Reimagining Yule
guest Choreographer, Amber Moon Peterson, reflects on history for 'Fruitcake Weather’
BBD’s winter show is an eclectic showcase of dance with a holiday flare and is an audience favorite for the holidays. This year’s rendition, Fruitcake Weather, theatrically riffs on the coldest and darkest season with playful, family-friendly choreography by Toree Wilson, Hannah Dusek, Joy French, Amber Moon Peterson, Tiki Preston, Freya Sargent, and Lia Wong.
Since each piece is unique, we are shining the spotlight on Choreographer Amber Moon Peterson to learn about her exploration of movement and the depths of winter traditions. Amber Moon is an interdisciplinary artist working in modern dance, ceramics, and visual arts. This multi-talented human is not just choreographing for this show but also designing the lighting.
Us: How did you connect to the “Fruitcake Weather” theme?
Amber Moon: Holidays mean different things to different people. I think "Fruitcake Weather" is a collection of experiences that focuses on the winter season in general and all that comes with it. For some, that may mean Christmas music in malls, time around the table with family, simply the presence of snow, or the examination of modern winter-time traditions and where they originated.
Us: And your connection to the season dives a little deeper into these traditions. Can you explain the inspiration behind the concept of your piece?
Amber Moon: I wanted to explore the tradition of cutting trees and burning the Yule log in the context of their origins, which originated in pre-Christian Europe. Winter Solstice (or Yule) is the shortest day of the year… or the longest night. The ritual of cutting down a tree and burning a log throughout the longest night symbolizes the return of the sun and the lengthening of days as winter ends. This is a fairly loose interpretation of this ancient ritual that has continued into a modern-day tradition in many homes, while the symbolism has been lost to memory.
Us: You’ve used set design and props to help conceptualize your piece. How did you select and create these?
Amber Moon: I can't seem to help myself. I am very interested in objects in space in the context of dance and movement art. I've had a couple of projects that have included kinetic sculptures of different kinds. I wanted to include trees in this piece, but I figured, "Wouldn't it be cool to tell this story and have a moment from the tree's perspective?"
Us: I love the whimsical idea of a moment from the tree’s perspective.
How did your dancers add to the creative process?
Amber Moon: The audience will notice I leaned heavily on motifs in this piece, variations of a few movement sets.
Though I usually generate all of the movement in dance from start to finish, this piece was much more collaborative with the dancers. In some cases, I had set movement given to the dancers to be done just so. I would prompt them to take that vocabulary and interpret it through their movement for other sections. Some of these sections are purely mine, some are purely theirs, and some are collaborations between us all.
Us: How do you imagine the audience will connect with this piece?
Amber Moon: My favorite thing when I choreograph is to hear the conversations afterward and hear ten different interpretations. I intentionally avoided any literal representation of this loose concept that I started with, and I don't even need the audience to know what it's about. Let them decide. It might be about Yule for me, but it might tell a different story for them. That's what makes dance so weird and special and different from acting or literary art.
Fruitcake Weather is presented as part of our 2024|2025 season at the Westside Theater, November 30 - December 8, 2024.