DANCEROULETTE: jill sigman/thinkdance // Larissa Velez-Jackson

Thursday, February 7, 20138:00 pm

DANCEROULETTE is a festival of performing artists working within movement, sound, spatial design, visual cacophony, choreography, improvisation, ephemerality, and theatrical re-imagining.

jill sigman/thinkdance “last days/first field” [excerpt]
Larissa Velez-Jackson “Star Crap in Progress “still in progress“”


 

jill sigman/thinkdance last days/first field [excerpt]

Composer/musician: Kristin Norderval
Dancers: Hadar Ahuvia, Corinne Cappelletti, Donna Costello, Sally Hess, Irene Hsi, Paloma McGregor, Jill Sigman

Jill Sigman asks questions through the medium of the body. Trained in classical ballet, modern dance, art history, and analytic philosophy, Sigman has been making dances and performance installations since the early 90s. She founded jill sigman/thinkdance in 1998, the same year she received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University.  Sigman’s work exists at the intersection of dance, theater and visual installation, often using non-traditional environments, formats, and ways of engaging the viewer.  She has been produced by such New York venues as Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Dancing in the Streets, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, The 92 St Y, The Brooklyn Museum, BAX, and Dixon Place, and has appeared regionally and internationally in such places as a dilapidated Belgian printing house, a former arsenal in Croatia, the American Embassy in New Delhi, and the Norwegian Opera House in Oslo. Sigman is currently a Fellow of the Center for Creative Research (CCR) and an Artist in Residence at Wesleyan University.  www.thinkdance.org

jill sigman/thinkdance will show an excerpt from “last days/first field”, a full evening work in process for 7 dancers with a live original score by Kristin Norderval. The final piece will involve two parts: a movement section and a planting ritual in which performers plant a field of seedlings in the performance space. The piece is a kinesthetic working of the questions: How do we distill in movement the feeling of our time in terms of climate change, environmentally related health problems, food security issues, and increasing social polarization? How do we process disconnection from nature and each other? How do we deal with our anxiety and fear of catastrophe? The piece evolves a movement vocabulary to process these issues kinesthetically.

 


 

Larissa Velez-Jackson Star Crap in Progress “still in progress

With Marissa Perel, Talya Epstein, Monifa Kincaid, Joey Kipp, Caitlin Marz

Star Crap in Progress is Velez-Jackson’s permanent work in progress based on improvisations in dance, song, sound poetry, and standup comedy. The piece asks the performer to seamlessly embody a cross section of performance personas that are amplified by live microphone. Star Crap in Progress explores the microphone as a vehicle for heightened exposure and simultaneously a structure to hide behind. Velez-Jackson frenetically creates, reverses, and discards roles to reveal what’s just beneath the surface of a façade; creating a dense, fearless and oftentimes ridiculous form of expression.

Larissa Velez-Jackson is a Brooklyn-based choreographer and multimedia artist. Of her 2010, critically acclaimed show at Danspace Project, the New York Times said, “Ms. Velez-Jackson demonstrates her own formidable presence as she bursts into the space…. A choreographer who is not afraid of being (or showing) ugly onstage, she disarms her audiences with humor…”She has presented work at numerous NYC venues such as: Joe’s Pub, People’s Improv Theatre, New Museum of Contemporary Art, PS 122, and American Realness Festival 2011 at Abrons Arts Center. Velez-Jackson was a 2009 Dance Theater Workshop Fresh Tracks resident for her collaboration with Hilary Clark and a Studio Series resident for her solo work in the same year. In 2011, she launched a new musical collaboration with her husband Jon Velez-Jackson called Yackez, “The World’s Most Loveable Hip Hop Duo.” Yackez self-released a debut double album and are currently performing throughout NYC. Velez-Jackson was a danceWEB scholar at ImPulsTanz Vienna Int’l Dance Festival 2012 and is currently a Movement Research Artist in Residence working toward a new full-length work, Star Crap Method.

Dance Roulette is made possible by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

 

jill sigman/thinkdance // Larissa Velez-Jackson 2013

DANCEROULETTE: jill sigman/thinkdance // Larissa Velez-Jackson

Thursday, February 7, 20138:00 pm

DANCEROULETTE is a festival of performing artists working within movement, sound, spatial design, visual cacophony, choreography, improvisation, ephemerality, and theatrical re-imagining.

jill sigman/thinkdance “last days/first field” [excerpt]
Larissa Velez-Jackson “Star Crap in Progress “still in progress“”


 

jill sigman/thinkdance last days/first field [excerpt]

Composer/musician: Kristin Norderval
Dancers: Hadar Ahuvia, Corinne Cappelletti, Donna Costello, Sally Hess, Irene Hsi, Paloma McGregor, Jill Sigman

Jill Sigman asks questions through the medium of the body. Trained in classical ballet, modern dance, art history, and analytic philosophy, Sigman has been making dances and performance installations since the early 90s. She founded jill sigman/thinkdance in 1998, the same year she received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University.  Sigman’s work exists at the intersection of dance, theater and visual installation, often using non-traditional environments, formats, and ways of engaging the viewer.  She has been produced by such New York venues as Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Dancing in the Streets, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, The 92 St Y, The Brooklyn Museum, BAX, and Dixon Place, and has appeared regionally and internationally in such places as a dilapidated Belgian printing house, a former arsenal in Croatia, the American Embassy in New Delhi, and the Norwegian Opera House in Oslo. Sigman is currently a Fellow of the Center for Creative Research (CCR) and an Artist in Residence at Wesleyan University.  www.thinkdance.org

jill sigman/thinkdance will show an excerpt from “last days/first field”, a full evening work in process for 7 dancers with a live original score by Kristin Norderval. The final piece will involve two parts: a movement section and a planting ritual in which performers plant a field of seedlings in the performance space. The piece is a kinesthetic working of the questions: How do we distill in movement the feeling of our time in terms of climate change, environmentally related health problems, food security issues, and increasing social polarization? How do we process disconnection from nature and each other? How do we deal with our anxiety and fear of catastrophe? The piece evolves a movement vocabulary to process these issues kinesthetically.

 


 

Larissa Velez-Jackson Star Crap in Progress “still in progress

With Marissa Perel, Talya Epstein, Monifa Kincaid, Joey Kipp, Caitlin Marz

Star Crap in Progress is Velez-Jackson’s permanent work in progress based on improvisations in dance, song, sound poetry, and standup comedy. The piece asks the performer to seamlessly embody a cross section of performance personas that are amplified by live microphone. Star Crap in Progress explores the microphone as a vehicle for heightened exposure and simultaneously a structure to hide behind. Velez-Jackson frenetically creates, reverses, and discards roles to reveal what’s just beneath the surface of a façade; creating a dense, fearless and oftentimes ridiculous form of expression.

Larissa Velez-Jackson is a Brooklyn-based choreographer and multimedia artist. Of her 2010, critically acclaimed show at Danspace Project, the New York Times said, “Ms. Velez-Jackson demonstrates her own formidable presence as she bursts into the space…. A choreographer who is not afraid of being (or showing) ugly onstage, she disarms her audiences with humor…”She has presented work at numerous NYC venues such as: Joe’s Pub, People’s Improv Theatre, New Museum of Contemporary Art, PS 122, and American Realness Festival 2011 at Abrons Arts Center. Velez-Jackson was a 2009 Dance Theater Workshop Fresh Tracks resident for her collaboration with Hilary Clark and a Studio Series resident for her solo work in the same year. In 2011, she launched a new musical collaboration with her husband Jon Velez-Jackson called Yackez, “The World’s Most Loveable Hip Hop Duo.” Yackez self-released a debut double album and are currently performing throughout NYC. Velez-Jackson was a danceWEB scholar at ImPulsTanz Vienna Int’l Dance Festival 2012 and is currently a Movement Research Artist in Residence working toward a new full-length work, Star Crap Method.

Dance Roulette is made possible by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

 

jill sigman/thinkdance // Larissa Velez-Jackson 2013