My Favorite Things

by Courtney Wagner

Months later, we are still hearing about people's favorite moments from the Against the Odds festival. This one came from company member Courtney Wagner!

My favorite part of ATO this year was getting to perform the blindfold duet with Caitlin. After working on the idea and some of the material for over a year and a half it was great to see it come together for performance. Since we first started work with the blindfolds in September 2011, I have loved being able to explore the possibilities I feel they offer. There is something about working with the blindfold that I find relaxing and very freeing. Not being able to see where I am or what I am doing helped me let go and be less afraid to just explore and create, especially when I had a partner in Caitlin or Nikki to guide me. Caitlin and I developed a nice chemistry through rehearsing the piece, and I think we were able to keep the choreographed movement fresh while still being able to improvise. Because I couldn't see, even well rehearsed and choreographed phrases had the potential to be altered in performance, and I liked the edge this gave to my performance. I also liked hearing the feedback and response from audience members about how it looked, especially with our costumes and Jason's lighting (which I'm sure was fantastic!). We got a lot of positive feedback and I am excited to be able to perform it again someday!