Alessandro Sciarroni's UNTITLED_I WILL BE THERE WHEN YOU DIE to Play LaMaMa as Part of 2017 Crossing the Line Festival

As part of the 2017 edition of its celebrated Crossing the Line Festival, the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), New York's premiere French cultural center, joins La Mama to present The New York Premiere of Alessandro Sciarroni's UNTITLED_I will be there when you die running Thursday, September 28 through Saturday, September 30 at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre. The performance is supported by the Hermès Foundation within the framework of the New Settings Program.

Returning to the festival with the second part of his Will you still love me tomorrow? trilogy, this contemplative work embodies the drama and artistry of the juggler's struggle-against gravity, against their weary bodies, against the potential for failure in every toss.

Stripping away the stereotypes that are commonly associated with circus art, Sciarroni's visceral, visual, high-endurance work reimagines the physical variations and repetitive patterns of juggling as a unique language.

Concentration and commitment are the building blocks of his simple, ritualistic choreography, which pushes each of the four jugglers Lorenzo Crivellari, Edoardo Demontis, Victor Garmendia Torija, and Pietro Selva Bonino to their physical limits, forcing them into a meditative focus on the present.

Set to a live electronic soundscape by Pablo Esbert Lilienfeld, UNTITLED_I will be there when you die draws the audience into the experience-the vulnerability, the fear-of each performer. While Sciarroni's creations display rigor, coherence and clarity, they also uncover the fragilities inherent in the act of performing, creating an empathic relationship between the audience and the artists on stage. Falling somewhere between performance art and ritual, this new work not only transforms an ancient art form, but evokes the frailty of life and the balancing act that is human existence.

Inspired by Diane Arbus' posthumous Untitled photographic exhibition, and My Morning Jacket's song "I will be there when you die," Sciarroni's title juxtaposes the liberty of life with that of death. In death, Arbus no longer had to title her work, which for him embodies the freedom from defining one's work, or explaining its purpose. As a subtitle, the simultaneously reassuring and threatening promise to be present at someone else's passing highlights the significance of human connection, freely practiced by the living. With choreography that deconstructs juggling to its core, Sciarroni unravels life's raw repetitions, liberating them from explanation.

Sciarroni last appeared in the Crossing the Line Festival in 2015 with Folk-s, will you still love me tomorrow?, the first work in his Will you still love me tomorrow trilogy, which explores concepts of strain, perseverance, and endurance.

UNTITLED_I will be there when you die has been performed at La Biennale Danza di Venezia, Romauropa Festival, Festival D'Automne à Paris, Le 104 Paris, Festival Spring Cherbourg, Festival Mirabilia, Julidans (Amsterdam), Abu Dhabi Art Fair, Tanz Im August (Berlin), Zurcher Speaktakel, Festival Panorama (Rio de Janeiro), Théâtre de Vidy (Lausanne), Festival BIPOD (Beirut), Athens Festival, TBA Festival Portland, and The Walker Arts Centre, Minneapolis.

IF YOU GO:

New York Premiere: Alessandro Sciarroni's
UNTITLED_I will be there when you die
Thursday, September 28, Friday, September 29, and Saturday, September 30 at 8pm
At La MaMa, Ellen Stewart Theatre, 66 East 4th Street (between 2nd Avenue and Bowery)
Subway: F to Second Avenue; 6 to Bleecker Street; R, W to Prince Street
Bus: M15 to East Sixth Street and Second Avenue; M103 to Bowery/East Fourth Street
Admission: $25 General Admission; $20 Students/Seniors; Limited $10 tickets
Tickets: crossingtheline.org | www.lamama.org | 212 352-3101
Information: crossingtheline.org | 212 355 6160

Alessandro Sciarroni is an Italian artist working in the fields of performing arts, visual art, and theater. His works have been featured in contemporary dance and theater festivals, museums, and art galleries, as well as in unconventional spaces, and have included collaborations with professionals from many different disciplines. His work goes beyond the traditional definitions of gender, starting from a conceptual Duchamp-like matrix, making use of a theatrical framework, and using techniques and experiences from dance, as well as circus or sports.

His works have been performed in 21 European countries, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Uruguay, and the United Arab Emirates. He has participated in the Biennale de la Danse (Lyon), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), Impulstanz Festival (Vienna), the Venice Biennale, the Festival d'Automne and the Festival Séquence Danse at 104 (Paris), Abu Dhabi Art Fair, and the Juli Dans Festival (Amsterdam), and has exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the MAXXI Museum in Rome.

His works have also been presented within circuits and networks for presenting contemporary dance and artists including Antibodies Explo, Aerowaves, and Modul Dance, a multi-year collaborative project that involves 19 European dance houses in 15 different countries. He has also taken part in numerous European projects and research residences, such as Choreographic Dialogues (2010); Choreoroam (2011); Performing Gender (2014), a European project on gender and sexual orientation; and Migrant Bodies (2014-15), a research and choreography production project which aims to promote reflections and creations on the theme of migration and its cultural impact on European and Canadian societies.

Sciarroni is the recipient of several awards, including the Premio Rete Critica (2013), the Marte Award (2013), the Best Performance Award at Puf Festival de Pola (Croatia, 2012-13), Best Emerging Artist Award (Danza&Danza Magazine), and the "Nuove Sensibilità" (2008).

Alessandro Sciarroni is supported by APAP - Advancing Performing Arts Project, and his shows are produced by Marche Teatro in collaboration with international co-producers including the Comune di Bassano del Grappa / Centro per la Scena Contemporanea, the Biennale de la Danse / Maison de la Danse de Lyon, the Mercat de les Flors-Graner / Barcelona, Centrale Fies, and the Association Corpoceleste_C.C.00#, of which he is artistic director. He is also part of the Project Matilde, a regional platform for the new scene in Marche. Alessandro Sciarroni is associate artist of Le Centquatre-Paris. In September 2016, he created a new work for the Ballet of the National Opera of Lyon as part of the Biennale de la Danse de Lyon.

The Crossing the Line Festival is an international arts festival for New York City produced by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in partnership with leading cultural institutions. The festivalis co-curated by Lili Chopra, FIAF's Executive Vice President and Artistic Director; Simon Dove, Executive and Artistic Director of Dancing in the Streets; and Gideon Lester, Artistic Director for Theater and Dance at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College.

France has a long history of supporting national and international cultural practices, welcoming and nurturing new ideas and influential perspectives from around the world. FIAF, as the leading French cultural institution in the US, critically maintains that practice through the Crossing the Line Festival, presenting leading-edge artists from France and the US alongside their peers from around the world.

Since its inauguration in 2007, the Crossing the Line Festival has cultivated an increasingly large and diverse following, and received numerous accolades in the press including "Best of" in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Time Out New York, Artforum, and Frieze. Festival performances have earned multiple Obie and Bessie awards. Visit crossingtheline.org for more.

The Crossing the Line Festival is thrilled to partner with the Hermès Foundation (Fondation d'entreprise Hermès)'s New Settings Program for a fifth consecutive year. Launched in 2011, New Settings supports new performing arts productions that shift borders between disciplines to create innovative art forms. This year, works by Annie Dorsen, Bouchra Ouizguen, and Alessandro Sciarroni are presented within the framework of Crossing the Line. www.fondationdentreprisehermes.org.

The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) is New York's premiere French cultural and language center. FIAF's mission is to create and offer New Yorkers innovative and unique programs in education and the arts that explore the evolving diversity and richness of French cultures. FIAF seeks to generate new ideas and promote cross cultural dialogue through partnerships and new platforms of expression. Visit www.fiaf.org.

Founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart in a tiny basement on Manhattan's Lower East Side, La MaMa is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theatre. La MaMa has a worldwide reputation for supporting fearless and provocative theater while helping artists gain a foothold in New York. La MaMa is a global organization with creative partners and dedicated audiences around the world.

La MaMa provides a supportive home for artists and takes risks on new work. Artists such as Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, Philip Glass, Robert Wilson, Harvey Fierstein, Blue Man Group, David and Amy Sedaris, - and others whose names you haven't heard of yet - began their careers at La MaMa. International Artists introduced to America by La MaMa include Tadeusz Kantor, Andrei Serban, Kazuo Ohno and, more recently, the acclaimed Belarus Free Theatre. In its 50 year history, La MaMa has been honored with more than 30 OBIE Awards, dozens of Drama Desk and Bessie Awards, and Villager Awards.

As a landmark institution for artists and audiences alike, La MaMa presents cross-disciplinary work in theatre, dance, performance art, and music that defies form and transcends boundaries of language, race, and culture. Go to www.lamama.org.