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THICKER THAN WATER

1993

Originally commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop First Light project with funding provided by the Jerome Foundation of St. Paul, MN. Additional funds were provided by the NEA and private contributions to Kop Art, Inc.

Thicker Than Water (full video), performed at Dance Theater Workshop, May, 1993

Thicker Than Water

Conceived, Directed and Choreographed by Stephan Koplowitz

Original Score Composed and Arranged by Scott Killian

Set Design by Power Boothe

Text Written by the Performers and Stephan Koplowitz

Performed by Stuart Hodes, Alice Teirstein, Michael Davis and Martha Hirschman

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PERFORMANCES:

Dance Theater Workshop, April 29-May 3, 1993(Premiere, Commissioned).

Other performances: Movement Research at the Judson Church (work in progress) January 26

Swarthmore College, February 22 (work in progress)

Produced at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Studio Theater, July 30-August 1, 1993 

The Bates Dance Festival, August 6, 1993

The Maine Arts Festival, August 7, 1993

Dance Theater Workshop, encore presentation, Sept. 30-Oct 3, 1993

The Portland Concert Association (Portland, Maine), October 23, 1993

Dance Place, Washington, D.C., November 13, 14 1993

Dance On The Edge Series, Towson, Md. November 19, 20, 1993

PRESS QUOTES-

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Re-Thicker Than Water-“Brooklyn-based Koplowitz is a genuinely wise person.”

                                    --Elizabeth Zimmer, The Village Voice, 5/4/93

 

“As the performers talk and move through bits and bursts of athletic movement, jabbing into space and at each other, nuanced characters... are touchingly revealed.”

                                    --Jennifer Dunning, NYT, 10/4/93

 

“Mr. Koplowitz has made a career for himself creating works that strike universal chords with his audiences.”

                        --Melinda Greenberg, The Baltimore Jewish Times, 11/12/93

 

(“Blending text and movement, Thicker Than Water peels back the layers of a family, exposing its strengths and weaknesses. Mr. Koplowitz deftly draws his drama in two acts,using subtle choreography and his own well-crafted words and those of Martha Hirshman.”

 ...A large part of this company’s attraction and power is that the dancers are not from one generation...The strength of Mr. Koplowitz & Company is the dramatic embodiment of a simple observation of family life: It is never what it seems.”

                                                --J.L. Conklin, The Baltimore Sun, 11/22/93

 

“I never thought a normal family- one like mine, for instance- could be an interesting subject for choreography. Stephan Koplowitz thought differently, and created a most satisfying piece titled Thicker Than Water....Blood runs thicker than water’...provided the underpinning for Koplowitz’s confessional/confrontational theater-piece about average, middle-class families, one that’s arresting, humorous and touching. Koplowitz cultivates mundane stereotypical behavior to extraordinary artistic heights, while at the same time keeps a ‘real people’ relationship among his multi-generational cast.”

                                                --Danceview, Winter 93-4

GALLERY- THICKER THAN WATER at DTW-
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