*Rosanna Gamson/ World Wide is calling for female dancers, all ages, all
dance backgrounds to participate in large cast scene in the filming of the
newest dance theater project Layla Means Night.*
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*There will be one rehearsal Saturday 23rd in the afternoon between 1-6pm *
*Video Shoot will be July 24th 2011 *dancers must be available all day *
*Location : Alexandria Hotel, at Blankenship Ballet, Downtown Los Angeles

If interested please email photo and resume to ** Alexandria at
tsarina.rgww@rosannagamsonworldwide.org
*
Layla Means Night-inspired by the framing story of Alf Layla Wa Layla (A
Thousand Nights and One Night), "layla" being the Arabic word for "night."
The piece features an original score by master Persian musicians Houman
Pourmehdi and Pirayeh Pourafar and the dancing of André Tyson, former
Principal Dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Using live
vocal and instrumental music, dancing and text, the piece explores the
continuing struggle between men and women over trust and power, the
unreliability of perception, and the problematic nature of translation.

Layla Means Night is a re-imagining of an earlier work, created in New York
City in response to the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center, and
the fear and xenophobia that was sparked by this event. My current project
is not a re-staging of that piece, but a completely new one starting from
the same point of departure-- the Persian story of a king, maddened by his
first wife's infidelity, who marries a virgin every night and beheads her
the next morning in order to protect himself from further betrayal. His last
bride, Scheherazade, saves herself, her people, and the king from his
madness, by spinning thrilling and fantastic stories night after night;
proving both her fidelity and the life-saving power of a good story.

The choreography is informed by Islamic art, in particular, calligraphy,
which is simultaneously ornamental, talismanic, and full of meaning. My
research is assisted by my collaborator, composer Pirayeh Pourafar, who is
also an accomplished Sufi calligrapher. Two ideas from Islamic art inspire
compositional ideas for Layla Means Night: that design continues beyond the
frame– the viewer can see only a small part of an infinite and infinitely
complex pattern-- and that equal values of positive and negative space make
it impossible to distinguish between foreground and background. This
dialogue between positive and negative, light and dark, becomes the major
metaphor in the piece-- day and night infinitely alternating: yom, day;
layla, night. Alf yom wa yom; alf layla wa layla. As the frame shifts, we
see a moment, or a thousand and one days and nights entwined.

"As the Middle East redefines itself, moment by moment, and the United
States' relationship to Islam becomes more and more complicated, I feel
compelled to remake Layla Means Night. Unreliable narrators and double-sided
stories become more fascinating, and questions of betrayal, culpability and
complicity become more pressing. Seemingly an opulent divertissement, the
entertaining events and beautiful images of Layla Means Night disguise a
serious examination of violence."-Rosanna Gamson, artistic director. *
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*This project has been made possible by the Los Angeles County Arts
Commission. *