September 15, 2002

Sara Sweet Rabidoux and Hoi Polloi to Perform Poised MASS MoCA

(North Adams, Mass.) Dance company Hoi Polloi and choreographer Sara Sweet Rabidoux come to MASS MoCA on Saturday, October 25th at 8:00 P.M. to perform Poised, the company's newest work in narration and dance. The piece, inspired by the history behind the Quabbin Reservoir, explores the duality of change as innovation and loss. Through a combination of montage and narrative, Sara Sweet Rabidoux and her company lead the audience through an examination of the sense of community, place, and change and the importance of these themes in the overall process of healing.

In 1937, state legislators and contractors finalized plans for what is now the Quabbin Reservoir. Due to Boston's swiftly growing need for water, the state agreed to a new reservoir, to be located 40 miles west of the city, in the Swift River Valley. The plans, which were soon carried out, entailed flooding four towns in the region in order to create the reservoir for the city of Boston. In effect, the fate of these towns had been sealed and the communities of thousands of people had to disband and disperse from the area. Poised explores the predetermined nature of this loss and its effects upon the community by narrating the story and simultaneously portraying the various emotions, loss, change, sadness, through montage. The piece touches on individual nature of the flooded towns; they were cut off from awareness but partially preserved below the water. Poised therefore examines the towns as fossils from a time past and looks to the future for erasure and healing.

Choreographer Sara Sweet Rabidoux founded the Hoi Polloi Dance Company in 1995. The company has performed their innovative dance pieces at Jacob's Pillow, the Bates Dance Festival, and the Philly Fringe Festival. They were also featured artists in Boston's First Night Celebration, 2000. Rabidoux received her B.A. in choreography from Hampshire College in 1993 and her M.F.A. in Choreography from Smith College in 1998. She is joined by dancers Joe Shepard, Kim Cadden, Marion Johnson, Katie McGreevy, and Kristin Tovson. Dance scholar and critic Suzanne Carbonneau says of Rabidoux and Hoi Polloi: "I have no doubt Rabidoux has the potential to make a real impact on American dance. Her vocabulary is original--fast, furious, deliberately awkward, with a divine sense of homeliness and bodily sensitivity that make it at once utterly fierce and utterly dear."

Tickets to Poised are $12 and are available by calling the MASS MoCA Box Office at 413.662.2111 or by visiting www.massmoca.org. Tickets may also be purchased in person from 10 ö 6 every day. Seating is very limited, and advance reservations are recommended.

MASS MoCA, the largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts in the United States, is located off Marshall Street in North Adams on a 13-acre campus of renovated 19th-century factory buildings.

MASS MoCA 1040 MASS MoCA Way North Adams, MA 01247 413.MOCA.111 www.massmoca.org

For Immediate Release
Contact: Katherine Myers
(413) 664-4481 x8113
katherine@massmoca.org