Leslie Elkins and Foursome Performance return to the Fringe Festival and make their Cannonball debut with A Dream Within A Dream, where dance-theater improvisation meets classical piano performance.

What is? What may be? A dancer and pianist improvise a conversation in real time. Between them, a murder of crows grappling with the improbable extinction of idiots. The performance asks what we risk and what we surrender through music and movement partnerships.

This project is the culmination of my sabbatical from teaching at Rowan University. While on leave I practiced improvisational composition and performance with a motley crew in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Glassboro. Contributing artists for this production include Agustin Muriago, Professor of Keyboard Skills at The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University (pianist), Paule Turner, Associate Professor of Dance at Rowan University (choreographer and dancer), and Alexander Timofeev, Rowan Music Artist-in-Residence (composer and pianist). Additional contributing dance artists include Dawn McCall and three special guest performers: Leslie Bush, Beau Hancock, and Sara Earl.

Over months of my sabbatical leave and years of using improvisation as my primary mode of dance making, I believe that improvisational composition and performance demands risk – inviting vulnerability and permitting others to witness potential failure; passion – engaging in devoted experimentation; excellence – committing to persistent investigation; trust – believing the practice of improvisation benefits from more practice; and care – undertaking the diligent attention to stay awake, stay connected, and stay human.