100 Women Dance on Bridge

by Emily Pyle

Lisa Moore dances in The Bridge, a vocal, musical, and dance performance that brought together 100 Austin women, the MS/NERVE dance company and The Walter Thompson Orchestra on the Congress Street bridge Saturday. Taking place at sunset, the event was a celebration of women's voices.

The bats weren't the only ones causing a spectacle at the Congress Avenue bridge Saturday evening. About 100 Austin women, ranging in age from 9 to 90, joined a professional dance company and a live orchestra during a free-form dance performance on the bridge. The women danced, sang, spoke and whispered with the orchestra.

Margery Segal, founder and director of the MS/Nerve dance company, said she first conceived of The Bridge project about a year and a half ago. "I was thinking about the idea of uncontrollable forces like weather and sex and women," Segal said. "I wanted the audience to take away a sense that life is very big and mysterious and funny and beautiful."

Segal said professional dancers participated in the event, but many of the performers had never danced before. "For a lot of them it's like an undiscovered dream, something they've never been able to do," she said. "I have to entice them into enjoying themselves, discovering the meaning behind the dance." Segal recruited dancers from the community, including many from senior citizen centers. "It can bring [the senior citizens] joy," Segal said. "We're paying full attention to them because they're doing our work." She added that some senior dancers were not able to attend dress rehearsals because of the heat.

Despite this and other limitations, Segal said the challenge of working with non-professional dancers was worthwhile. Segal added that the inclusion of community members in the company exposed the entire community to an experience they might otherwise have missed. "The communities are under-served by the arts all over the country," she said. "This opens it up to more people. Their families and friends may come see a piece that would otherwise seem distant."

Suzanne Beltz, an associate professor at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, learned about the project while consulting with the Elder Haven senior center. The dance performance recruited several seniors from the Elder Haven center. Beltz participated in the performance with her 10-year-old granddaughter, Alyssa. "I've never done anything like this in my life," Beltz said. "I've been much more scared than Alyssa. She's been having fun from the very beginning."

Walter Thompson, of the Walter Thompson Orchestra, conducted vocal portions of the performance. Thompson conducts using a method he calls "sound painting," which uses more than 650 signals to direct the performers. "It's composition that's put together right on the spot using a sort of sign language," he said.

Segal said she and Thompson had been planning a collaboration for about two years. Both worked on previous projects involving more than one artistic discipline. "In this day and time, visual artists have been interdisciplinary for 20 years," Thompson said. "There is a need, because old forms are wearing thin, especially in music."

As the sun set toward the end of the performance, the Congress Avenue bridge bats made an appearance. Segal said she had hoped they would, adding that the bats fit into the overall theme of the performance. "Part of the performance deals with themes of ascension and flight," she said.

Funding for the project was made available by individual contributions as well as the Austin Arts Commission and the Texas Commission for the Arts.