SOLOS FROM FIGURA (1978 -- Revival 2009)
Choreography: Murray Louis
Music: Paul Winter Consort, Ernesto Lacuona
Time: 6 minutes
Costumes: Ramona Ponce after the originals by Frank Garcia
 
*Figura premiered on November 6, 1978 by the Jose Limon Dance Company at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. It was then premiered by the Murray Louis Dance Company at the Eisenhower Auditorium at Penn. State University on October 9, 1979. These solos were originally premiered by Doug Varone and Carla Maxwell (Limon Co.), and Robert Small and Janis Brenner (Louis Co.). Janis thanks Murray for permission to revive these solos.  

"Brenner danced in Murray Louis’s company from 1977 to 1984. Aaron Selissen and Sumaya Jackson (coached by Robert Small), admirably recreate two solos from Louis’s 1978 Figura. These are beautifully made little pieces—buoyant dancing shaped into phrases full of subtle dynamic contrasts. The man’s solo is vigorous, the woman’s more meditative; Jackson swings her hips from one side to the other as if just discovering the sensuous possibilities of the motion." -  Deborah Jowitt, THE VILLAGE VOICE, New York, November