“In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black and towering.”
The Vision.
On Friday nights, my family used to go to the video store, and my sister and I were allowed to pick one movie to rent. More often than not, I chose Disney’s 1950 The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. It completely captured my imagination (and made me a lifelong Bing Crosby fan). I was a scaredy-cat as a kid (I am still one), so I’m not sure why I was so drawn to this story where the “hero” is probably murdered by the terrifying Headless Horseman and his flaming jack-o-lantern.
I think partially I was drawn to the scared, misunderstood, and bullied outsider presented in Ichabod Crane. As an adult digging into Washington Irving’s novella, he seems to me a more complicated and less likable character, but that makes me lean in; that makes the story even more compelling and curious. Do we actually root for the Horseman? for Brom Bones?
This story moves. It is kinetic. The novella’s narrator Diedrich Knickerbocker tells us that the horseman is “hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind.” Ichabod is described as resembling “some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.” It has rowdy local boys and coquettish local girls. It has everything you might want in an evening of dance theatre: a complicated protagonist, a romance, a barn dance, a chase, a ghost, and a delightfully ambiguous ending.
The Production.
It began as a conversation with Joshua Blake Carter in the summer of 2024. I wanted to create a new experiential evening-length dance theatre work in the horror genre for his company Dance Kaleidoscope. We eventually settled on Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” as an anchor and began dreaming.
My first question was how to accomplish the Headless Hessian. We want something scary and uncanny. We decided it could be effective as a puppet. My cousin Nicholas Peugh was a master puppeteer for Walt Disney World for many years, and he helped us identify Monkey Boys Productions as the right builder for our Horseman puppet. Nicholas will also serve as Puppetry Coach for the production.
My longtime collaborator Brandon Carson will write original music that incorporates psalms and Revolutionary War tunes. Liz Bourgeois will provide the costume designs.
We have added William Boles to our team as scenic designer.
The Movement Language.
The movement vocabulary will be grounded and athletic. It will include folkdance from the period.