pumpkins, many of which were to be smashed during the performance. When asked how Ich, Kurbisgeist fit into the history of what Big Dance does, Parson said she craved doing something where language was abstract as movement, something “tiny and intimate" and felt it should be seen "in some kind of site-specific, really, really intimate venue. I thought it needed to be something that you're very close to, so you're not just thinking of language as meaning, but you're also thinking of language as a kinetic experience, because the language is extremely kinetic.” Writing for L Magazine, Alexis Clements noted that Parson and Lazar seem to “enjoy feeling like outsiders looking in on a culture or subject that they are not familiar with.” For them, there was a “value in the experience of having to acknowledge one's own ignorance,” it freed them to take in information that contradicted their previous ways of thinking, it allowed them to do something familiar in a wholly new way. The New York Times wrote that “Much like the words spoken by Shakespeare's wily fools, the messages are scrambled. Yet the world of “Ich, Kürbisgeist” is whole, and surprisingly powerful. Sometimes the gut understands better than the brain.” Man in a Case (2013) Man in a Case, Parson's collaboration with dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, premiered in 2013 at Hartford Stage and ironically featured Baryshnikov, considered the greatest dancer of his generation, as a man who refuses to dance. Parson choreographed and directed the piece, which used her original adaptations of two lesser known Chekhov short stories, “Man in a Case” and “About Love”, in combination with live music, dance, and surveillance-style video footage. Baryshnikov's performance was widely lauded, and Elizabeth Bruce described the "melancholy crispness" of the performance as "utterly Chekhovian." The piece was performed at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, CA, ArtsEmerson in Boston MA, Broad Stage in Santa Monica, CA, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, IL. Alan Smithee Directed This Play: a Triple Feature (2014) Alan Smithee Directed This Play: a Triple Feature was co-commissioned by Les Subsistances (Lyon) and Brooklyn Academy of Music. It premiered at Les Subsistances in France in March, 2014 and then played at Jacobs Pillow, Les Subsistances, Tanz im August Berlin and Brooklyn Academy of Music. The piece was an adaptation/ mashup of the films Terms of Endearment, Le Cercle