Directed and Choreographed by Joanna and Ryan Greer
Synopsis
Kinetic Collective Photo Credit: Bryan Young
STOLEN MOMENTS is a dance theater piece about “the making of” a dance theater
piece. The production within a production is self-aware, an abstraction of the
creative process beginning with a blank canvas and ending with an attempted
number set to Oliver Nelson’s 1960 jazz standard, Stolen Moments.
A semi-autobiographical concept by Joanna and Ryan Greer, their combined meta-
persona is played by Brad Landers, the self-producing Director/Choreographer
assigned to the task. On deadline, with budgetary constraints, faced with the
technical and personal challenges of hoping to make something happen, he strays
from his own typical thematic through-line and finds himself having the idea in
the most vulnerable way–in front of the audience. The script is nonlinear, stage
directions, lighting cues, rehearsal, as it deconstructs and evolves in real time on the
Ensemble.
Kinetic Collective Photo Credit: Bryan Young
Embracing the handed down art form, dances steal from the pedestrian grace of
vaudeville, jazz, Bill Robinson, Fred Astaire, Jack Cole, while more experimental
choreography endeavors to be original. The text is also both original and borrowed
such as Martha Graham’s famous letter to Agnes de Mille and Mickey Rooney’s “let’s
put on a show” speech from the MGM musical, Babes on Broadway. STOLEN
MOMENTS addresses the influences on the artist, the burden of responsibility and
the need to create.
