RED DRESS: multiple Abortive Attempts

With the book out of the way—and the placement map for Alchemy essentially done—I now must get serious about the music for RED DRESS, the dance piece proposed by Paulo de Sousa at Southern Arc Dance to link in with the American Heart Association's Red Dress women's health initiative.

I'd already plopped out a couple of ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS based on two dances Paulo has suggested: a romantic pas de deux and a solo for a woman "trying to shed her skin."  Neither is close to becoming a real thing.

While on the road Sunday I had a couple of ideas for the finale, which I've conceived of as a waltz for the entire company, a kind of wistful yet hopeful new agey kind of thing.  First, an intro of a long sequence of interesting chords, which then become the basis for the waltz.  Paulo has suggested that the whole company (men and women) be wearing red dresses, and I think this would be a good place to do that.

The waltz comes to a crashing halt—and then the bass drum (Paulo, we need to add a bass drum) begins the motivic heartbeat that we will already have heard in the rest of the evening.  And one by one the dancers shed their red dresses and (somehow — stagecraft I suppose) begin ringing a variety of bells, gently, randomly, over the silence and the heartbeat — and maybe one long cello note — as they make their exit.  Al niente — to nothing.

But that's still to come.

This morning I decided to create an unrelated ABORTIVE ATTEMPT just to see where it might lead.  Here it is:

So far so good.  Now back to work...