Sextet

Premiered January 17th and 18th, 2003
McCullough Theater, University of Texas at Austin

Also performed on The Kennedy Center's Millenium Stage as part of the VSA International Arts Festival June 11, 2004
see footage of this performance
Fast forward to 41 minutes and 30 seconds to view Sextet.

Sextet is a dance for two trained dancers, an English Professor, a Zen Monk and their two guide dogs. In this dance, choreographer Allison Orr explores how people move from place to place, specifically looking at the movement that exists between a person and his guide dog. Performers are John Slatin and his golden Labrador retriever Dillon, Sozan Schellin and his black Labrador retriever Zeke, and two trained dancers: Karly Dillard and Allison Orr.

Sextet was also choreographed to be accessible to both seeing and visually-impaired audience members, so live audio description, provided by Celia Hughes, accompanies the dance. The description acts as a running narrative and describes the movements and spatial patterns created on stage. An audience favorite at its premier, Sextet stole the show according to Robi Polgar of The Austin Chronicle and received a standing ovation at Saturday night's performance.

Sextet was selected by the Austin Critics Table as Austin's Best Small to Medium Dance of 2003. The Austin Chronicle also listed Sextet as one of the Top Ten Arts Events of 2003.

View a captioned version of Sextet.