simple that it takes on timeless resonance. These images present human beings mis-shapen by experience. They emerge from history as flesh and blood, eerily unnamed and without the personal stories which can serve to distance their lives from our own."
Alice Naude ~ Manhattan Spirit
Sokolow Now!, MA
Photos: Joseph Arthur
Everything Must Go
1982
(15 minutes) large group piece
Everything Must Go is a classic example of Sokolow's unique ability to structure choreography for large numbers of dancers. This 1980's work is a searing statement about the social and economic structure of American society.
Bridgewater State College, MA
Photos: Matt Green
Kurt Weill
1988
(30 minutes) 8 to large group piece
Youkale Tango (4:36) 4 male/female couples
Surabaya Johnny (3:51) 3 male/female couples
String Quartet No 1, Op. 8 (6:29) 4 male/female couples
Epitaph (1:54) 3 woman
Soldier's Wife (4:18) 3 men, 1 woman
Matrosen Tango (3:28) 4 male/female couples
Music: Kurt Weill
*Music rights required
"Kurt Weill fits the composer's roots in German Expressionism with Ms. Sokolow's singular brand of American Expressionism... Ms. Sokolow can sum up a state of being - an entire society - in an arrested pose."
Anna Kisselgoff ~ New York Times
Anna Sokolow's Players' Project, NYC
Photos: Johann Elbers
Opus 65
1965
(17 minutes) large group piece
Section 1 (5:00) large group
Section 2 (3:00) 4 or 5 men, 1 woman
Section 3 (3:45) large group
Section 4 (4:15) large group
Music: Teo Macero
*Music rights required
"Opus 65 . . . is typical of a social protest ballet that Ms. Sokolow virtually invented. This is a genre that has been widely copied throughout the world ...it is called the 'alienated youth' ballet . . . but there is still no one who can come up with the conviction of the genuine article better than Ms. Sokolow herself."
Anna Kisselgoff ~ New York Times
Anna Sokolow's Players' Project, NYC
Photos: Johann Elbers
Ride the Culture Loop
1975
(25 minutes) large group piece
Music: Teo Macero
*Music rights required
"A subway route through New York's patchwork of ethnic neighborhoods was the inspiration for Ride the Culture Loop, but you don't need to know that to pick up on the voyeurism, the hard stares, the jarring moods, the suffocating sense of crowds and the tension, even in the jauntier, Caribbean-flavored moments. Sokolow paired her work to the clashing cords and infectious beats of experimental jazz musician, Teo Macero."
Sarah Kaufman ~ Washington Post
University of Wyoming, WI
Photos: Dave Andrews Photography
Rooms
1955
(55 minutes) 6 to 12 dancers
Music: Kenyon Hopkins
"Rooms is a powerful, deeply penetrating exploration of man's aloneness....Ms Sokolow has given her subjects stunning theatrical treatment through movements which are striking as pure dance action but also revelatory of the individual dreams of each of the participants. Indeed, she makes you care about her characters to the degree that their problems replace your own. And what more effective magic can a choreographer work?"
Walter Terry ~ Herald Times
Hofstra University, NY
Photos: John Elbers, V. Paul Virtrucio
Steps of Silence
1968
(20 minutes) large group piece
Music: Anatol Vieru
"Steps of Silence carries to a searing extreme with its distorted bodies. Yet the finish to this concentration camp scene is theatrical and true. Newspapers blow in from the wings and cover the bodies on the floor, history's human debris."
Anna Kisselgoff ~ New York Times
Anna Sokolow's Players' Project, NYC
Photo: Johann Elbers
Time +
1967
(18 minutes) large group piece
Music: Teo Macero
*Music rights required
"Time + begins on a deceptively cheerful note, a mob scene of youngsters......The action is an amalgam, insolent gestures, anti-social gestures, and current dance crazes. then a dramatic shift, a pack of ragged and bloodied soldiers stumble across the stage, falling into fantastic heaps and finally into stillness."
Jacqueline Maskey ~ Dance Magazine
"The theme is timely and the punch line just as emphatic 36 years later."
Janet Anderson ~ Philadelphia City Paper
Dancefusion, PA
Photos: Ron Williams