Drum Dances will make world premiere

• By ROBIN MILLER
• Arts writer
• Published: Nov 1, 2009

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Maybe she was too busy putting the show together to stop and think about it.

Drum Dances isn’t premiering only in Baton Rouge. No, the Saturday, Nov. 7, opening of this show will mark its world premiere.

“You know, I just thought about that,” Garland Goodwin Wilson said. “This is definitely a first for this show, and it’s been exciting to be the first to interpret this music through dance.”

Wilson is artistic director of the contemporary dance company Of Moving Colors, which has collaborated with percussionist Lisa Pegher on the production Drum Dances.

Wilson is careful to emphasize that this production doesn’t solely belong to the dance company.

“It’s definitely a collaboration with Lisa, and that’s the way we’re presenting it,” she said.

The story begins a year ago, when Timothy Muffitt introduced Wilson and Pegher. Muffitt is the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra’s conductor and music director. He’s also a fan of the dance company.

“He sees an enormous future for Lisa, and as she was living in Baton Rouge at the time, he thought we should meet,” Wilson said. “I was immediately taken with Lisa. She’s doing something very innovative with these new scores of music.”

Symphony Magazine has called Pegher “the future of percussion.” She has appeared as a soloist in Chicago, Tokyo, Eindhoven, Houston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York and Washington, D.C.

And she will join Of Moving Colors on the Manship stage to create a live sound score for Drum Dances.

 “Lisa has a new score called Minimal Art,” Wilson said. “She’s recorded it with members of the Pittsburgh Symphony, and she plays 26 percussion instruments in it.”

The instrumentation includes drums, a glockenspiel and vibraphone, cymbals and even tin cans.

Of Moving Colors’ interpretation of Minimal Art will take audience members on a journey. Well, several journeys, actually.