Threads Project #1 “Universal Dialogues” Dancers, Photo: Christopher Jones
The Chelsea Factory hosted Buglisi Dance Theater’s premiere of their performance last Wednesday and Thursday evening: The Threads Project #1 “Universal Dialogues”. The dance draws inspiration from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaims that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights… in a spirit of brotherhood.”
The performance is the brainchild of Buglisi’s Artistic Director and Founder, Jacqulyn Buglisi, who has an over four-decade career in the dance industry. Buglisi was a principal dancer for the Martha Graham Dance Company, which she describes as “one of the most fabulous and wonderful” experiences of her life. Establishing her dance theater formally in 1993, she co-founded Buglisi Dance with other principal dancers she performed with at the Martha Graham Dance Company.
Dedicated to incorporating the multiethnic and multiracial melting pot of New York City into her theater, Buglisi collaborated with eight diverse choreographers — Alexander Anderson, Jennifer Archibald, Sidra Bell, PeiJu Chien-Pott, Daniel Fetecua, Loni Landon, Jesse Obremski, and Blakeley White-McGuire.
The choreographers craft narratives expressing and revealing the strengths and vulnerabilities of being human. Each choreographer chose one of 30 articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to represent through dance. The work consists of four episodes with each choreographer expressing different dialogues through the dancers that are threaded together to tell these stories.
Buglisi’s works are primarily influenced by poetry and uplifting heroine archetypes. “I think having learned that over the years and developing my own company that whole thing of the intersection of visual art, literature, working the archetype, the heroine, all of that I would say it’s been very much a part of my work, what I think about, and what I feel is really important to speak about,” she shared.
Focusing on poetic inspiration, Threads Project #1 “Universal Dialogues”, is a multi-layered work that cultivates universal truths through dance. Buglisi believes that there is a gravitational awakening occurring on our planet as societal order is unraveling to thread new stories of courage and hope.
One of these stories of courage and hope portrayed in the dance is that of an old woman of wisdom. Buglisi explained, “there is always an underpinning narrative and one is the story of this old woman of wisdom, who’s sitting in the cave of knowledge and she’s weaving this beautiful garment which is metaphorically the garment of the universe or of our world, and it’s began to unravel. We’ve now come to this time where we need to pick up the threads, and begin to re-weave or begin to weave a new, a garment even more beautiful, with more grace, more dignity, more integrity, and more humanity than ever before.”
Another narrative Buglisi explores in her work is the importance of the community, which she tries to serve through her art. For the last 11 years on the anniversary of 9/11, Buglisi has put on The Table of Silence Project 9/11, a large annual dance performance for peace and tolerance in the world at Lincoln Center. In the Threads Project #1 “Universal Dialogues,” she emphasizes the important role of the individual in bringing awareness to issues in the community.
Buglisi said, “bringing is what brings the community together in an awakening… It’s like bringing to light Black Lives Matter, the things that we are facing, a pandemic, what we are now facing also in terms of what’s going on globally.. and how do we move forward. I think this is a great time in this time of turmoil or struggle of intense awakening.”
To more efficiently present the themes in her piece, Buglisi enlisted award-winning lighting and set designer Jack Mehler and FIT costume designer-on-the-rise Lauren Starobin to provide a wardrobe for the dancers. Starobin created costumes with fabric that picks up light and changes through the piece to help function within the story, while Mehler brings a beautiful color palette of projections across the floor, ceilings, and walls to set the background for scenes.
In addition to last week’s performances, the dance theater will be showcasing excerpts of Buglisi’s work Requiem, Letters of Love on Ripped Paper at the Responding to AIDS Festival in Fire Island on July 15 and performing at the Battery Dance Festival on August 16.