Frozen Feet Theater
2010–2018 · New York City, Milford, Pennsylvania, and the Hudson Valley
The company behind its own name — Winter-Summer, the flapper, the phoenix, the blue cloth. Beth is the one lying on the ice
In costume at Brookfield Place.
Frozen Feet Theater combined the fluid strength and agility of ice skating with the magical realism of puppetry and narrative storytelling, making choreography that drew on archetypal mythology — who we are, who we were, and who we could be.
It was a new genre in ice dancing, one that went past the Ice Capades and Stars on Ice format by telling dramatic stories: the myths and legends of the world’s cultures. It integrated actor-skaters with giant puppets inside a narrative structure, and it was the words that gave access to more complex stories and characters.The performers skated in a style that had more in common with contemporary dance than with ice skating, though you would still see double axels, Russian splits and back flips.
Brookfield Place, the Hudson behind. Photograph: Darial Sneed.
The company’s mission was to bring the format to the public through tours, workshops and films.
I co-founded it with Mike Carson, and served as Co-Artistic Director and Choreographer. Mike had founded the Winter Lights Festival in Milford, Pennsylvania, and had come to the idea of telling socially relevant stories on ice through the strength of ice dancers and the magical realism of giant puppets. The puppets were built by the Puppeteers’ Cooperative, Sara Peattie co-artistic director. The company worked out of the Boundless Edge Ice Dance Ensemble & School.
The cloth is water.
Outside the shed at the rink, shovels against the wall and a skater in a parka waiting to go on.
Over four seasons the company performed in the New Works and Young Artists series presented by Ice Theatre of New York, at the New Paltz Winter Carnival, the Boundless Edge benefit at Mohonk Mountain House, and in its own winter and home seasons in Saugerties, New York. Its New York City debut was at The Rink at Brookfield Place, between the Hudson River and the Winter Garden, in December 2013, and it returned to perform at Bryant Park in February 2014. Both were free lunchtime performances.
For eight consecutive years we brought the company to the Winter Lights Festival in Milford, Pennsylvania, where part of Ann Street Park becomes an ice rink for three days in January, weather permitting. Mike founded the festival; we co-directed and choreographed it together. Under the Faces of Love theme we made skating renditions of Romeo and Juliet and Merlin at Avalon.
Persephone & the Birth of Winter · 2011 · the company’s first major work
The Greek myth that explains the seasons: Hades carries Persephone down to the underworld, and her mother Demeter lets the earth go cold until she returns.
Carl Carrozza as Hades, Sara Forsythe as Persephone. Photograph: Bill Cohen.
Beth Woronoff as Demeter, Persephone’s mother. Photograph: Bill Cohen.
Holding on to her crown.
Sara Forsythe as Persephone · Beth Woronoff as Demeter · Carl Carrozza as Hades · with Winter-Summer, in the crowned mask. Photographs: Bill Cohen.
Watch Persephone & the Birth of Winter
Viva La Vida: the Life of Frida Kahlo · 2012
Patrick Connelly as Diego Rivera, Beth Woronoff as Frida. Stuyvesant Town, New York City.
The accident Frida suffered as a teenager: a bus and trolley car collision, portrayed by skaters holding puppet cars and crashing into one another. One of Frida’s paintings can be seen in the background.
Beth Woronoff in green as the adult Frida, Sara Forsythe in white as the young one. Her paintings hung around the rink as banners.
There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst. — Frida Kahlo, on the posters.
Beth Woronoff as Frida · Sara Forsythe as the young Frida · Patrick Connelly as Diego Rivera · Alizah Allen as Leon Trotsky · Line Haddad as Cristina Kahlo · with students of the Boundless Edge Ice Dance Ensemble & School. Performed at Stuyvesant Town, New York City, and as the Boundless Edge Home Show at the Saugerties Kiwanis Ice Arena, Cantine Field, 25 March 2012. Interview and excerpts filmed 2014.
Alizah Allen as Leon Trotsky.
Sara Forsythe as Frida as a teenager, Beth Woronoff as Frida as an adult, in the costumes from Frida’s painting — the picture come to life.
Stuyvesant Town.
Saugerties, 25 March.
Fire & Ice: The Rise & Fall of the Norse Gods · 2013–2014
Alizah Allen as the falcon. Bryant Park, February 2014.
Odin, the god of war, wisdom and poetry; Loki the trickster, sometimes aiding and sometimes abetting the gods; and the Norns, who control the destinies of both gods and men. Giant puppets — a dragon, a wolf that eats the sun and the moon, and a monstrous head and claw for Loki — carry the story of the creation of the world and of Ragnarök, its destruction. Rising from the ashes, a falcon heralds the rebirth of the universe. An original soundtrack, to music close to Carmina Burana, narrates the story, and the skaters dance it into life.
Sara Peattie drew the whole thing before any of it was built, in three movements:
The Creation. When there was no sun, no moon, no stars; the world was a swirling chaos of mists and fog, howling winds and terrifying fire.
Odin & Loki. Youthful fun and games, as mano-a-mano the chief divinities of the Norse pantheon test each other by changing shapes and bravura skating; then pledge an ongoing allegiance that ends with betrayal and battles.
Ragnarök. Unfettered Fenrir the Wolf chases and captures the sun. Flying above the devastation a family sees a falcon, and begins to follow its movements, dancing in celebration of life.
Sara Peattie’s design sheet, April 2012, two years before Bryant Park.
Photograph: Darial Sneed.
Connections Magazine, January 2014.
Written by Mike Carson. Photographs: Darial Sneed.
Puppets designed and built by the Puppeteers’ Cooperative, Sara Peattie co-artistic director. Fire and Ice was made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
Watch Fire & Ice · television coverage
Smash · world premiere, Bryant Park, February 2014
Bryant Park. The boxes are arranged to spell out a message, then the other skater smashes it and spells out their own.
Irreverent, action-filled word play, accompanied by intricate footwork; the skaters use the boxes to spell out messages — you can’t box me in, you can’t box us in!, why, we are different, bcus I’m different, no way.
Every letter was drawn by hand first. Then we made small cardboard models to work out which word went on which face, because each box had to carry several — one set had to say all of it, and had to spell the company’s name, and Ice Theatre of New York’s, before the piece began.
Eventually we had covers made and painted to fit standard-sized boxes, so the blocks could be taken apart and put back together. The first time I drove down to the city with them I couldn’t see a thing. It was quite scary driving. Partway there I had to stop and cut one of the boxes open so I could see out. Imagine a car full of all those boxes.
The small cardboard dice mock-ups.
The same six models, another face.
The real boxes, full size.
Turn one box and it answers itself.
The same boxes as the company sign.
Berlín 1928
In front of the ice sculpture at Ann Street Park.
A moment in the late twenties when, as in our own sixties and seventies, a crazy quilt of youthful exuberance, freedom and social relevance ran through the art, literature, drama and dance of its time and defined the cultural history of an era.
Set to dance music from Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera · skated by Patrick Connelly and Sara Forsythe.
Comedy, played straight.
Volcano: a modern day tribe of warrior women
Beth Woronoff, Alizah Allen and Sara Forsythe.
A trio of women warriors wandering in the forest, performing rituals, entering unknown territories. Tenderness is balanced by force as the women spread out, patrol their territory and fend off dangers while keeping the circle between them safe.
Choreographed by Beth Woronoff · skated by Beth Woronoff and Alizah Allen, with Sara Forsythe or Alicia Jackson as the third. The Riverbank photographs are with Alicia Jackson.
The repertory · the short works, nicknamed the Ice Pops
Alongside the long pieces the company kept a repertory of short works and programmed them around the main one.
Love Where Art Thou — A chance encounter on a frozen pond brings two twenty-three-year-olds together in a contemporary memory play, and the protagonist discovers, to Satie’s Gymnopédies, love where art thou? Concept by Mike Carson, choreography by Beth Woronoff, performed by Alizah Allen and Patrick Connelly. Watch it.
Run to the Rock — To Nina Simone’s Sinnerman. The two masked figures are the Lord and the Devil, and there is nowhere to hide from either. Watch it.
Both of them on the ice at once.
Flight: a journey from vanity to freedom — The struggle of losing one’s vanity and the soaring of the spirit that follows. The skirt and the mirror are the attachment, the effort to stay young and beautiful; putting the mirror down and taking off the skirt frees the spirit. Choreographed and performed by Beth Woronoff. Watch it.
Beth Woronoff in the role.
Doris Goes to Birdland — Miles Davis plays the blues. The role was danced by Beth Woronoff and by Alizah Allen. Watch Beth Woronoff or Alizah Allen in the role.
Alizah Allen.
Alizah Allen, at the Harlem rink.
Fly Me to the Moon — Gentlemen in love, Gene Kelly style. World premiere, Bryant Park, February 2014.
Gentlemen in love, Gene Kelly style.
In Tonight’s Performance — A comedy. As the announcement is made, the ballerina finds out that her partner is sick and has been replaced by another dancer far below her skill level.
Carl Carrozza and Sara Forsythe — the moment the announcement lands.