Production Stills 2: Cat Wagner’s Seven in October

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Choreographer Focus #4: Cat Wagner

Cat Wagner

Cat Wagner had developed an interesting idea for her piece when we met in October. Here are some excerpts.
About her piece for ATAD, Cat offered: I’ve been working on something…As soon as I get into a room with the dancers, it’s going to change! I’m working on this concept of something radically different… For the past few years, my dance theater pieces focused on intense texts. Not really! I mean all-encompassing texts. This piece is focusing in on one movement piece, one specific idea. I’m working with this line of text: ” I’d rather be [blank]!” Ultimately, I think it’s, “I’d rather be dancing,” but– What it is, is about the theoretical and actual physical sense of replacing yourself either as another person or in another situation in kind of weird, atypical situations. Something a little different from when You are at the daily grind and you’re, “Oh I’d rather be dancing,” but something a little odder than that. Like when you’re hanging out with a friend and you think, “I’d rather be going for a run”.. Things that are a little “off.” What I’m looking at is a lot of partnering movement and a lot of movement of intense stretches of physical activities and sudden bursts of stillness. What then happens, and what it feels like when you’re compelled to stop all of a sudden…and also what I’m looking at is a really wide age range of children. I’m looking at 3 to ten-year-olds and some maybe teenaged involved as well…I had one thought of having 12 dancers, which I like a lot. How, logistically, that will really happen is another story! I’d like an even number, and I’d like a lot. So. We’ll see how it all happens.

How Cat became involved in ATAD:   Through Marcie and Eliza. I knew the two of them through taking a class with Danny McCusker  at the Dance complex and through dancing with them for a couple of his projects, and I got to know them even more.  So when  Joan Green was doing this dance in  the Fells and they needed another dancer….and then, the way this project worked out,  and they needed another choreographer, and then  Marcie realized she had one from every decade except for 20s and 30s, so she asked me if I choreographed, I sent her some stuff. And  here I am!