Tucson Weekly: Healing Arts (March 5

Choreographer Stuart Pimsler's View Of The Medical Profession Is Anything But Sterile.
By Charlotte Lowe
A PERFORMANCE BY Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater is real life as experienced in a dream. Or seen through a kaleidoscope. Or heard in the dark.
The works of artistic director Stuart Pimsler and associate director Suzanne Costello explore the chaos and vitality of human experience, using music, dance and words provoked by the lives of their performers, often previously untrained community members.
The nationally renowned, Ohio-based company will premiere its most recent full-length multimedia work, Out of This World: The Life After Life Project as part of the UApresents' Millennium Project on Saturday, March 7, at UA Centennial Hall.
Review Following a five-week educational residency in Tucson, the work draws on real-life experiences, words and movements of Tucson-area caregivers to explore the issues of death, loss and afterlife. More than 20 local caregivers will perform on stage with Pimsler and Costello, along with six other non-professional performers who've been working with the company in its Columbus, Ohio, studios.
"We did about seven weeks research," said Costello at a recent rehearsal. "We know a lot about their world from our previous work with caregivers. In our workshops we hear about their stories, their days, their experiences with loss." As the caregivers assume their places on stage and warm up, walking and stretching, Costello explains that none of the performance will be improvised. "We use their experience as raw material, but we direct it."
Later she and Pimsler, a strongly emotive dancer, skillfully move through the group as if parting the Red Sea. They provide the lifts, the extensions, the expertise we expect from modern dancers, juxtaposed with the mesmerizing unpredictability of the caregivers' coached, yet still-pedestrian movement.
People of various sizes, ages and attitudes make up the local cast: Among the performers are a trim middle aged man in a ponytail and suspenders; an Hispanic woman with a Mayan face and a long black braid; a slender, silver-haired woman in a long, brown-velvet caftan; a bald man with a deep voice like God's, and a limber, cat-eyed child who moves and acts as if she could take over the lead in Les Mis.
They joined the cast by responding to such ads as this, which appeared last month in a local daily newspaper: "Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater will hold a workshop for caregivers (which) through the power of touch and movement, is designed to give people in the healing arts a creative outlet for the emotional stress they encounter in their work."
Founded in New York City in 1978, Pimsler and company has built a reputation for contemporary performances of vast emotional range, with commentary on the spectacle of everyday life. In recent years they've focused on creating works for community casts, specifically for healthcare professionals.
"We stress the importance of seeing and articulating what is seen," said Pimsler.
Last year Start Pimsler Dance visited Pima Community College with Still Life With Rose, which dealt with compassion for dying patients and their caregivers. The performance involved 11 local healthcare professionals. One local reviewer called the concert "remarkable," and the work "fascinating." The Columbus Dispatch called the piece "cathartic and moving," adding that "Pimsler's company gives new strength and hope to people on the front lines in the fight for life."
Pimsler and Costello believe strongly in the communicative power of dance/theater and "in work that blends movement, text and visual design to comment on the world."
In addition to the caregiver/performers, Out of This World features vocalist Madeline Rivera and music by composer Ingram Marshall, to be performed by Tucson's Heavy Metal Brass Quintet, Mariachi Luz de Luna, and members of the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus. Stage design is by Jose Ouberie of Sonora Theatre Works, with lighting design by Patricia Mahoney. A video of the company, shot during an Ohio snowfall by filmmakers Al Laus and Jimmy Dutt, incorporates words from noted poet Mark Strand's "Farewell," and will provide part of the backdrop for the Centennial Hall performance.
Local partners for the project include Canyon Ranch, Carondelet Hospice, Desert Institute of the Healing Arts, Tucson Medical Center Hospice and the UMC Health and Wellness Center.
Ken Foster, director of UApresents, encourages partnerships between art groups and the community. He called the Pimsler project "a major undertaking in terms of reaching new audiences."
Now in its second year, UApresents five-year Millennium Project aims to present three cutting-edge dance or performance art companies each season, unified by a theme that explores important issues of our time.
Last year's theme was "Familyworks--Family Working." Previously, community members have been used as performers in the Millennium Project by Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and David Dorfman Dance. Several years ago, before the Millennium Project, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane & Company recruited community members, including local ministers, to perform in Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin.
This year's theme is "Connecting Body and Spirit," and featured controversial performance artist Tim Miller in January. Miller presented Shirts and Skin, a performance about growing up gay in America, and invited audience members to join him on the stage. Following Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company will return in April to present the last performance of this season's Millennium Project.

Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater performs Out of This World: The Life After Life Project at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 7, at UA Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd. (just east of Park Avenue). Reserved seating is $20, $17 for UA faculty and staff, $10 for students with ID and children 18 and under. Centennial Hall box office hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday. There's a free parking zone in front of the box office for ticket buyers. Other advance ticket outlets are Dillard's and the TCC box office. Call 621-3341 or (800) 638-4253 for reservations and information.

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