Heloise Gold

“Watching From the She-Palace,” was a new work choreographed by Heloise Gold. It demonstrated her continuing interest in multi-disciplinary art. Combining dance, readings from her original novella, and music, Gold explored the relationship between inner and outer experience. Eight performers incorporated dream sequences, comedic animal images, music and theatrical dances into the performance.

A former member of the Deborah Hay Dance Company, Gold continued to develop her use of animal imagery as a means to convey a broad spectrum of emotion from the comedic to the serious. Live birds and goldfish joined Gold and the other performers to depict another realm of being and to convey meaning through the use of fables. “In both their physical and mythic aspects, animals convey wildness, innocence, and civility in a pure and simple manner and tell us much about ourselves,” said Gold.

The performance was set against a backdrop of a raised fantasy bed from which Gold read passages from her novella. Descending from this bed, Gold joined Mike Arnold, Kerry-Ann Ridley, Sallie Jacque, Tim Hurst, Emily Burken. Marilyn Yank,· and Lizzie Armstrong in dance and in a kazoo chorus. Flutist Ken Metz provides additional musical accompaniment. Beverly Bajema shared the stage throughout the evening with Gold and the other performers, providing complementary and contrasting commentary on the other artist’s performances.

A twenty-minute videotape by Tom Giebink of movement meditation at Enchanted Rock accompanied by phrases from Gold’s novella played in the lobby of the theater before the performance – helping to establish the mood for the evening and further demonstrating Gold’s interest in multi-disciplinary art.