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Original programme note from the premiere:

For co-choreographer Anandha Ray, this dance is a very personal introspection. Ms. Ray dedicates this dance to Dan Meeks, the seventh son of a seventh son, medicine man for his tribe, her late great-grandfather. Though her family’s American Indian heritage was kept secret to avoid the severe prejudices of the South, Ms. Ray was privileged to learn from him a few of the traditions for planting and using sacred tobacco as a healing tool. The dance was inspired in honor of this ancestry. Anandha Ray and Charles Anderson, with widely varying backgrounds and styles of dance, collaborated with Thomas Goss in each section of the choreographic process to co-create the sections and movements of the dance and music. Loran Watkins’ costume design augments the abstract representation of Ray’s memories of her American Indian culture intertwined with her family’s need to hide this heritage. The lyrics in Goss’s score were adapted and translated by Native American healer Fred Jack Miles Manitoumahwhingon from a traditional Chippewa Indian prayer for times of journey, whether physical or spiritual.

Written during a month-long residency in November 2005 at the Visby International Centre for Composers, in Visby on the Swedish Baltic island of Gotland, this piece was inspired by the surroundings there- the history related to its importance in the Hanseatic League and prior to that the long Viking period; and in particular the old town with it’s beautifully preserved encircling medieval town wall.

The piece consists of seven descriptive historical episodes, and includes two poems to be narrated by the pianist in episodes 2 and 7- ‘Clouds’ and ‘Centuries’. The vocalisations are mainly sung, hummed and whistled sounds, along with the breaths of the third section indicating the onerous task of building the wall.

• Carey: Great Wall; facsimile 

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• Ross Carey: Great Wall; audio 

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