Jondo Portraits 2006
In Clinards’s quest for new ways of communicating personal and global events she has chosen the jondo (“deep song”) branch of flamenco music and dance as the springboard for JONDO PORTRAITS. The traditional boundaries of flamenco are stretched, culminating into a work of contemporary dance theater. Flamenco, cello, guitar, spiraling surfaces, flesh and wood, multiple frames, swirling fabric, live sculpture, painting and video projection integrate to create this powerful and moving work.
Clinard has sought the artistic collaboration of legendary flamenco guitarist and composer Pedro Cortés, Syrian-born cellist and composer Kinan Abou-afach, world-recognized sculptor Susan Clinard, and painter Thomas Masters.
Unraveling Rhythms 2004
Unraveling Rhythms began in 2003 as a small experiment between dancers Siri Sonty and Wendy Clinard, which aimed to incorporate and transcend both flamenco and Indian classical music and dance. The work features the progress of live ink paintings begin made on the backdrop of the performance space (documented by video artist Jeff Abbey Maldonado) and original music by Las Guitarras de España, featuring guest musicians Satya Gummuluri and Kalyan Pathak.
The piece further evolved during Clinard Dance’s and Las Guitarras de España’s tour of South and Central India in December 2004 and January 2005. During this time, the catastrophic tsunami hit the coast of South India, leaving a need to acknowledge both the number of lives taken and the grief of those left behind. The projection during the final movement of the piece portrays an amassing of hundreds of black dots representing the estimated 30,000 lives lost from the tsunami disaster. That dense blackness then shatters off the projected screen onto the living dancers, leaving whiteness behind. Our loss is carried by our continued living, wrapped in the emptiness; the silence of our loss we embrace. We sit. We acknowledge.
Shifting Landscapes 2001
Shifting Landscapes combines music, sculpture, illusion, and modern and flamenco dance to animate the manifestations and phase transitions of water throughout the cycle of a day. A unique work combining luxurious color, sound, and visual effects as the landscapes metamorphose from ice and icebergs, to waterfalls and streams, to water evaporating into a cloud by the sun.
The work begins with Whiteness and Ice. White acts upon our souls like absolute silence. This silence is not something lifeless, but replete with life-potential. From this initial idea, the work is set into motion, taking forms, and exploring the narrative.
Quest of Theseus 1999
Quest of Theseus combines music, dance, and puppetry to animate the myth of Theseus and the Labyrinth. The story begins when the sea god Poseidon sends a gleaming white bull out of the sea as a sign that Minos, one of the three sons of the last King of Crete, is the legitimate heir to the kingdom’s throne. The failure of King Minos to keep his promise to sacrifice the bull back to Poseidon sets in motion a series of tragic fates that can only be resolved by a classic hero, Theseus.
Like many stories from ancient peoples, Quest of Theseus speaks in an archetypal language, carrying a meaning that resonates across time. The story’s themes reflect the fates that befall all families from generation to generation, until a hero is born who can find the thread of wisdom and understanding that allows the life’s inherent conflicts and problems to be resolved.
Interested in learning more or booking one of these past Company performance? Contact Clinard Dance.
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