It was entirely appropriate that this unusual presentation of the new Graham initiative, a ‘political dance project’ should be performed on a simple wooden stage in a building built 100 years ago by a group of early Michigan pioneers who wanted to “build a college first” along with their homesteads.

And it was entirely appropriate that the creators and performers of this important work should come from all walks of life in small northern Michigan communities.  The instigator of the project, director and dancer, Gretchen Eichberger a public school teacher, choreographer and seasoned performer, Hughthir White, a finish carpenter who teaches contact improvisation, Rick Jones, member of the Song of the Lakes quartet, a lovely trained ballet dancer, Brooke Beuby moved gracefully, along a woman, Jamaica Weston who was part of a husband-wife team that was dazzling.  Along with Tim Joseph, a stone mason, carpenter, and political activist, and Holly Wren Spaulding a poet/writer and activist delivered the text of our stirring American documents. Dan Kelly created a simple, but appropriate lighting, along with a whole alphabet of private individuals who enthusiastically contributed time, money, and services.

The community audience for two nights performances, gave the entire production a well-deserved standing ovation.  These northern Michigan artists made this 1930’s Martha Graham work their very own, putting their individual stamp of athleticism and heightened natural movement into the ebb and flow of this documentary poetry that is our country’s inspiration.

It was truly a dance

Of the people

By the people

and for the people

Long may it last.

For over forty years, Harriet Berg has been a choreographer, teacher, performer, and arts advocate. Part I of her papers reflect her interest in all aspects of dance and other performing and fine arts, as well as her personal family life. Part II includes Berg’s work as Director of Renaissance Dance Company and Madame Cadillac Dance Theater as well as her work with the Jewish Community Center and Camp Maas. Also included are materials relating to Isadora Duncan, local, state and national dance schools, dance programs, as well as artwork and publications relating to dance.

our potential material could inspire me to completely change this list.

> I know I want do movement inspired by:

> planetary shift,

> the power of the woman’s body

> the woods in autumn,

> a slowing deteriorating relationship

> a child’s drawings,

people who give up

CROWS..i am thinking of making a flock(technically murder, but yikes!)

One more day in LA then back to normal. You go!!! Its all sounding awesome. Nice to digitally meet you.

LORE is something I'm thinking about--among other possible words and

themes--and since I really like the word itself will  be thinking about

mates and matches.

Sketches sounds great.  Do it.

I'm inspired by the garlands.  I like to recycle, so will probably

start with things I have. Fabrics, trims, threads, etc.

I like LORE.

While skiing today I thought a lot about LORE. It could also be part of what

we call ourselves (our little ad hoc group), as in: A Lore Collaborative

presents . . .

This little video makes me want to run, dance, roll, jump, wear lace and be

more French!

I made my first garland last night.  It is black & white with a splash

of orange w/ turquoise thread.  A mix of scraps.  I took it to a

dinner party and  everyone seemed to like it. It definitely added to

the festivities.

I'm trying to imagine June . . . it's nice.

back walls, and up to where chairs begin will be "the gallery" this will be where

art hangs(paintings, crows, and whatever else of the visual art will spring about)

I want to dance on a piano.

It's like dark chocolate and the flaring nostrils of a brood-mare and velvet

ball-gowns and pomegranates!

everything...i want to throw myself down a dune like that...and stomp my feet and

run around in tattered lace.

unbridled..wild..vulnerable..yes!

Lore Lines        (like laundry lines or laugh lines or family lines)

or

Lines of Lore

lines are something we can all relate to, the line of a pencil, the lines

that make little bird tracks by our eyes, the line of a seam, the line of a hip, the

line of a poem, a song, the line of a outstretched arm, the lines that connect us.

I love the photo.

The Fabulous garlands are beautiful.  I am so intrigued not only with

the various garlands, but the shadows they create as well.  Could be

very beautiful against the crazy ceiling in Mills.

I also like the clothespins.  At Art Snake I have displayed my quilts

on a laundry line.

Thanks for this love note.

I feel very happy for you with this project. You seem fully filled.

The dance, the Mills, the photo, the ladylove connection.

And you are certainly challenging me, but giving me oodles of support

all at the same time.

I've always liked the ex-voto paintings of Mexico (although I haven't

studied them too much and know not very much about them.) I believe

they are paintings created almost as a thank offering for miraculous

events in a person's life. They might even be left at little shrines.

dancing in your wedding dress, makes perfect sense..

I was wondering how you feel about masks?

I don't yet know where my poems will go; I feel it coming to me and

> looking

> at images and thinking about a name is a nice way to get some orientation

> for this project.

>

> I have yet to get a clear picture of how I will fit into all of this but

> I'm attracted to figuring that out. I guess what is on my mind right now is

> the deep urge to make this a really polished art event.

The deep urge to make this a really polished art event is resonating in me

as well.  The power of a name.

I think we're all going to changed after this event.

my chicken scratch notes are a little too difficult for me to decode at

this hour, and my head is still swirling with the potential of this great

project.. here goes my follow-up.

Getting

people in that theater to see productions, such as ours, is the key to

bringing in more donations to the Renovation Project, thus getting the

ball rolling... the cultural renaissance, the new economy.... we're at the

forefront.

Chaotic Harmony

The Heron

Chaotic Harmony

A choreopoem celebrating Gwen Frostic

Co-Artistic Directors and Creators  – Gretchen Eichberger and Anne-Marie Oomen

Composers – Breathe Owl Breathe

She was legendary for her prose and prints.  Gwen Frostic, of Benzonia, Michigan inspired me to create movement.  The ironic part was that she was physically impaired, but her mind soared above  the immobility.

What do we experience when we enter the unconventional world of Gwen Frostic?  That we are all connected?  That the greatest wonders are found in teh inconspicuous and overlooked details?  To that end, the choreography of Chaotic Harmony is not about the spins, leaps,a dn lifts that one would expect from traditional dance, but about the minor and hidden, the tentative and the ephemeral: things of nature so  subtle and evanescent we must pay attention to see them.  in creating Chaotic Harmony (named after one of her books), we honor Gwen Frostic, a woman of cultural and regional significance, but we also create new art by exploring her work with deep concentration.  With permission from Gwen Frostic prints, we selected art and words as springboard for theatrical dance.  We wanted the choreopoem to define the gestures of her imagination.

As to the script, we found her homily-like meditations remarkable: she saw the coming environmental crisis clearly and addressed it, proselytizing for the natural world.  As we gleaned passages and developed the script for multiple voices, we hoped to draw attention to that focus – her call in each of her 18 books that we pay attention to the natural world.  Her quiditty- the essence of a thing and a word she used often – lives in words that require us to truly attend to nature.  Here, we hope to extend her quiditty by giving voice to her role as environmental artist and writer, by making three-dimensional her message.

Traverse City, MI (and region).  August 4, 2011—“Chaotic Harmony,” an original theatrical dance production,  celebrates the legacy of Gwen Frostic, regional artist and cultural icon.  “Chaotic Harmony,” titled after one of her eighteen books, renders a fresh dance-based interpretation of Frostic’s work by choreographer and director, Gretchen Eichberger and writer Anne-Marie Oomen.  The production will premier as a gift to the community, August 27, 7:30, and August 28, 3:00 at the Meeting House of the Congregational Summer Assembly in Frankfort.

“We decided to use her words and her art as springboard for new thinking and moving,  for something entirely different, for something that would free her message from the shadows—which would let her fly,” says Eichberger, who directed Martha Graham’s “American Document” last year.

In creating Chaotic Harmony, Eichberger and Oomen  hope to draw attention to Frostic’s essential work and to build consciousness about her book-length meditations on nature—the last one published when she was 91. The collaborators will extend Frostic’s concepts through dance and spoken word, making three dimensional her role as an environmental artist who crossed the borders between the romantic and the rational.

“In this age of environmental threat, her words take on new resonance.  In this age of simplified vocabulary, her diction holds a unique literary value.  In this age when we could so easily forget the women who have made a difference aesthetically and culturally in our own region, Gwen is a model we need to rediscover,”  Oomen says of Frostic.

To that end,  Eichberger’s choreography will reflect the great gestures of Frostic’s images  through movement influenced by wabi-sabi and butoh dance traditions.  Dancing with her are well-known regional dancers Hughthir White, Jamaica Weston, Denise Sica, and Cornelia Dhasaleer.  Original music by the nationally recognized trio, “Breathe, Owl, Breathe” will echo the ecosystems that fed Frostic’s writing and philosophy, and include field recordings from her home and studio in Benzonia (where she lived and wrote and made her art). Bill Allen,  collaborative artist and sculptor, developed the art piece for the set.  The multi-voiced spoken text, adapted by Oomen and read by Holly Wren Spaulding, Jennifer Sperry Steinorth, Bill Smith and Tim Joseph, highlights key excerpts from Frostic’s books.  Oomen said of the choral text,  “Frostic’s meditations are challenging.  We combed her books carefully to lift passages not only relevant to her themes but to today’s audience.”

This year is the tenth anniversary of Gwen Frostic’s death.  On Gwen Frostic Day this spring, former Governor Milliken, an advocate of arts and environment, stated about the project,   “What a wonderful tribute to Gwen and her artistic legacy. Nothing could be more appropriate than Chaotic Harmony, a heartfelt act of innovation inspired by her words and art.”  The project has also garnered support from Gwen Frostic Prints, where Greg and Kim Forshee, proprietors, operate the Benzonia-based Frostic studio, and from the nonprofit sponsor, ISLAND, (Institute of Sustainable Living, Art and Design).  A preview of the dances at EMU’s Jean Parson’s Art Center in Lake Ann, gathered generous donations in support the project.

Eichberger gratefully noted: “We need community support for this kind of artistic development, and to help place Gwen on the continuum of artists and environmental writers who evolved around the time of Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold and others.  Chaotic Harmony will reflect both the arc of her artistic development and her ecological philosophy in an artistic, interdisciplinary, multi-faceted performance.  Though we can never know, we hope this innovation would please her, and bring her back to the community in an exciting new way.”

Chaotic Harmony will be performed on  August 27, 7:30, and August 28, 3:00 at the Meeting ousel of the Congregational Summer Assembly two miles north of Frankfort on M-22.  The performances are a free to the public and donations will be encouraged.  For information contact, check website www.ARTmeetsEARTH or contact Gretchen Eichberger at 231-399-0099.

Chaotic Harmony Preview - June 12, 2011 at Parsons Center

Preview for Chaotic Harmony – Jamaica Lynn Weston

Chaotic Harmony

A theatrical dance work

about the philosophy and legacy of Gwen Frostic

Choreography by Gretchen Eichberger and Company

Script Adaptation by Anne-Marie Oomen

Music by Andrea Moreno Beals, Micah Middaugh and Trevor Hobbs of Breathe Owl Breathe

As background, here is the story of how this project came to be.  Anne-Marie  saw American Document, Gretchen’s civic premier of Martha Graham’s seminal work.  She knew then that she wanted to write something for Gretchen and approached her about the possibility of creating  text which would act as “music” for her to dance to.  Gretchen, being the person she is, came back with the idea of creating a dance that would honor a woman who was a cultural icon, and though there were many we considered, the one she was most interested in was Gwen Frostic.   Anne-Marie was cautious at first, not having read Frostic’s work for many years—though like most people, I had an immense respect for the art.   Once she began rereading Gwen’s meditations, she knew this was what they should do.  In this age of environmental threat, her words take on new resonance.  In this age of simplified vocabulary, the sophistication of her diction holds a unique literary value.  In this age when we could so easily forget the women who have made a difference aesthetically and culturally in our own region, Gwen is a model we need to reclaim and celebrate.  In this age of global awareness, we here at home could forget one of our most influential, artistic, and innovative  icons.  They decided to use her words and her art as inspiration, as springboard for new thinking and moving,  for something entirely different, for something that would free her in essence from obscurity and from the chains of her own frailty—which would let her fly . 

Gwen Frostic  once said, “ I don’t need any more degrees.”  At the end of her life, she disliked the attention.  But would she have appreciated the work of other artists doing what artists have always done, building something essential and instrumental from what she had done?  Anne-Marie and Gretchen  like to think so.    In so doing, they hope to draw attention again to the essential work, to build consciousness of her attitude toward nature, of her skills as a woman, of her repeated effort, in  each essay-esque book—the last one published when she was 91—to pay attention to the natural world.  Her quiditty—the essence of a thing—and a word she used often—would be in giving words to nature.  Here, we extend the work, giving motion and rhythm to the words and art, making three dimensional her role as an environmental writer who crossed the borders between the romantic and the rational.  It feels important.

In planning the basic framework for the script, Anne-Marie and Gretchen met with Trevor, Andrea, and Micah of Breathe Owl Breathe, whom were named “one of the top ten artists you should know” by National Public Radio for 2010.  This past winter, they met in Frostic’s studio/ shop and provided them with moods and timing for each section of the script.  The Forshee’s gave them with a sampler of Frostic’s books and they explored her text in an environment appropriate for Gwen Frostic’s meditations, a remote cabin in the Michigan’s northern woods.  These components inspired their musical compositions.

Meanwhile  Anne-Marie was exploring text, looking rhythmic patterns, identifying thematic images, and imagining these meditations redesigned for choral text for four voices.  It seemed to her that  Frostic’s meditations already nodded toward a formality found in the great choral readings of the nineteenth century.  I blended  that tradition with methods influenced by William Burroughs “cut-up” techniques.  As rehearsals progressed they discovered new ways to extend meaning through vocal emphasis and its connection to movement.

To prepare for this project, Gretchen  requested that the dancers  familiarize themselves with Frostic’s writings and if they had not already,  experience her studio on River Rd. She asked them to revisit works of the environmental writing genre.  She asked them to meditate, to bird watch, to be part of our subtly dramatic landscape, and observe natures gifts.

The choreography was developed by the dancers.  Some of movements by text alone, to emphasize rhythms that exist in Frostic’s  writing, but are not always evident on the page.   These associative movements may stray from the content of the actual text.  Since the text and dance don’t diretly reinforce each other, our aim is for the audience to experience a wholeness that is beyond the sum of its parts. While we composed our dances we used basic dance vocabulary and at the same time created our own vocabulary and techniques specific to this work.    

Although Gwen Frostic was a woman who was not given her full capacity to move, she believed  she could never be held back, and perceived it as something that set her apart.  Here in THIS place, she created her own world and thus she eventually did in fact, set herself apart through her art making.  Ironically, it is our movement, gestures, and vocalization of her work that reflect the freedom of her mind.

Governor William Milliken who proclaimed May 23 Gwen Frostic Day, and has endorsed this project.  All the artists involved in this project are working as a labor of love. Along with Anne-Marie and Gretchen , the dancers include Cornelia Dhasaleer, Jamaica Weston, Denise Sica, and Hughthir White.   The orators include Holly Wren Spaulding, Jen Sperry Stienorth, Tom Czarny, and Tim Joseph. For the next three months they will be committed to this project, which will involved intensive collaborative focus and effort.

The program as a whole is slated for performance on August 27-28 at the Meeting Hall of the Congregational Summer Assembly  in Frankfort, a stone’s throw from Frostic’s cottage, Melody in F.    The premier will be free and open to the public as a gift to the community.  Your donation will support the development of this project and help assure the future of Gwen Frostic’s legacy and philosophy through art making.  ISLAND, (Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, and Natural Design) our fiduciary partner will accept tax-deductible contributions to help assist with production costs.  Donations may be sent to ISLAND  at 5870 Cottage Drive, Bellaire, MI 49615.  Inquires may be directed to their offices at 231-480-4515. 

Remember Gwen Frostic and those beautiful art books that you wanted to pick up and touch? Remember those delicate drawings of our lakes? That famous print of the alarmed raccoon. Her powerful meditations? Frostic’s work was inspirational! Inspired by her, we are creating Chaotic Harmony, an original dance with text performance.

Advance praise! Governor Milliken has released the following: “What a wonderful tribute to Gwen Frostic and her artistic legacy. Nothing could be more appropriate than Chaotic Harmony, a heartfelt act of innovation inspired by her words and art.”

NOW, you are enthusiastically invited to attend a
preview sampler from Chaotic Harmony. Anne-Marie Oomen and Gretchen Eichberger lead a group of innovative dancers and performers. An original musical score has been composed by acclaimed Michigan trio, Breathe Owl Breathe.

Sunday, June 12
4:00 pm
Jean Noble Parsons Center for Arts and Science
Eastern Michigan University
5833 Bellows Lake Rd.
Lake Ann, MI

Reception to Follow
Please join us for a taste of this exciting celebration of a Michigan iconoclast.

For more information please call 231-871-0215
Or visit www.michiganfolklife.org

Generous Support provided by Parsons Center Governing Board, Eastern Michigan University, Gwen Frostic Prints, and Institute for Sustainable Living Art and Natural Design.

The multimedia event, LORE will take place on Friday, June 17th at the historic Mills Community House Theater located at 891 Michigan Avenue in the village of Benzonia. The gallery opens at 7:00 pm for viewing of visual art, with a seated performance commencing at 8:00 pm. A reception follows featuring local, organic cuisine provided by Still Grinning Catering.

LORE 2011 will feature the creative work of seven emerging and established Michigan women artists and includes original paintings, textile art, dance, poetry, song, and film.

The LORE artists are Amanda Acker, Kristine Harvey, Susan Barnard, Andrea Maio, Gretchen Eichberger, Melonie Steffes, and Holly Wren Spaulding.

Admission: $10.00
Tickets available in advance at East Shore Market in Benzonia and Oryana, as well as from the artists directly.

Auditions Set for Original Dance Work

An open call for dancers will be held for an original multimedia
theatrical dance work on  Saturday, April 23 at Eastern Michigan
University’s Parsons Center  from 12 – 4 pm.   The work, entitled Chaotic
Harmony, is inspired by the legacy of iconic Michigan woman, Gwen Frostic.
  Artistic Direction will be under Gretchen Eichberger with the script
written and adapted by noted author, Anne-Marie Oomen.  An original
musical score has been composed by nationally acclaimed Michigan-based
trio, Breathe Owl Breathe.
All artists will be paid for rehearsal time and performances.  Each artist
must commit to twice weekly rehearsals from May- August 2011 in the
Traverse City area.  Spot rehearsals will continue from September to
December.   Performance dates are August 28 and 29 and December 15 with
two additional pending performance dates.
The Parsons Center is located in Lake Ann, approximately 12 miles
southeast of Traverse City.  To schedule your audition, please contact
Gretchen Eichberger at 231-871-0215 or gretchen@michiganfolklife.org

Photo By Joshua Miller

What do you know about your heritage?  For many Americans, they will begin their answer with their place of family origin, recalling some handed-down lore, wondering at what they don’t know and perhaps even recall some local history—their own as far as they know.  They will leave it at that.   When you cast your vote in this upcoming election, will you reflect on your American heritage?  Does your vote keep up with the legacy that your ancestors intended, or has it changed? How does dance relate to these questions? Can it?  I submit to you that attending American Document a dance–drama inspired by the legendary choreographer and dancer, Martha Graham, would might give you pause and cause all of us to re-evaluate the value and meaning of our American heritage and citizenship.

Martha Graham was a major force in the American art of modern dance.  Her influence can be compared to that of Frank Lloyd Wright’s on architecture and Pablo Picasso’s on painting. From the mid 1920’s until her death in 1991, Graham experimented endlessly with basic human movement, beginning with contraction and release—a legacy that is still felt throughout the world of dance.  Using these principals as the foundation for her technique, she built a vocabulary of movement that would increase the emotional activity of the dancer’s body.  Her works were inspired by a wide variety of sources including modern paintings, literature, the American frontier, religious ceremonies of Native American tribes, and Greek mythology.   Graham’s innovative ideas integrated philosophy and technique into the academic world.

Premiering in 1938, her piece entitled American Document was a tribute to Graham’s own American heritage.  The central questions posed throughout the dance were “What is America?” and “What is an American?”  It was the first dance work that incorporated spoken word.  Texts were drawn from actual historic records such as the Declaration of Independence, Gettysburg Address, and the Emancipation Proclamation, as well as lesser known documents, including words from Puritan minister John Edward’s fire and brimstone sermons and the sorrowful speech of Chief Red Jacket of the Seneca tribe.

Graham indicated that these documents contained the essence of our nation: “Our documents… our legends, our poignantly near history, our folk tales.”   She intended for the work to reflect “Americana that is neither political nationalism nor chauvinistic credo, but, rather, a statement.”

While environmental and financial disaster engulfed our country in the 1930’s there was a subsequent surge of new human expression in the form of modern dance. Martha Graham and her American Document embodied that struggle.  Although, modern dance is not familiar to all audiences, dance is simply movement, and therefore as fundamental as any other form of artistic expression.  To regard it as “high art” and only for the avant garde is to discard it.

Adapting a Masterpiece – A Process and a Challenge

Why and how is this work being performed in Northwestern Lower Michigan?  During an intensive week at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York City, I attended a  performance of American Document by the SITI Theater Group and the Graham dancers.   I learned that the Graham Foundation was preparing to launch a   nation-wide invitation to all civic and student groups interested in creating their own American Documents under the project title, The Political Dance Project. If I began promptly, my adaptation of American Document would be the first civic version in the country, and upon my return to Michigan last year, I immediately began the preliminary steps to launch the project.

Personifying my own American heritage in such a production seemed like it might ring true for other Michiganders.  My father’s family settled in the Detroit area making their living from the emerging automobile industry that provided for so many immigrants in those days.   My mother’s family settled in Grand Traverse County, farming acres of land on the Old Mission Peninsula and Garfield Township.  In retrospect, I believe that the understanding of my own American heritage with its immense opportunity for prosperity and abundance of natural resources had brought me to the dilemma that sits in the minds of so many of us.   I fear for future generations and I can only hope that the same prosperity, and now, the concern for the basic right to clean water, soil, and air will be available for them.   Those are the feelings that I and the other dancers have attempted to portray in the choreography of this American Document.

A civic adaptation seemed an ideal opportunity to incorporate the texts by Michigan writer, Bruce Catton.   Upon his mid-life pursuit of becoming an author, he was awarded a Pulitizer-Prize for his civil war novel, The Stillness of Appamatox but it is his boyhood memoir, Waiting for the Morning Train contains a poignant series of remarks that were a true beacon for our American way of life and what it has become.

Now, nearly seventy years later, during this great shift in climate – both environmentally and socially, the prediction of what is to become of the planet seems to be on the minds of all conscious citizens.  We find ourselves wondering if our great American civilization is destined to fail, for as history repeats itself, all great civilizations have failed.   Catton summarized his prediction for our grand civilization in Waiting for the Morning Train, by reiterating that we were “a generation that lived by applying a steadily increasing knowledge of ingenuity to the exploitation of the earth’s boundless resources; and it was reaching the gates of the golden age only to discover that the boundless stores of resources was beginning to run out.”   It is quotes such as these that are incorporated alongside dances in this work.

By the People

After adapting the script for our place and time, I was faced with the task of finding and securing a dance troupe, actors, and musician who were not only willing and able, but who had a social conscience, and could thereby embody the intense emotion so characteristic of a Graham work.  Northwestern Lower Michigan does not host a plethora of contemporary dancers, nor it is versed in the technique of Martha Graham.  Nevertheless, this was to be a civic production, “of the people, by the people and for the people”.   To have obtained a diverse group of dancers, each unique in their own right and background as kinesthetic artists, was pure luck.  The Interlocutors, (a term given to the main speaking characters in a minstrel show, and which the piece is based around) seemed a fitting role for not just an actor but a true patriot, a person who works tirelessly for the good of all.  Holly Wren Spaulding, a writer, poet, designer, and activist immediately stood out in my mind for her work to bring awareness about the dangers of water privatization and importance of water rights. Musician and craftsman, Tim Joseph, a recent recipient of the Don Jennings award for political activism and significant service and achievement, lives to make a difference for the common man.  To me, this duo represented our Michigan values, and are both deeply rooted in a sense of place. They were cast as interlocutors and will appear in the upcoming production alongside the dancers.  Well-known folk musician Rick Jones of the internationally- acclaimed quartet Song of the Lakes will also be featured as an accompanist.

Between the readings,  a series of dances portray historical events which at the same time depicts Americans amidst their daily quandries, fears, and notions; reacting to promises not kept; embracing new opportunity; feeling powerless as well as accomplished after overcoming strife; witnessing great atrocities and surmounting the unthinkable. These sensations inform the dance, as they also inform our real lives as Americans right now.  Though this is an historical work, it is also rooted in the present moment and is meant to stir reflection on our place in history, our heritage, so that we may move forward, using our bodies as well as our minds to create a humane and decent future for all.

Presented by ISLAND (Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, and Natural Design), American Document will be performed at the City Opera House on Saturday, Oct. 23 at 8:00 pm.  Tickets are $15.00 for adult and $8.00 for students (including NMC) and seniors.

Gretchen Eichberger is a director, dancer-choreographer, educator, musician, and historic preservationist.  She and her family reside along the shores of Lake Michigan in Benzie County.

What can I say about American Document? Directed by Gretchen Eichberger and performed at the Mills House in Benzonia August 27-28—and coming soon to the Opera House in Traverse City—American Document is performed by a dynamic young company, and is as engaging for its story as for its skill.  This evocative dance/text/sound narrative moved, inspired, filled me with the authentic questions and open-hearted appreciation we all hope for from our art and the artists who create it.  However, this piece is more than an outstanding tribute to the choreography of Martha Graham, an American dance icon. It is more than fine and controlled performance.  It is more than elegant aesthetics and high entertainment.  Under Eichberger’s hand and through the skill of the company, the combined disciplines of spoken text and dance meld and point an artistic arrow at the heart of our citizenry in these troubled times.  What does it mean to be an American? What is our nature, our American “heart”? What is the central theme of our spirit as a people?  Eichberger’s rendering of American Document doesn’t answer those questions but opens a multi-dimensional dialogue, a conversation that, because it involves more than one discipline, reaches through the canned phrases of today’s politics towards a truer vision.  By looking at a past artist of the highest order, the work invites her audience to participate in the recognition of our American quest and to examine future possibilities.  As an ensemble, the company engages beautifully with this endeavor and should be praised for such able performances.  That said, it is Gretchen Eichberger who most embodies the work.  In her direction, but also in her presence, physical strength, grace and intensity, there exists a gestalt with the composition, perhaps a personification of her own American story explicated in the choreography.  Here is someone to watch.

Anne-Marie Oomen is author of three collections of nonfiction, most recently
*An American Map* (Wayne State University Press) and *Un-Coded Woman*, a
collection of poetry,  (Milkweed Editions). She is a teaching writer for
Interlochen Arts Academy and for the Solstice MFA at Pine Manor College
(outside of Boston).  She has earned two Notable Book Awards.