FARMINGTON — ArtsFarmington, affiliated with the University of Maine, will bring Droplet Dance to the Emery Community Arts Center at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1. Droplet Dance, a small two-person dance company, will feature Molly Gawler as dancer. Molly’s musician friend, Lissa Schneckenburger, will accompany her with live music.
The name droplet refers to the company’s celebration of water. The dances will be in modern and classical styles and incorporate acrobatics as well as mime and theatrical elements to bring characters and narratives to life. In a feature dance called “Water Fairy,” Gawler does amazing acrobatics with a Cyr Wheel to express the fluidity and spiral movement of water. The fiddle tune for this dance, titled “Katrina,” after the hurricane, was written by Schneckenburger. Another dance, “Rollity Anne,” will be on roller skates.
The two women have been working together for several years, choreographing dances and writing songs and music for them. Schneckenburger will use voice, fiddle, ukulele and “strum fiddle” to accompany Gawler. Some of the fiddle tunes and songs are her own creation.
Gawler grew up in Belgrade, where she loved dance from early on. She studied with Andrei Bossov at Central Maine Academy, then went on to study modern dance at SUNY. Afterward she joined the Pilobolus dance group in NYC and went on a world tour with them. Her curiosity led her to study circus acrobatics and the Cyr Wheel at the New England Center for Circus Arts in Vermont. Gawler is a member of the Gawler Family Band.
Schneckenburger grew up in Maine and now lives in Vermont. She began playing fiddle at a young age . She graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with a degree in contemporary improvisation. She has been performing and teaching music around the world ever since.
Admission is $12 for adults; 18 and under free, as are UMF students with ID; $5 for students of other Maine colleges. The performance is suitable for children. There is no snow date. For more information, call 207-587-2361 or 207-249-5980.
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