In My Room

Premiere: December 1999
Choreography: Bill James
Music: Juliet Kiri Palmer
Costumes: Caroline O'Brien

Performers: Shanon Cooney
Musicians: Vilma Vitols, mezzo-soprano; Juliet Palmer, clarinet; Martin Arnold, hurdy gurdy

About

Juliet Palmer's music was first commisioned by me as part of Water Sources 2, an outdoor perfomance series in July 1999. When Serge Bennathan asked if I would contribute a solo for Dancemakers 25th Anniversary, this haunting music inspired the creation with Shannon. The site-specific composition "Room" was itself inspired by the sculpture Sundial Folly, a large concrete open sphere at Harbour Square Quay. That spring the sculpture was inhabited by someone who brought in a futon to sleep in this 'room'. The solo is a composite of characters who sleep outdoors in the city and examines the emotional tension between hope and despair.