Tales of a Forager:
Waggle Dance

for Wind Ensemble
(2015)

Instrumentation: picc.2(II+alto).2.3.bcl.2.cbn.2asax.tsax.barsax.-4.3.3.euph.1.-db.pno.-perc(4).

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A forager honeybee will fly up to three miles in search for a pollen or nectar source in order to create their liquid gold we call honey. When a forager bee finds a particularly desirable food source, she will return to the hive and perform a “Waggle Dance”, giving her sisters the distance and direction of the food source through a complicated dance language. My piece is divided into three sections telling the story of a forager’s journey. In the first section, a single bee begins communicating her waggle dance among the honeycomb until the rest of the hive catches on and joins her. The middle, slower section describes the workers finding the glorious and expansive flowers and trees: a nectar flow. The third and final section of the piece depicts the bees clumsily making their journey back, drunk on the pollen and nectar they collected. The piece ends with the forager bees doing a wild and uncontrolled dance, relaying the tales of their travel to the rest of the hive and celebrating their abundant harvest.