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(1998, Trio, 17 minutes)

“My partner and I were together a long time before we became parents. All of a sudden this person arrives and he is very small but he might as well be huge because of how much he changes things. People laugh about being up all night and all the clichés that go with the baby arriving-they're all true but it's a lot more profound. Your sense of individuality is diminished.” – Keely Garfield

A skewed love story in which members of an overwrought family pursue one another on their roundabout way to a happy ending. The work examines the intense redefining and reconciling of roles that occurs within a relationship as it expands to accommodate children. The Vaudeville-tinged music is by frequent collaborator, composer Phillip Johnston.

Once there was you
then trickled me
after Hawaii
baby made three
–Keely Garfield

"Garfield cogitating on the changes a baby brings to a couple, introduces an infant whose size is proportionate to his dominance…The choreography and superb performances seethe with subliminal currents.…Hilarious comedy… profound." The Village Voice

Premiere: Dance Theater Workshop (New York, NY), January 20, 1998
Commissioned by DTW’s Bessie Schönberg/First Light Program with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts. Additional funding from Meet The Composer, Inc. with support from ASCAP, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated and The Virgil Thomson Foundation. Movement material for the dance was developed with a commission from Lincoln Center’s Meet-the-Artist series.