February 28, 2004

Howl's the benefit

Dance raises money for Oregon wolf sanctuary

By Tim Bousquet
Tidings Correspondent

"Wolves can't speak for themselves, so we're speaking for them through dance," explains Suzee Grilley. "We're recognizing their fierce natural power. Artists are getting together to give their work to the wolves."

Grilley is one of the organizers of "Dances for Wolves," a benefit dance performance for the Howling Acres Wolf Sanctuary near Williams.

Injured and abandoned wolves from around the country are kept at the sanctuary, which holds that "people preserve only what they care about, understand, or feel connected to in a personal way." To that end, Howling Acres conducts educational tours and host special events to underscore the species' struggle for survival. The organization will bring a "wolf ambassador" named Mac-T to the dance performance, and will give a short presentation on their work.

The event is sponsored by Co-Motion, a collaboration of Grilley and Marie Bouman.

"I've been volunteering at the sanctuary for the past couple of years, cleaning the pens every Thursday," Bouman said. "I've been inspired to be with the wolves, and there seems to be a lot of sympathy among Ashland artists for the wolves."

All the pieces to be performed at the benefit have animal themes. Grilley has written another of her "Galumph!" dances, this one a quartet. "We walk on all fours," explains Grilley, "exploring the lighter side of animal qualities." Southern Oregon University percussionist Terry Longshore has arranged the music for this piece.

A solo features local favorite Liz Finnegan, who Bouman describes as "one of the most beautiful dancers in the whole wide world."

The Nutshell Mask Theater, which is directed by Oregon Shakespeare Festival actor Jamie Peck and includes Grilley as dancer, will also perform. Peck has been making masks for the Rogue Valley Symphony for several years, and was recently awarded a grant to choreograph a dance and mask production of "The Carnival of the Animals" for the Northeastern Pennsylvania Symphonic Orchestra.

"Le Carnaval des Animaux" was written as "a private joke" by Camille Saint-Seans for his family in 1886, and was first performed after his death in 1921. It has since become his best-known work, and is considered the prime example of "program music," music that describes or depicts a visible image.

At least two movements from the yet-to-be-performed larger Nutshell piece will be excerpted at the benefit, including "The Fish" and "The Butterflies." In both, two dancers manipulate masks with their heads and hands to create as many as eight different creatures at once.

"With masks, the emphasis isn't so much on the movement of the human body, but more on telling a story through movement of the bodies and masks together," Grilley said.

Vanessa Nowitzky will bring her Singdancing to the benefit, and will perform a new comedic piece, "Werewolf Blues." Other dancers at the event include Bouman, Rose Fisher and Jeannie Olson.

Moving away from dancing but keeping with the animal theme are two local actors turned storytellers, Brady Carson and Robert Owens-Greygrass. Carson has had a television and film career in Los Angeles and New York, and is well known in Ashland, having worked with OSF and most of the local theaters. Greygrass, who has a Lakota and Cherokee heritage, has worked with OSF as well, and has toured both nationally and internationally with his one-man show, "Walking on Turtle Island." In 1999 he was named Storyteller of the Year by the Woodcraft Circle of Native Writers.

The benefit comes at a time when the wolf sanctuary is facing some political opposition from neighbors. Howling Acres has been at its Davidson Road location since 1991, but the controversy has caused Josephine County to review the sanctuary's conditional use permit and to insist on certain infrastructure additions. The organization says on its Web site that it needs to raise $300,000 to come in to full compliance.

There are 31 wolves at the sanctuary, and all the females are spayed. The organization stresses that it does not support breeding, and that the sanctuary is "peaceful and stress-free for the wolves and visitors alike."

"There's one woman in particular who seems afraid of wolves," says Bouman. "Sure, they howl, but they only howl for a reason, not like dogs who will bark all night. The wolves are mostly quiet."

"There isn't a place to put them," she said. "The wolves have to be somewhere, but people don't want wolves." Bouman cites recent resistance to wolf re-introduction programs in Idaho and Montana to underscore her point.

"Having wolves, and having people being able to see wolves, is healing for the people."

The production costs of the benefit have been underwritten by Patricia Cook Harrington, and the entire $15 entry charge will be donated to Howling Acres. "Dances for Wolves" will be performed Sunday, Feb. 29, at 7 p.m. in The DanceSpace, 280 E. Hersey St., No. 10, in Ashland. Tickets are available at Soundpeace in Ashland and at Tights & 'Tards in Medford.