GETTING THROUGH GETTING OVER

Several many months ago, I was contacted by Paulo Manso de Sousa, leader at Southern Arc Dance, to consider writing a ballet for him. It was to be called RED DRESS, based on the American Heart Association's women's health initiative; about a dozen pieces, maybe 30–40 minutes long.

I started right in on the TASK AVOIDANCE and ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS and at this point I have most of the pieces at least started.  However, whatever the deal was with the AHA didn't gel, and so recently we met to refocus.  We are now in alliance with the Southeastern Assistance in Healthcare, and now we're looking at an evening of shorter pieces.

Mine is called GETTING THROUGH GETTING OVER because one of Paulo's scenarios involves two freestanding walls which will change colors during the piece, and that's the one I volunteered to write.  (Hence the "album" cover — one of my favorite TASK AVOIDANCE strategies is to design an album cover for my music.  Makes me feel like a real composer.  Or at least a real graphic artist.)

When I say I volunteered to "write" the two-walls ballet, I mean that I was able to patch together things I had already written to make a viable piece that had a beginning, middle, and end.  If I had actually written for that scenario, I think the music would sound a lot different, more in line with the idea of the boundaries of the wall and getting past them.

Be that as it may, we've talked about this before, and most importantly, I'm done.

Have a look:

A reminder, as always, that this is what the computer thinks it sounds like.  Human performers will think quite differently.

GETTING THROUGH GETTING OVER will premiere Saturday, March 17, at the Wadsworth Auditorium in downtown Newnan, GA.