Sequenza IXb, Luciano Berio; Lois Hicks-Wozniak & Amelia Dawe Sanders

Sequenza IXb (1981), Luciano Berio (1925-2003) Amelia Dawe Sanders, dance and choreography Lois Hicks-Wozniak, alto saxophone.
Originally conceived by Lois Hicks-Wozniak to be a live collaborative, multi-media performance on her graduate saxophone recital at Montclair State University with improvised choreography and dance by Amelia Dawe Sanders. With the COVID19 pandemic in Spring 2020, this live performance had to be cancelled. This recorded performance represents an ongoing collaboration between both artists both before and after the pandemic shut-down. Inviting the audience to experience Sequenza IXb with a new lens, it expresses both the fragmentation of the music and the unifying cells and motifs. "This dance piece is quite site-specific to this room. Using the physicality of the space and dancing on the sofa and chairs, my interpretation also plays with conceptual aspects of this space - ideas of confinement and limitation. There is something very vital for me about the tension between the confinement of the space and the spacious, open-ended nature of the music. Partially improvised, my motivation in this piece was a pure visualization of the music. Although the sticker on the radiator bothered me at first, as I worked with it, I came to value it. I think it adds to the impersonal, slightly uncomfortable atmosphere of the room. This dance piece offers the audience another way to navigate the music. I see this microcosm reflected in my video where the dancer tries to navigate in the uncomfortable space."

Music recorded April 28, 2020
Dance recorded late May 2020

audio and video edited by Joshua Heaney