Stage
jill sigman/thinkdance creates dance theater works for stages of all sizes. These include solo shows and group works. Dances involve text, live music, video, and other visual elements.

Works for stage include:

ZsaZsaLand
(2009): multi-media dance theater work for 6 performers
RT: 56 minutes
Sound: joro de boro
ZsaZsaLand is a darkly comic cultural commentary on decadence and decay, commercialism and cannibalism--- part dance, part club, part installation. It is an archeological experiment built out of colliding pieces of psyche and experience - kitsch, folk dance, fetishes, Balkan music, rituals, bones and youtube videos – where shimmying and fake flowers abound.

RUPTURE
(2007): multimedia dance for 5 performers set in a ring of broken eggshells
RT: 83 minutes
Music: Kristin Norderval
RUPTURE weaves together the story of an acute calf injury with Sigman’s travels in India, Berlin, and New Orleans to explore breaking and healing on personal, architectural, and global scales. Staged for a dance venue with arena seating, RUPTURE is set in a ring of over 3,000 broken eggshells.

I Cut the Rug in My Day (2003): dance for 6 performers
RT: 31 minutes
Music: Colby Leider, Isle of Klezbos, Metropolitan Klezmer
The performance space is framed by a red runner. In a physicalized version of live sound mixing, two performers carry a boom box which plays Klezmer music while Leider's electro-acoustic score plays on the main sound system.

Vision Begins (2002): interdisciplinary solo show with movement, video, and text
RT: 62 minutes
Sound: Mary Tyler Moore theme song; Supreme Court recording of Roe v. Wade; Petula Clark; Peter, Paul & Mary; Shaker Spirituals
In this quasi-autobiographical collage, raw movement is juxtaposed with images of Suffragettes and Hippies, poetry by Adrienne Rich, and home-grown rap to address personal vision, feminism, and the legacy of the 1960s for Sigman's generation.

Athena, Goddess of Wisdom (1999/2000): solo involving sound footage of a philosophy seminar
RT: 18 minutes
Sound: Charles Trenet, Ray Ventura, Edith Piaf; live recording of a philosophy seminar
Athena, Goddess of Wisdom is a wacky performance journey from medieval alchemy to feminist camp. A postmodern Athena navigates the polarized worlds of mind and body, armed with a headlamp and a patent leather purse.

Shelter (1999): solo
RT: 20 minutes
Soundscape: Jan McLaughlin
Created for the inaugural season of the series New York on New York, Shelter is a reflection on freedom, community, and the complexities surrounding homelessness in New York City. The original soundscore mixes interviews with people living on the street with city sounds and improvised vocals.

Ach, Rosalie! (1998): solo involving 18 lbs. of mussel shells
RT: 10 minutes
Music: Walter de Buck
Set to a carnival-like backdrop of Flemish folk songs, Ach, Rosalie! deals with gender stereotypes and the sexual body as a tool of power.

The Big (1998): duet for two performers and a large wooden bowl
RT: 10 minutes
Music: French Lullaby
Set in a world of play and gargoyle-esque monsters The Big explores nightmares and repose.

Démaquillage (1998): dance for five dancers
RT: 10 minutes
Music: Walter de Buck, Paisiello
Five women in black cocktail dresses draw on themselves with lipstick in defiance, luxuriance, play, seduction, and resistance.

Still Life (1997): dance for six women and a table of fruit
RT: 7 1/2 minutes
Music: Handel
Six women in green gloves and white ruffs begin in tableau around a table of fruit in this 17th century Dutch still life painting come to life.

Embers (1996): solo set to a Hungarian folk song
RT: 6 1/2 minutes
Music: Muzsikás
A sparse, dramatic solo set to an a capella Hungarian folk song, Embers explores the question: how do we go on in the face of devastation? Physical wrapping and contorting suggest tying and untying our own personal knots. "Ember" also means human being in Hungarian.