Green Space Welcomes Take Root and Fertile Ground, Dec 2012

Green Space offers a diverse roster of new/emerging artists in December. Fertile Ground will present new work by various artists on December 2nd, and Take Root will present an evening of work by Chris Ferris & Dancers on November 30 and December 1.

TAKE ROOT, now in its 4th season, aids in the continued development and performance of new dance work of various aesthetics by providing choreographers with the opportunity to be produced in a paired evening of work. This once a month series supports dance makers by providing our venue, Green Space, with full technical and marketing support.

Take Root with Chris Ferris & Dancers
November 30 & December 1, 2012, 8:30pm
Admission: $15
Tickets are available at the door or online at www.GreenSpaceStudio.org

Circuitous Body begins with what could be the ending and ends with a new beginning as perception of performance time is dismantled. This is a full evening work of dance and music. Choreographer Chris Ferris of Chris Ferris & Dancers and composer Loren Kiyoshi Dempster collaborate on this non-literal narrative, creating a journey through time that holds you between the worlds of absolute form and personal body. Chris Ferris & Dancers space consuming dancers include Erin DeLucia-Benson, Haley Hauglum, Kristen Mangione, Alexandra Rose, and Hannah Seidel. Musicians that will command the space aurally as well as physically are Loren Kiyoshi Dempter (cello, computer), Leanne Darling (viola), Helen Yee (violin, yangqin), Dan Joseph (hammer dulcimer). Circuitous Body explores close and far distance relationships in specifically how they affect sound and movement in performer interaction and audience perception. The audience’s focus will shift in a journey throughout the room in the course of the performance. Highly structured and designed action will be set against improvised work playing on the thought processes with which they are created. The role of musician and dancer will cross boundaries. The very motion of playing music is action but the musicians will be pulled further out of their normal zone of movement to become part of the larger dancing. Circuitous Body premiered in an earlier form at Roulette in Brooklyn NY in April 2012. This project is supported in part by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation Late-Stage Production Stipend provided via Green Space.

Chris Ferris & Dancers is known for its fearless action, physical indulgence, and elegant design. Fists pound the floor, bodies spiral with tactile awareness, and the planes of raw space are rearranged again and again until you are twitching in your seat. Chris Ferris & Dancers Nov. 2011 concert, Continental Drift, was presented at CPR–Center for Performance Research. Proximity Of Clouds (2010 full evening work), premiered at Joyce SoHo NYC; incorporating sculptures that hang, swing, slash, glow, and illuminate. The company has presented 3 season concerts in New York at the Cunningham Studio. Chris Ferris & Dancers has also performed at Green Space Blooms, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, Rebound Dance Festival, Performance Mix, Solar Powered Dance Festival, Dance Conversations at the Flea, WAXworks, SWEAT Modern Dance Series, Movement Research at Judson Church, and a variety of other venues. In April 2005 Ferris received a Meet the Composer grant for the creation and performance of two compositions by Loren Kiyoshi Dempster.

Loren Kiyoshi Dempster uses a combination of computer, electronics, field recordings, cello, improvisation, notated scores, and world music influences to create and perform music. An active chamber musician and improviser, he might be found in the next while performing with Trio Tritticali and Dan Joseph Ensemble. His compositions for music and movement have been presented at The Stone, Roulette, Issue Project Room, North River Music, Weseleyn College, and at Chez Bushwick, a 2007 Bessie Award winning performance arts space in Brooklyn of which he was a founding member. He has toured extensively around the world with Merce Cunningham performing Interscape, and Biped. Dempster has toured with the choreographer Jeremy Wade, performing Glory, utilizing a live musical score co-composed/performed with Michael Mihalchick. Ever interested in the relationships between movement, space, and sound, he may be found creating or performing music for many choreographers and collaborators including Chris Ferris, Harrison Atelier, Jonah Bokaer, Gabriel Forestieri, Dahlia Nayer, and Margaret Paek.