Big Muddy Dance: Novelties

Is it more difficult to write about dance than it is to dance about writing? Apparently not. Big Muddy Dance Company opens its seventh season with Novelties, a collection of dance pieces inspired by the written word. Gabrielle Lamb's The Hourglass Sanitarium is based on Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz's novel Sanitarium under the Sign of the Hourglass, which is a strange, dreamlike reminiscence on the death the narrator's father; A Mariner, Katarzyna Skarpatowska's piece, is inspired by Awakenings, Oliver Sacks' nonfiction account of his attempts to "wake" people suffering from sleeping sickness. Big Muddy's artistic director, Brian Enos, offers a tribute to typography with Typo. Novelties is performed at 8 p.m. Saturday, November 18, at Washington University's Edison Theatre (6445 Forsyth Boulevard; www.bigmuddydanceco.org). Tickets are $35.