KD
 &D

Plunge (1997)

Seven dancers punctuating Strauss's ''Blue Danube Waltz'' with the sound of seven plungers thwunking off the floor, off a thigh, off a partner's hip. The invention and Donovan's disregard here for meaning are thoroughly refreshing."

-The Boston Globe

Changing Skin (2002)

The best of the offerings is the simplest one: a solo for Donovan called ''Changing Skin'' (premiere), set to lush, thrumming music by Julliet Russel. Donovan is a riveting performer, able to initiate a curlicued movement with, say, an arm and then allowing that movement to captivate her entire torso. The images she etches in space recall the challenge of drawing an entire world on a page without once lifting your pencil from the paper. She's that organic in her approach. ''Changing Skin'' is a dance bordering on ritual.

Particularly striking is how Donovan shapes her movements: They're powered by impulses that spring from her core rather than any external preconception.

-The Boston Globe

Chasing a Thicker Skin (2002)

Chasing a Thicker SkinBased on a poem by Sarah Tyler laden with images of a snake, is striking primarily for the gesture at its core: a single woman tracing a line up her middle. The contrast of bare hand against velvet top suggests the push and pull of growing.

-The Boston Globe

The Color Green (1999)

"crisp crisscrossing feet and smooth arm caresses."

-The Boston Globe

Strange Attractor (1994)

''Strange Attractor'' which is set to music by Michael Oster, is more spare but similarly attracting. Motored by a pair of spiraling wrists, it's a compendium of curves and crouches cut, now and then, by abrupt downward arm slices and hands petting a belly. Particularly striking is how Donovan shapes her movements: They're powered by impulses that spring from her core rather than any external preconception.

-The Boston Globe

Conversation Out Of Silence (2002)

Set to Gregg Bendian's soundscape of rain, breaking glass, and bowling-alley noises, and so on. A dance for eight, it was inspired by Donovan's admiration for the Quakers as independent thinkers. And the theme comes through, as the dancers operate in their own worlds or in groups that play, say, three dancers against two against three in canons or unison sequences. The dance has indelible motifs: two fingers pressed against lips, hands as claws.

-The Boston Globe

A Midwife's Tale

Return to Main Page

e-mail kdonovan@mit.edu.

Last updated by Kelley Donovan