Founded by dance artists Morleigh Steinberg and long-time collaborator Oguri, the work of Dublin / Los Angeles based dance company ARCANE Collective pushes the boundaries of conventional contemporary dance.
After a successful run in California and at the Dublin Dance Festival, the company brings its latest two-part production, Return to Absence and ebb, to New York Live Arts.
Inspired by Samuel Beckett's writing, the dance flows from a continuing exploration into the quagmire of Beckett's trilogy novel Molloy, Malone Dies and TheUnnamable, and his seminal work Waiting for Godot. Return to Absence and ebb weave a rich and ridiculous non-linear storytelling that embodies the resonant images and wrought emotions characteristic to these remarkable stories. Constructing a fluent language of movement as abstract and absurd as Beckett's unparalleled composition of words, Return to Absence and ebb emerge as an intimate portrayal of humanity, often at the end of its tether; a tale of decrepit persistence that is nostalgic, melancholic, and touchingly humorous. Return to Absence premiered at the Dublin Dance Festival in 2014.
IF YOU GO:
ARCANE Collective, Return to Absence and ebb
New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011
April 14-16, 2016 at 7:30 PM
Tickets start at $15.
New York Live Arts is an internationally recognized destination for innovative movement-based artistry offering audiences access to art and artists notable for their conceptual rigor, formal experimentation and active engagement with the social, political and cultural currents of our times. At the center of this identity is Bill T. Jones, Artistic Director, a world-renowned choreographer, dancer, theater director and writer. We commission, produce and present performances in our 20,000 square foot home, which includes a 184-seat theater and two 1,200 square foot studios that can be combined into one large studio. New York Live Arts serves as home base for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, provides an extensive range of participatory programs for adults and young people and supports the continuing professional development of artists. For more information, visit www.newyorklivearts.org.
Founded in 1972,
Irish Arts Center is a New York-based arts and cultural center dedicated to projecting a dynamic image of Ireland and Irish America for the 21st century, building community with artists and audiences of all backgrounds, forging and strengthening cross-cultural partnerships, and preserving the evolving stories and traditions of Irish culture for generations to come.
Our multi-disciplinary programming is centered around three core areas: performance - including live music, dance, theatre, film, literature, and the humanities; exhibition - including visual arts presentations and cultural exhibitions that tell the evolving Irish story; and education - with dozens of classes per week in Irish language, history, music, and dance. For more, visit
irishartscenter.org
ARCANE Collective was founded in 2011 by independent dance artists
Morleigh Steinberg and Oguri whose long time collaborations, over 20 years, have produced work for both stage and screen, in landscapes both urban and wild. Formed as a production company to present their work together under one umbrella organization, ARCANE Collective assembles international artists from interdisciplinary backgrounds, a hybrid of cultures and aesthetics, that push the boundaries of contemporary dance with the uncanny ability to alter perceptions of the body, space, and time.
Morleigh Steinberg (Artistic Director, Lighting, Dance)
Morleigh Steinberg is a dancer, choreographer, lighting designer and filmmaker. A formative member of Momix & ISO Dance, she toured the world extensively for over 15 years with both companies and her solo work. She also toured with U2 as creative consultant, choreographer, and dancer on their ZOO TV, U2 360 and Innocence and Experience Tours, and has worked in music videos, film, commercials, and fashion industries as choreographer, director, and performer. As lighting designer she has lit productions for The Corn Exchange, Liz Roche, Bodyvox, Oguri, and ARCANE Collective. In 1994 Morleigh directed her first short film Traveling Light and since has directed 6 others including her feature length documentaryHeight of Sky. Morleigh won an Emmy award for outstanding performance in Episodes, a PBS presentation of ISO repertory and her work has been performed in the Academy Awards. ARCANE Collective's productions include Cold Dream Colour - a dance homage to Louis le Brocquy, which was performed at the
Guggenheim Museum NY, Notaway, Wildflowers. A native of Los Angeles California, Morleigh has conducted Body Weather Laboratory, an investigative movement forum, in Dublin where she has been living since 1998.
Oguri (Artistic Director, Dance, Set) A native of Japan, Oguri is an internationally acclaimed dancer who has been described as a master at redirecting the way one sees and encounters the physical environment; his dance emphasizing the unpredictable. A resident of Southern California since 1990, Oguri produces full-evening solo and ensemble work, improvising and collaborating with musicians, sculptors, painters, poets, and literature. He is an artist-in-residence at the Electric Lodge in Venice, California where he conducts Body Weather Laboratory training workshop, a forum for investigating the body and dance. Oguri teaches and performs worldwide. He has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, New England Foundation of the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, and Center for Cultural Innovation, The Annenberg Foundation, and The Japan Foundation, among others.
Boaz Barkan (Dance) Boaz Barkan is a performer and creator living in Denmark, with a contemporary and experimental dance and performance back ground. After studying at Cal Arts, he worked and performed for many years with both dance artist Oguri and dance innovator Anna Halprin. Barkan has created numerous solo works and group works presented in diverse venues internationally. He is currently curating a movement/sound project in Denmark and has a dance project in South Africa dealing with the environmental effects of Mining. In recent years Barkan has collaborated with several different artists in the emerging field of interactive performance, focusing on audience co-creation, and the use of interactive technology outside the traditional performance space.
Andrés Corchero (Dance) Studied theatre, miming and circus, and took workshops with Odin Teatret, Shushaku and Dormu Dance in Barcelona before travelling to Japan in 1986. From 1986 to 1995 he joined Mai-Juku, the dance company directed by Min Tanaka, and toured internationally with them until 1995. From 1993 to 2011 he combined his own works with the artistic direction of prestigious dance company Raravis, founded together with Rosa Muñoz. He works closely with artists from various disciplines; poets, sculptors; and works deeply in the improvisation field with many musicians as well as in site specifics, nature and urban landscape. In 2011, he met up again with Oguri. Both are now launching an ongoing project called "My Neighbor Sky" which last July was presented in a new version at the Mies van der Rohe Pavillion in Barcelona, as part of the Summer Grec Festival 2013. He is a regular teacher at the dance and acting departments at Institut del Teatre in Barcelona. In 2003, he received the National Dance Award, from the Culture Department of Catalonia, in recognition of his professional career.
Paul Chavez (Composer) Composer, instrumentalist, and sound designer Paul Chavez explores a variety of sonic terrains that draw on vernacular music, the spoken word, and environmental sounds. A native of Southern California, Chavez's sound scores reflect his diverse background in music, audiovisual design, architecture, and sculpture. Chavez's sonic constructs have been hailed by the LA Times as "deliriously original." He often works under the project name FeltLike. His music has been featured in the installations and dances of Oguri, Stephan Koplowitz, Sarah Elgart, Shel Wagner Rasch,
Morleigh Steinberg, RailLA, Renzoku, and Melinda Ring. For more music info:
www.waterrock.org.
Moses Hacmon (Set) Moses Hacmon is a collaborative artist, photographer and architect. Born in 1977 in Tel-Aviv, Israel, Moses studied cinematography and fine art in Tel-Aviv. In 2002 he transferred from the Technion, Haifa to SCI_Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture), where he completed his B.Arch with AIA honors award in 2006. His main interest is the constant creation of physical objects that represent the spirit of the present time and space, both in architecture and art. For the past 10 years Moses has been studying water's composition, properties, and movement and has developed an original photographic technique that captures the hidden life of water. This project he calls Faces Of Water (facesofwater.com), which exposes the movement within water, previously invisible to our eyes. Moses has been working on projects with ARCANE Collective since 2011.
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