by lisa lipsey –
Trained at Boston Conservatoire of Music, Harvard Summer Dance Center and Ohio State University, with incredible shows under her belt from London, New York and San Diego, Choreographer Ann Yee acknowledges she has very little media and social presence.
She accepted The Rage Monthly’s interview because she believes wholeheartedly in the story being told in Life After. “Britta Johnson [playwright] is a curious, open, sensitive, intelligent and creative soul, with a tremendous amount of craft that belies her years. What she has offered in this piece is daring—it is a young piece—she was 19 when she started working on it and she’s 26 now. It is the sort of play when you see its composition, both musically and structurally, you just don’t say no to it.”
16-year-old Alice is grieving the recent loss of her famous father and then sets out to uncover what really happened on the night that changed her family forever. Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein notes, “Through the vivid imagination of a young woman looking for the facts, we find a more complicated truth instead. Life After is a rapturously beautiful and stirring new musical.”
The show was first workshopped up at a Canadian theatre festival, but Yee didn’t see any of its previous formats, “I first heard of the show when The Old Globe contacted me. They asked me to serve as choreographer based on my prior work and I am really glad they did. It’s not often you get to work on a show with Lynne Shankel’s music supervision, arrangements and orchestrations, and a nearly all-female cast.”
Yee acknowledged that her approach to choreographing a show really depends on a number of factors and the style of the piece. “I’ll be directing and choreographing an adaptation of As You Like It for Public Works Dallas at The Dallas Theatre Center and because I know how the Public works, I am going into it very prepared. I know I have a whole pro week where we can lock ourselves up and I can just teach.”
“Life After is a character chamber piece, a play that happens to be a musical, so I have had a lot of discussions with the design team and the director. I have to understand how much movement and dance it can hold and being a new play, it also changes constantly. Very rarely do I hold onto a single idea I started with… I chase after the new ideas.”
“I believe we need to expand the definition of choreography to include contemporary, modern, and improvisational dance. This entire show is choreographed, and it encompasses the character’s relationship with the set, they are integrated into the motion of it. The show doesn’t have traditional dance numbers: in this play standing still a choice, if a right hand moves, that is a choice.”
Earnest, passionate and sincere, Yee also has an appreciation for doing work that expands the body of female representation, “Communication is crucial, starting a dialogue about female representation across the board about gender, sexuality, and power. With Life After, I have been given this opportunity to work on a show telling the story of a complicated 16-year-old girl, who is not following any of the troupes we frequently see female characters go through. The show is a gold mine.”
Yee has a core focus for herself, “The biggest thing right now for me probably is this question of how can we as a community through respect, compassion, artistry, and creativity, change our narrative of inequality? How do we give room to all voices? When I am in a room with a lot of beautiful souls and I am privileged to get to make art, how do I live and abide by equal representation?”
“It takes good leadership and remembering you are not the most important person in the room,” she continued, “and that you don’t always have to be right. You have to allow other human beings to have power and lead towards these ideas and aim for a balance that is not chaos and not tyranny.”
Life After runs through Sunday April 28 at the Old Globe Theatre.For tickets and more information call 619.234.5623, or visit them online at theoldglobe.org
