John Scott Dance: Cloud Study
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John Scott Dance
John Scott returns to La MaMa with his newest work Cloud Study. Called “powerful and mesmerizing” (The Arts Review), the work uses the idea of clouds as a traveling, dreamy mass that floats above everything, witnessing, dissolving, and carrying storms. Two compelling dancers: Mufutau Yusuf (who performed in Scott’s Fall and Recover at La MaMa), an Irish dancer born in Nigeria and Taryn Griggs, are running to somewhere or from something, speaking English and Yorùbá, communicating with their bodies, hand signs, and dance.
Photo by Leon Farrell
Music by Ryan Vial
Costumes by Justine Doswell
Lighting design by Eric Würtz
John Scott is a Dublin born choreographer, dancer, and singer. His company, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, has been performing his work and works by guest choreographers including Kyle Abraham, Adrienne Truscott, Sara Rudner, Seán Curran, John Jasperse, and Merce Cunningham since 1991. He is one of the subjects of Sadlers Wells’ 52 Portraits for Jonathan Burrows. He founded Dancer from the Dance Festival of Irish Choreography in New York and Dublin in 2019. He has performed in Meredith Monk’s Quarry and for Yoshiko Chuma, Sarah Rudner, Thomas Lehmen, Adrienne Truscott, and Anna Sokolow, and performs in Oona Doherty’s Hard To Be Soft. Scott is a member of the Irish Artists body, Aosdána. He is delighted to be back at La MaMa.
Nigeria-born Irish performer Mufutau Yusuf had his introduction to contemporary dance at the age of 16 with Dublin Youth Dance Company, and made his professional debut two years later with the Irish Modern Dance Theatre in Fall and Recover, the first of many works he would perform with the company. He subsequently enrolled in a four-year undergraduate program at Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, and since graduating in 2016, Yusuf has worked as a freelancer with various choreographers and companies as well as developed his own artistic works for both stage and film. He is currently based between Ireland and Brussels, where he works with Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez.
Taryn Griggs is a dancer, choreographer, Pilates instructor and Franklin Method educator based in Winston-Salem, NC. She has been creating, performing, and touring dances with her husband, Chris Yon, since 2002. Griggs has also danced with Mary Cochran, Sara Hook, Susan Rethorst, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Liz Roche/Rex Levitates, Anna Sperber, Johannes Wieland, Ivy Baldwin, Tori Lawrence, Karinne Keithley Syers, Yoshiko Chuma, Hijack, Jodi Melnick, David Neumann and Netta Yerushalmy. Griggs teaches Dance and Somatics at UNCSA in the School of Dance, School of Drama and Preparatory Dance Program. Upcoming projects include Interstitial #4 at the Southeast Center for Contemporary Art and a new work for the 2022 American Dance Festival with Chris Yon.
Cloud Study was commissioned by Galway International Arts Festival.
John Scott Dance is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and Culture Ireland.
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival continues to support La MaMa’s commitment to presenting diverse performance styles that challenge audience’s perception of dance by featuring performance/installations, experimental film screenings & public symposiums which address dance artists’ engagement with the current political climate, as well as honoring diasporic histories and legacy, ancestral inspirations and inter-generational dialogue.