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And a White Light in the Back of My Mind to Guide MePost an Event »

Patricia Sweetow Gallery

May 10 - May 18, 2009

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480 23rd Street Oakland, CA 94612
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a free performance installation by Stephen Pelton Dance Theater Sundays-May 10 & 17 at Patricia Sweetow Gallery- 77 Geary Street, mezzanine level-San Francisco, CA 4-6pm, admission free Stephen Pelton Dance Theater, known for its lyricism, intimate theatricality and emotional intensity, will perform its first ever performance installation at the Patricia Sweetow Gallery in downtown San Francisco. The installation, choreographed for 8 performers, is composed of twelve variations on the company's acclaimed 10-minute work from 2008 and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me. This dark and subtle work, set to a score by Gavin Bryars, was inspired by the poem "Prayer Before Birth," by the Anglo-Irish poet Louis MacNeice. Written at the height of the World War II, the poem expresses the poet's fear of the world's tyranny destroying his reason for living. For choreographer Stephen Pelton, the poem instigated a meditation on aging. I am not yet born, console me. I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me, with wise lies lure me, on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me. I am not yet born; provide me with water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me - Louis MacNeice, "Prayer Before Birth" The complete work will run from 4-6pm on a continuous loop and the public is invited to come when they choose and stay for as long as they like. Audience members who stay for the entire event will experience twelve quietly different versions of a single meditation on how one must reconcile one's self not only to mankind's sometimes cruel and despotic impulses, but to the unstoppable progress of time and the body as well. The installation is a free event and each performance will be followed by a reception with the artists. About Stephen Pelton Dance Theater and Patricia Sweetow Gallery: Stephen Pelton Dance Theater, known for its lyricism, intimate theatricality and emotional intensity, will perform its first ever performance installation at the Patricia Sweetow Gallery in downtown San Francisco. Now in its 16th year, it is the company's mission to make dances that tell inspiring, human stories through emotionally-driven dance and theater.