COMMON GROUND (1994)
Choreography: Lily Cai and Deborah Vaughan
Music: Gang Situ & Gary Schwantes
Dance Collaborator: Dimensions Dance Theater
Lighting Design: Lisa Pinkham

Two of the Bay Area's most exciting performing dance companies present a meaningful evening of dance with Common Ground, an evening-length dance work that expresses the transformative, heart touching power of art to envision hope in a world of racial tensions. Inspired by the need of Black and Asian communities to learn more about one another in

the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, Common Ground presents an optimistic view of the future which emphasizes peaceful co-existence in a culturally diverse, complex and sometimes hostile society. Blending the dance styles and traditions of Africa and China, this unique cross-cultural collaboration demonstrates the moving power of racial co-existence as pictured through two different dance ensembles working together to created a new dance form.

PRESS QUOTES

• "As you watch African-trained and Chinese-trained dancers execute their own and each others' movements, you become aware of their commonalties, but above all you realize the beauty of difference: turning a Chinese ribbon dance into a rainbow dance is as simple as it is eloquent. "
~ Rita Felciano, San Francisco Bay Guardian

• "A watershed in Cai's dance in America, Common Ground is a collaboration between the Lily Cai Dance Company and Deborah Vaughan's Dimensions Dance Theater, set to music by Situ and Schwantes. It is full of unexpected meetings and sudden rhythmic turns, or welcome fraternity."
~ Octavio Roca , The Washington Times