Starr Foster is sick of flying. She’s spent much
of the year as a guest dance teacher at schools
across the country.
“If I have to get on one more airplane this
year, I’ll scream,” Foster said.
Somehow, she’s still managed to find the time
to create new pieces and prepare a company
performance.
The Starr Foster Dance Project will present
“Talking With Ghosts” Thursday through
Sunday at 8 p.m. at the Grace Street
Theater. The performance consists
of two new works and two old
works.
In general, Foster said, she
choreographs about six new
pieces each year.
“All my work is about
real human situations,
emotions and tragedy
– not about how the stars
are re-aligning,” Foster
said.
When Foster sets a
piece on her company,
she said she usually has all
her choreography prepared,
which leaves little space for
her dancers to improvise or add
movements.
“I generally don’t tell the dancers
what I’m thinking about what the piece
is about. That’s where their input comes in,”
Foster said. “They develop their own character
in the work, and they know what the dance is
about by the end.”
Foster said the decidedly raw and energetic
“Heroin(e),” which premiered two years ago, is
different from the company’s usual work. The
piece explores the parallels between drug users
and beauty pageant enthusiasts and requires 15
dancers in addition to the company.
“It’s a women’s piece,” Foster said. “It’s about
how the pressures that we have as women are just
as detrimental as drug use. As women, we have
such incredible pressures to be beautiful.”
In the piece, the dancers flail, squirm, primp,
cough and speak as they lift, push, lean on and
manipulate each other. The work also includes
video projections of women putting on makeup
and doing drugs. The piece incorporates Neil
Diamond music and makes Janis Joplin references.
As an ensemble, the dancers get only three
one-and-a-half-hour rehearsals to learn and
perfect the 25-minute piece.
“I love all these layers,” Foster said to the
dancers during rehearsal, as the ensemble moved
in a seamless canon.
Foster auditioned
35 dancers
from the community and made her company pick the
lucky 15. Foster said she didn’t feel comfortable
picking the dancers because she knew most of
them from her work as a dance teacher. She
wanted the dancers to be judged solely on
how they handled a section of movement from
“Heroin(e).”
The large number of dancers packed into
the relatively small space was in and of itself
impressive. The rehearsal required a lot of
stopping and starting to fix logistical spacing
problems.
During the rehearsal, which took place in a
studio, Foster told the dancers to stay within
the imaginary lines that represent the stage
space. Foster said the stage is actually larger
than what she marked, but she wanted to be
sure no one goes over the edge.
“There are a lot of spacing issues that you
don’t really know are going to exist until you
actually have 20 humans in one little space
– people are getting kicked,” Foster said.
One of the most striking aspects of Foster’s
rehearsal style is how casual and good-natured
she is. She is always open to questions from
her dancers and laughs right along
with them when things do go quite
as planned.
Foster said she is blessed to have
a tight-knit group of beautiful girls
who get along very well together.
For this performance, the company
will also be presenting one
piece that premiered in Richmond
in 2006, “Songs of Sorrow,”
and the two premieres, “Sharing
Small Spaces” and “Talking With
Ghosts.”
“Sharing Small Spaces” is an
intense and statuesque quintet. The
dancers’ bottom halves are grounded
and heavy, juxtaposing with their
upper bodies that arch backward
and upward. Their chests seem to
be reaching for the heavens.
Acrobatic lifts and repeated small
hand motions add to the strong, yet
fragile nature of the work.
“It’s turned out quite nice. We’re
all pretty happy with that one,”
Foster said.
“Songs of Sorrow” is a delicate
and mysterious quartet. The dancers
display precision control as they
execute sustained lifts and exquisitely
slow movements. Bursts of
speed and energy provide a perfect
balance to the pace of the rest of
the piece.
For “Talking With Ghosts,”
Foster returns to the stage after a
two-year hiatus. The piece is a duet
with Jordan Livermon, a three-year
veteran of the company. Foster said
the work represents a journey to the
past. The piece is an exploration of
the magical places you can visit in
your imagination.
“The great thing about modern
(dance) is it provokes and inspires
thought,” Foster said. “It gives
you ideas and you walk away with
something.”