"Anima" by Lani Fand Weissbach

"Anima" is choreographer Lani Fand Weissbach's second major production as director of Shen and Bones Performance Group. The work offers a sharply provocative look at the rituals associated with being human and female in a male-dominated society. The piece was created in collaboration with company members Alethea Bodine, Kate McDevitt, and Laura Swedenborg, all dancers and artists of Erie and the surrounding area. In addition, the work features original music by musical artist Rick DiBello and is performed live by DiBello and his group, Noise Floor featuring Joe Popp on guitars and Rick Lopez on drums. "Anima" marked the first performance for Shen & Bones in Erie. The aesthetic of the choreography draws heavily from eastern movement forms, particulary the Japanese avante-garde dance form known as Butoh. Butoh is known for its raw physicality, meditational movement and exploration of extreme motion and emotion. "Anima" explores these extremes through movement and themes ranging from the imperceptibly subtle to the wildly explosive.



"Anima" is choreographer Lani Fand Weissbach's second major production as director of Shen and Bones Performance Group. The work offers a sharply provocative look at the rituals associated with being human and female in a male-dominated society. The piece was created in collaboration with company members Alethea Bodine, Kate McDevitt, and Laura Swedenborg, all dancers and artists of Erie and the surrounding area. In addition, the work features original music by musical artist Rick DiBello and is performed live by DiBello and his group, Noise Floor featuring Joe Popp on guitars and Rick Lopez on drums. "Anima" marked the first performance for Shen & Bones in Erie. The aesthetic of the choreography draws heavily from eastern movement forms, particulary the Japanese avante-garde dance form known as Butoh. Butoh is known for its raw physicality, meditational movement and exploration of extreme motion and emotion. "Anima" explores these extremes through movement and themes ranging from the imperceptibly subtle to the wildly explosive.

		under the direction of:

	She received BA and MFA degrees in dance perfromance and choreography from the University ofHawaii and Arizona State University respectively, and has served on the faculties of several colleges, universities and private schools in Hawaii, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. She has also directed and produced numerous concerts of original choreography since 1990. She began her study of Butoh ten years ago in Honolulu, Hawaii with Cheryl Flaharty, director of the Iona Pear Dance Theater. Ms. Weissbach joined the company as a principal dancer, and for four years performed extensively in a variety of venues, from conventional theaters to nightclubs to outdoor environments. As a choreographer, Weissbach's interest is to take the performer and the viewer on a poetic journey; one which bypasses the intellectual, rational mind and directly penetrates the working of the subconcious. She encourages her audiences to freely interpret the work and to derive any philisophical or allegorical meaning they wish. More Butoh please... When will Shen & Bones perform again?
Click here to see photos of "Anima" by Sean Bradley BACK to "the bone floor"