I've done a lot of pieces in the past where I try to teach my movement to people," Donovan said. "But some poeple will get it, and others will just never do it the way that I want it. This way the process is smoother and more fun.
For her current show, Donovan put up fliers looking for volunteers. Seventeen people showed up, some with experience, some first-time performers. Donovan, a former professional dancer who had suffered a career ending injury to her foot, showed them an easy movement from a piece she used to do. From there, she let the dancers improvise, and gradually they all created the show together.
"They learn the movement fast, and it feels right to them because they have had a part in creating it," says Donovan.
The pieces end up being tailored to the individual dancers such as Chandelle Hesselgrave , who also injured her foot during the creation of the dance piece.
I was having trouble walking, so I did parts that had me rolling on the floor," said Hesselgrave, who teaches movement therapy but had never performed before. "It was exciting to still be included, even though I was injured."
Problems occur when dancers leave. Donovan originally started working the peices out with her dancers last fall. But some were full-time students and have since had to leave. The result is that new dancers have to learn parts that were created for another dancer's body.
"I had thought that we would just repeat the peices," Donovan said. But it is hard for dancers to learn parts they haven't created. It turns out we had to rechoreograph a lot of it and spend more time rehearsing."
"Fragile Connections" also includes some unusual multimedia elements. Since the thems is about how people relate to each other, Donovan has mixed videos of interviews at a Cambridge nursing home into one of the pieces; another will use a video camera to project a backwards image of the dancers against the wall.
There are also some offbeat dance innovations, as in a piece where the dancers use bathroom plungers to "The Blue Danube Waltz," and one that involves a six-foot "soft sculpture" of an arm by sculptor Anne Corrsin. Donovan herself will roll around beneath the sculpture to make it seem to come alive.
Music has been composed by Michael Oster, a junior hight school math teacher from Rhode Island who collaborates with Donovan.
"Fragile Connections" will be performed Friday and Saturday at 8p.m., and next Sunday at 3 p.m. Green Street Studios is at 185 Green St., Central Square, Cambridge. Admission is $12. Call 864-3191.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.