Dying Well

Overview

Dying Well
How do memories shape grief? What does remembering feel like?

This movement performance is a meditation on living and dying in every moment–an invitation to explore ideas of emerging and persisting, waning and fading. Not sorrowful, but wonder-full, Dying Well establishes a cycle in four parts–Tender Eyes: fascination with beginnings and not clinging to permanence; Rooted: the evolution of shaping, fatiguing, and dissipating; Withering: meeting and making sense of aging; and Re-membering: bringing things from the past into the present. We will experience wonder in the fullness of every moment. We will live and die well.

Initially conceived by Leslie Elkins, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director of Dance at Rowan University. Workshopped in spring 2023 with students in Advanced Dance Improvisation. Further devised and designed by FoursomePerformance, including Leslie Bush, Amanda Drayton, Leslie Elkins, Grace Mi-He Lee, and Jeff Warden.

About the Artist

FoursomePerformance originally began as a dance theater collective interested in making fun and funny performances that reveled in the humor and darkness of human nature. The founding members of FoursomePerformance, Leslie Elkins, Grace Mi-He Lee, Jeff Prall, and Darcy Sebright, first premiered in the 2007 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. 

FoursomePerformance continues as a dance theater collective led by Rowan University professor Leslie Elkins. Our current mission is to advocate for collaborations between emerging and established artists, to emphasize the importance of self-production, and to provide opportunities for experimentation. Our goal is to bring a variety of people together to devise performances that can only happen when multiple bodies, minds, voices, and talents contribute to the work. Our current project, Dying Well, features Leslie Elkins, Leslie Bush, Amanda Drayton, Grace Mi-He Lee, and Jeff Warden.

 

Credits