—–> Saturday, August 3rd, 2013 @ 8:00pm
SHARED EVENING OF DANCE/PERFORMANCE WORKS:
In this evening performance, dance artists Nora Stephens and Alexa Wilson perform their solo works, “Tracking you” and “Star/Oracle of Delphi”. These works were first presented together in a shared evening at the Center for Performance Research (CPR) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY in May 2013.
“Tracking You”
Eventually she is faced with the fact that someone is watching her, and that someone becomes her wall. She is looking for that someone, who turns out, is you. She is looking for you as you watch her and eventually she finds you. She wants to touch you. With proximity the tension is released. The body moves in circles, the arms keep the focus. She slides to the ground to find her voice. She calls to the hills, hollering over and over how amazing you are yet she is not very convincing. She knows that you are truly incredible. She just knows it. She is obsessed, nothing is over. She struggles to rise.
NORA STEPHENS is a dance maker, video artist and teacher living in Brooklyn, NY. From 2009-2012, Nora was based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where her work was presented at the MAM (Museu de Arte Moderno), Barracão Maravilha Gallery, the art events Ocupação and Contrabanda and at Rampa, Lugar de Criação. Her dance works have been presented in NYC, at the 92nd St. Y, Center for Performance Research (CPR), The Brooklyn Museum, in DancenOw/NYC, at Movement Research at the Judson Chuch, Dixon Place, Mulberry Street Theatre, and AUNTS among others. Other international venues include Los Talleres and the UNAM in Mexico City, Mexico, the WUK and Saprophyt Gallery both in Vienna, Austria. Her video works have been screened/installed at the Brooklyn Public Library in Brooklyn, NY, the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC, Le Quinto Festival Internacional de Video Danza in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and at the Garrison Art Center in Garrison, NY.
http://www.norastephens.com/dance/intro.html
“My goal is to create scenic worlds that are unexpectedly logical to audiences. I explore movement to digest experience and I perform with the aim of making apparently incoherent ideas plausible. I examine indescribable feelings, actions, and incidences and through investigations of framing the moving body, I strive to make them comprehendible.”
“Star/Oracle of Delphi”
Born out of a workshop with Vincent Riebeek in NZ in 2012 and prior work ‘The Star’ explores satirical and embodied notions using ‘psychomagic’ (Jodorowsky) of the tarot card of the Star (pulled in the workshop), interweaving a response to today’s problematic relationship of humans to the environment and our ‘needs’ to be a ‘Star’ within a warped media culture, which overlooks a greater respect slightly more pressing. Moving into ‘Oracle of Delphi’, this work invites the audience to ask questions for the ‘Oracle’ to answer in Psychomagic actions, administered to the audience or performed by the soloist- using objects, actions and words intuitively. The work/s are satirical, embodying a range of physical weathers on the earth right now, a panic trying to keep itself under control – presented in formal strategies which are fraying.
ALEXA WILSON is an artist from New Zealand who has made experimental performance and video over the past decade. Her works in NZ have won awards: “Weg: A-Way” – 4 Auckland Fringe Awards/ Auckland Arts Festival Award, “Toxic White Elephant Shock” – Creative NZ, Tup Lang Award, “Magic Box” – Best Emerging NZ choreographer/NZ Listener. She received a Goethe Institute Scholarship to study in Berlin and was invited to be part of a Turbo residency with Anna Macrae at Impulstanz 2009. Upon returning to NZ in 2010 she then was accepted to do a PgDip Fine Art with Transart Berlin/NYC in 2012, and has since performed “Star/Oracle” at Ada Studio in Berlin, Leonhardhi Kulturprojeckt Frankfurt 2012, CPR NYC Spring Movement, G30 Gallery in Berlin , and is soon performing in Triennial of Extended Media, Belgrade and Reh Kunst Gallery Berlin 2013. She worked with performance artist Linda Montano NYC 2012, Geheimagentur/Random People in Hamburg for “Aktionen/Attraktionen”, and created a full length piece “Extraordinary Aliens” for Month of Performance Art Berlin, 2013, which she’s planning to tour in Europe in 2014. She studied at Unitec’s School of Performing and Screen Arts before working for top NZ choreographers: e.g. Douglas Wright, Lisa Densem, Malia Johnston and has a BA and an MA in Screen Production.
“I’m a performance and video artist and I write. Jaggardly interweaving popular and high artforms- with interdisciplinarity mapping the complex systems of the human somatic body/mind in anarchic and complex ways- organic, conceptual- always intuitive and holistic, often chaotic and violent, sometimes harmonious- the interest for me in CHOREOGRAPHY as a base platform is to lucidly or not reflect via body and presence internal and external personal/political spaces and voices, thoughts, experiences, emotions.. as a collective- spaces/voices which are always inseparable and socio-political. maybe transform a few individuals, communities, get some giggles etc, move people, make some mistakes, learn grow etc.. be brave, keep real. stop lying to myself. subversively entertain people. keep alive, generative and moving.. knowing I don’t know everything or at times anything. keeps it fresh for me, in the present, powerful and vulnerable. OPEN. Honest, interesting. Questioning, creative. I’m from Auckland New Zealand and have been living in Berlin for 2 years and FREEDOM is my buzz. I feel like I’m going to give birth to a book any time soon.”
http://alexawilson.blogspot.co.nz
Video from event:
Photos from event:
