La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival ’12

La MaMa Moves! 2012 brings new work from notes and emerging female choreographers – some of whom explore issues of sex and politics, and others who delve into pure physical movement.

Companies & Choreographers:
Yoshiko Chuma | Ann Liv Young | Jane Comfort | Vicky Shick | Juliette Mapp | Maura Nguyen Donahue | Yuko Takahashi Dance Company | Eun Hee Lee | Risa Jaroslow | Culturehub | Goh Productions

Performances

Yoshiko Chuma

Love Story, Palestine

May 9-12 | Ellen Stewart Theatre

Conceptual Artist/Choreographer/Artistic Director of The School of Hard Knocks Yoshiko Chuma assembles a mosaic of images and interviews which pertain to pain and longing, as if framing theater with barbed wire. Traditional dance is juxtaposed with contemporary movement, video projection and spoken text in a borderless environment constantly reshaped by sculptural objects. Yoshiko Chuma herself performs on the backdrop of Robert Flynt’s photography. Featuring members of Palestinian Dance Troupe El-Funoun from Ramallah

Vicky Shick

So Be It

May 11-13 | The Club

Vicky Shick’s So Be It is a medley of in-process choreographed miniatures for performers Jon Kinzel, Marilyn Maywald, Robert Swinston, Cathy Weis, and Shick. These snap shot compositions are devoted to detail, hold a hint of the absurd, and honor character, behavior, and plain old effort.

Juliette Mapp

Dark Matter

May 11-13 | The Club

Dark Matter is a solo in-progress inspired by the unknown qualities of dark matter which makes up over 20 percent of the universe. Astronomers now believe that over 20% of our universe is made up of what we call “dark matter,” and another 73% of dark energy. The stuff we are familiar with and can actually look at only takes up 4% of the universe. Our universe is dominated by dark matter and dark energy, whatever that maybe.

Maura Donohue

Present.tense Progressive

May 11-13 | The Club

Inspired by Yvonne Meier’s score-based work, present.tense (progressive) is an examination of immediacy in exchange and response systems between 3 artists on stage. For each performance, Donohue, in movement, and Cuthbert, in sound, will enact selections from a range of movement scored and sound arrangements that Aoki will determine and declare in a contest of authorship. Present-tense (progressive) considers evolving states of being within rapidly changing categories of ongoing movement that result in a collaborative creation out of autonomous actions. Every night will be different.

Jane Comfort

Beauty

May 17-20 | Ellen Stewart Theatre

Hailed by The Washington Post as “fascinating and fantastic,” Beauty invites men and women of all ages to consider how they perceive and project notions of female beauty in both benign and malevolent ways, consciously and subconsciously. Comfort was awarded a Guggenheim to create this wickedly funny and poignant work, which is performed in repertory with her Bessie Award-winning Underground River.

Ann Liv Young

The Mermaid Show

May 17-20 | First Floor Theatre

A bare-breasted woman with long silvery hair, silvery mermaid tail, and reptilian contact lenses writhes lasciviously in a plastic basin: Ann Liv Young has a history of re-interpreting fairy tales. This time, she has turned her attention to The Little Mermaid. Rasping Katy Perry’s Fireworks into the microphone, she buthcers a raw fish and tries to peel herself out of her slippery skin – this New York performance artist is totally uninhibited and unselfconscious. Her show, which previewed in New York thrives on interaction. It is the response of the spectator, whom she provokes with her corporal rather than linguistic dialogue, that determines her performance.

Yuko Takahashi

So Young, So Dear

May 18-20 | The Club

Yuko Takahashi Dance Company immerses us in the infinite potential of its inspiring message of resilience, healing and renewal. Based in Sendai City, Japan, the award-winning company is making its third appearance in New York. Artistic Director/Choreographer Yuko Takahashi creates original works of mesmerizing modern dance merging dynamic western techniques with exquisite Japanese sensibility. The company wilkl be presenting four U.S. premiere works including: Heaven’s Gate, Carnage, Memory of rain, and So Young, So Dear – which is an elegy and remembrance for the innocent children who lost their lives in the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami which greatly affected and devastated Sendai City on March 11, 2011

GOH Productions

East Village Dance Project

May 20 | Ellen Stewart Theatre

East Village Dance Project is a dance development program for youth founded in 1997 by Artistic Director, Martha Tornay. EVDP performs annually in New York and has been at La MaMa Moves! Three seasons. EVDP has served over 500 at-risk youth offering them skills that transform their lives. The program has been recognized for its innovative approach to dance and education, and for offering pre-professional classes to all, regardless of social or economic situation. The 2012 concert features dancers age 4 to 18 who study at the East Village Dance Project at Avenue C Studio in Manhattan in 9 works, including Bal-Led byTornay with music by Led Zeppelin and a new work by the EVDP Junior Co. with live music performed by teen musician Jack Lazar. Eastvillagedanceproject.com

Risa Jaroslow

The Middle of Where She Is

May 18-20 | The Club

Jaroslow, Elise Knudson and Rachel Lehrer grapple with the simultaneity of growth and loss and the longing for play and delight that we never lose. Music composed and performed by the violin/viola duo Charly & Margaux.

Culturehub

Digital Duets

May 19 | Ellen Stewart Theatre

A celebration of dance improvisation that uses telepresence technology to connect dancers, musicians, visualizes, and spoken word artists at La MaMa in New York and Contact Theatre in Manchester, UK. Digital Duets in an event that collapses distance, allowing for spontaneous real time collaborations across networked environments.

Eun Hee Lee

Silent Noise

May 18-20 | The Club

Voice within the women’s heart.