This production has been performed in the following venues:

Clark Studio Theater, 70 Lincoln Center on March 30 and 31, 2006 and The Jeanne Rimsky Theater, Landmark on Main, Port Washington, NY on April 2, 2006

Three stories, six women, Anatomy of Woman

In Spectre de la Rose (Specter of the Rose), choreographer John Ollom has recreated a touching tale of a homeless woman finding inner beauty and her own intrinsic worth using the classical ballet vocabulary, but presented in a uniquely fresh and witty form.
The Spectre, the essence of a rose, is a haunting being that embodies only the best of masculine and feminine qualities. Her dance inspires the homeless woman to follow her lead and find beauty in their dance together. The willingness of the Specter to share her compassion and dance with the woman plants a seed of hope because someone sees beauty even in her societal exile.

Du Fond de l'Abime (At the Bottom of the Abyss), which is set to Lili Boulanger's haunting opera music of the same name, analyzes the intent of human touch in a time of war. We see the permanent effects of war on our heroine's partner and her father. Her father survived a Russian concentration camp, and her partner survived Vietnam, but the violence each has experienced has never left them.
As we witness soldiers that murder people with their bare hands, the heroine, a Joan of Arc figure, is able to see a different reality from those she loves. Her touch is healing and constructive, even as the world around is still surrounded with violence and war. A passionate fusion of ballet and modern dance with theatrical elements bring this dramatic presentation to life.

The Yellow Dress, conceived by John Ollom, Andrea Kramer and Jim Sable, is a choreographic commentary on women's disenchantment with fairy tales told to little girls to scare morality into them. We witness the journey of a little girl from the loving arms of her mother to self-actualization in adulthood as she rejects societal expectations.
In her journey she encounters the two extremes of what she is told that women are: a Madonna archetype - a woman that is all moral goodness, but deep inside, she knows that her life is a lie - a shell of vanity; and, the whore archetype - a vision of sexual confidence, condemned by other women, but knows that the masculine ideals of conquest do not only apply to men.
In seeing the two extremes our main character finds her joy in the common empathy that other women have shown her along her way .The Yellow Dress is told in the Ollom's signature style. Innocence of little girls is shown in sweeping lyrical circles that emphasize flow and joy in this movement. Societal expectations are shown through harsh lines of choreographic intentions. Juxtaposing these two, Ollom has shown his unique choreographic voice by a movement style that is based on ballet, but pulls off into energies that are contemporary and jazzy in style.

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