Ann Carlson

Doggie Hamlet is an outdoor performance spectacle that weaves dance, music, visual and theatrical elements with aspects
from competitive sheep herding trials. The work is performed by four dancers, one local boy, one American Sign Language interpreter, two herding dogs and a flock of sheep in a 30 x 50 foot fenced field. Doggie Hamlet recalls the bucolic impression of a landscape painting or a 3D pastoral poem. The sheep, the dogs, the human performers, and the earth's surface are at once performing as themselves and as living symbols in this work. Through story, motion, site and stillness Doggie Hamlet explores instinct, sentience, attachment, and loss.