Shared Evening: Nico Brown, Caleb Teicher, Poorna Swami
THIS IS NOT A LETTER BUT MY ARMS AROUND YOU FOR A BRIEF MOMENT
Nico Brown
Nico Brown’s latest work, This is not a letter but my arms around you for a brief moment, draws formal inspiration from his experience raised on the flatlands of the midwest. The work continues Brown’s investigation into minimalism and choreography as design, weaving simple movement material into extravagant choreographic structures.
CARTOGRAPHY
Poorna Swami
Cartography is a movement-ode, an intimate implosion between word and body. The second in a series of love addresses based on original poems, Cartography emerges from the formal romance of classical Indian dance to become a disputed map of lust and lament.
CHET OR JUST THE WAY HE SINGS
Caleb Teicher & Company
In Chet; Or, Just The Way He Sings, Caleb Teicher & Company continues its unique approach to traditional American dance forms in a study of Chet Baker, the tragic hero of West Coast Jazz. Expressed through Lindy Hop, vernacular jazz, and soft-shoe, his musical and personal legacy recalls one of America’s favorite debates: With an artist’s morality in question, should we separate creation from creator?
Nico Brown is a dance artist originally from rural Illinois. His work is often described as minimal, formal, and irrevocably queer. Brown is a New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks recipient, a Makehouse Sponsored Artist and a Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship recipient. He holds an MFA in Dance and a BFA in Theatre Stage Management from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has performed for Jon Kinzel, Jennifer Monson, Wally Cardona, Jennifer Lacey, Kirstie Simson, and Renée Wadleigh. Brown has worked in administrative capacities for Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the American Dance Festival, and Trisha Brown Dance Company. www.nicobrown.org
Poorna Swami is a choreographer, dancer, and writer from Bangalore, India. Her work lives in the slippages between classical Indian idioms and the compositional possibilities of contemporary dance. Poorna holds a BA in Dance-Theatre and English from Mount Holyoke College and has performed her choreography at the Wassaic Project, Theater for the New City, and La MaMa. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in The Missing Slate and Indiana Review.
Caleb Teicher is a 2011 Bessie Award Winner for Outstanding Individual Performance and one of Dance Magazine’s 2012 “25 to Watch”. Favorite performance credits include Dorrance Dance, The Chase Brock Experience, Syncopated City Dance Company, The Bang Group, WestSide Story (Int’l Tour), Irma La Douce (City Center Encores!), and many others. Currently an artist-in-residence at the American Tap Dance Foundation and CUNY Queens College, he creates and presents work under the banner of Caleb Teicher & Company. Upcoming presentations include American Tap Dance Foundation’s Rhythm In Motion, Jacob’s Pillow’s Inside/Out Stage, and The Yard at Martha’s Vineyard. Caleb also works as the Associate Choreographer to Chase Brock on theatrical productions (Gigantic Off-B’way, Be More Chill at Two River Theater, and the upcoming Golden Lotus for Broadway Asia), and he has been a guest instructor at Broadway Dance Center, Steps on Broadway, The Juilliard School, CAP21, and many other festivals and institutions. www.CalebTeicher.com/Company