Choreographed by: Alex Ketley and Christian Burns

Commissioned By: Alonzo King for his LINES Ballet (2000)

Music: Derek Powell

Text: Summer Lee Rhatigan, Maurya Kerr, and Greg Dawson

Lighting: David Dawson

Performed by Members of LINES Ballet

Dance MAgazine
2000

“Ketley and Burns, collectively called The Foundry, contributed the edgy Sea Green and Blue Already Rising, an industrial styled multimedia look at the short voyage from loss to insanity. Set to text and music by Derek Powell, Sea Green blurred the line between theatricality and reality, projecting photographs that morphed into video footage. At times it dared the audience to decide whether Summer lee Ratigan and Marya Kerr, the ballet's beleaguered central figure, where dancing to an amplification of their own heavy breaths or a recording of them. The Foundry's work, full of stop go movement style that is commanding in it's deliberate lulls and sudden accelerations, held it's own on a daring, thrill filled program that bodes well for Lines' future."

San Francisco Chronicle
2000

"The Foundry's Sea Green and Blue Already Rising juxtaposed barely intelligible text and evocative video images, dehumanizing fragments all, with a heartbreaking humanity that was a wonder to behold. Burns and Ketley's episodic choreography was marked by reoccurring gestures and created an aleatory impression despite clear, if dreamlike, logic. Derek Powell's music for Sea Green was both unsettling and gentle, recalling the piano works of Frederico Mompou. Greg Dawson, who has never looked better, was joined by Marina Hotchkiss, Marya Kerr, and Summer Lee Ratigan in this new dance, which promises to become a Lines staple."

AGN NEwspaper
2000

"Derek Powell's electronic composition provided a haunting pace. Photography and video by Donald Ketley and the choreography was arresting in it's grainy unromanticism. And the dancers performed with great conviction."

HOWDANZ
2000

"Alonso King also presented the works of The Foundry in collaboration with the company's dancers replete with spoken text and written text. It's a curious piece, akin to an intimate conversation with both dancer's minds, hearts, and bodies. Sometimes eerie, other times prayerful, Sea Green and Blue Already Rising was an artful combination of forms we don't usually see on dance stages incorporating elements of drama, gesture, dance, and word."

San Francisco Bay Guardian
2000

“Former San Francisco Ballet dancer Alex Ketley and former James Sewell Ballet dancer Christian Burns are the collective duo behind The Foundry, a multimedia dance company that has made some seriously beautiful dances. Alonso King commissioned Burns and Ketley, who came up with the dreamy little number, Sea Green and Blue Already Rising. Their remarkable skill in integrating a variety of theatrical material and their fresh imaginations stands them in good stead in this, their biggest piece yet.”