SITUATE / 23 February to 5 July 2015
Wendy Woodson is a choreographer, director, writer, artist and academic from Amherst College (and the Five College Dance Department). She is the Roger C. Holden 1919 Professor of Theater and Dance at Amherst, and founder and Artistic Director of Present Co. Inc.—a non-profit organization that produces and tours new work in different media. Since 1980 Woodson has created 95 works for stage and video presented throughout the U.S. and in Europe, New Zealand and Australia.
La Mama presents Dora, a new production from the U.S. by Wendy Woodson & Present Company Inc.. In an intense balancing act between visceral poetry and feverish movement, Dora takes us on an exhilarating journey of continually shifting landscapes of history and memory where two characters meet and lose one another repeatedly. “If Beckett had used Joyce's love of verbiage, Wendy Woodson's Dora would emerge. With layering of language and movement, this piece could an interrogation, sometimes sinister in intent, sometimes empathetic, where the interrogator and the "prisoner" become almost one person and the reality, as in Waiting for Godot, circles something literal, and by that restraint, makes the experience profound.” (playwright Constance Congdon)
Dora, written by Wendy Woodson
Performed by Phil Roberts and Wendy Woodson
Directed by Peter Schmitz
Produced by Wendy Woodson & Present Company Inc.
Funded in part by a grant from Amherst College
Approximate running time 75 minutes
Wendy Woodson is a choreographer, director, writer and video artist. She has created 95 works for stage and video presented in the U.S., Europe, New Zealand and Australia at venues such as the John F. Kennedy Center, LaMaMa Etc. NYC, LaMaMa Melbourne, the Smithsonian, Jacob's Pillow, Emerson Majestic Theater, Washington Project for the Arts, PS 122, and the DeCordova Museum. She has received numerous fellowships and grants in choreography, playwriting and video from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the D.C. Commission on Arts & Humanities and the Fulbright Commission among others. She is Artistic Director of Present Company Inc. and is the Roger C. Holden Professor of Theater and Dance at Amherst College.