For her first gig in Pittsburgh, Beth Gill has an iconic playground.
The award-winning, New York City-based choreographer is setting her piece titled “Yolk & Grove” on seven local dancers at the Carrie Blast Furnaces National Historic Landmark. The show, produced by dance troupe The Blanket, receives two performances, Friday and Saturday.
The Blanket presents Beth Gill's "Yolk & Grove" at 7:30 p.m. Fri., July 5, and 7:30 p.m. Sat., July 6. Carrie Blast Furnaces National Historic Site, Rankin
Gill is a critically acclaimed independent choreographerwho has won a pair of coveted New York State Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards, among other honors. Her work has toured the U.S. and the U.K.
Gill’s admirers include Caitlin Scranton, who with Matt Pardo co-directs The Blanket, which hires outside choreographers to set work on Pittsburgh-based dancers. (The group’s previous shows included “Lucinda Childs: Early Works,” in Point State Park in 2016, and The Christopher Williams Project’s “Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins,” in October at the New Hazlett Theater.) Scranton wanted to stage a show at Carrie Furnaces, the majestically rusted former U.S. Steel facility that’s now a national historic landmark run by the group Rivers of Steel.
“I was just blown away by the scale,” said Scranton. She was especially taken by the site’s cavernous Power House. “I started to think of what choreographers do I know whose work could hold up in that space. And not only hold up in that space, but accentuate that expanse,” she said. Gill came to mind. “All the works I’ve seen of hers in New York to date have been like moving landscapes. They have a sense of calm, and gravitas at the same time. And I thought her work would be just ideal for that space.”
Gill came to Pittsburgh in May to audition dancers, and immediately got to work adapting “Yolk & Grove" -- which combines two earlier works of hers -- for the Power House.
“The main thing I’ve been thinking about in relation to the furnaces is how to work with this site in a way that doesn’t try to force it to become a theater, but still lets it be the sort of rough industrial space that it is,” Gill said.
The building’s concrete floor is not dancer-friendly, so The Blanket is retrofitting the space with a cardboard floor 30 feet wide by a remarkable 100 feet long. “That was exciting for me to think about being able to make something with that kind of distance and scale,” she said. “That’s pretty unusual when you’re working in a theater.”
She described “Yolk” as “a puzzle dance” in which the dancers continually assume one another’s roles.” The title comes from a movement sequence that reminded Gill of a children’s game played to a song that went, “Crack an egg over your head let the yolk drip down, let the yolk drip down.”
The show features a brand-new commissioned sound score composed by Ryan Seaton. The playback system for the music is novel: The interior stereo speakers of a pair of pickup trucks, one parked at each end of the stage.
Gill and Seaton, who are married, will participate in a post-show Q & A following the July 6 performance.
Ticket information is here.
