BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance & Bryn Cohn + Artists Present HOME at Gibney Dance Center, 6/16-18

BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance and Bryn Cohn + Artists (BC+A) present HOME in a collaborative evening at Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway, Gibney Dance Center NYC, from June 16-18, 2016 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $15 advanced sales online and $20 at the door. They will be available at www.gibneydance.org/calendar/ or by calling the Gibney Dance Center box office at 646.837.6809.

HOME draws upon ritualistic and traditional processes to elucidate the concept of home through interpersonal encounters, environments and the pursuit of self and collective understanding. In these two NYC premieres, BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance and BC+A incorporate interactive set pieces in a pre-show exhibition and mid-show interlude as well as in two distinct works, enabling our image of home to become amorphous while also serving as a thematic thread upon which we establish community.

Scenic design elements, such as commonly seen furniture, supported frames, and micro-sanctuaries, are interwoven into kinetic movement languages to portray the loss, challenge and celebration that occur within individuals and family. Through continuously evolving structures that transform the space and the complex relationships developed amongst the performers, we come to understand that our concept of homeis constantly shifting as we move through life. By examining utopian models of the "picture perfect" family in contrast to human realities, the work provides a lens into a universal concept that we can all access to reimagine and define our own notion of what it means to find home.

"An apartment, an island, a hospital, a subway station, a prison, a freshly mowed lawn with a stack of bricks, and anything and everything in between. Home is not solely a place to call your own, it is universally binding regardless of its form - it is the intimate place where life, in all its beauty, pain and messiness, happens. In crafting this world with my BC + A family, we have mirrored, reimagined and morphed our personal narratives to build an experience that encapsulates the avid desire of belonging that binds us all together." -Bryn Cohn

"I have found home in people, places, and chosen families in a one-stoplight, rural Massachusetts town, Cameroon, New York City, and several points along the way. My longest journey, however, has been a quest towards self-actualization. I am continually searching for home within myself: asking questions, navigating boundaries, finding freedom, hoping to feel at peace. Realizing home, freedom, and peace is found by BodyStories dancers in this work, and deserved by all individuals." -Teresa Fellion

HOME will feature dancers Iman Barnes, Zachary Bergfelt, Mia DeWeese, Alex Jenkins, and Audrey Rachelle of BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance, and Rachel Abrahams, Nicholas Grubbs, Jessica Malat, Yuliya Romanskaya and Will Tomaskovic of BC + A; lighting design by Timothy Cryan; original compositions by John Yannelli and Kevin Keller, with live music by John Yannelli and Trilogy: featuring Dominic Boyle and Emily Cardwell. Costuming by Nina Katan and Sebastian Arango.

"The "W" in the title stands for 'world,' and Ms. Fellion and her colleagues do succeed in creating one... John Yannelli and members of the SLC Experimental Music Ensemble contribute a richly textured, partly live score of drones, strings plucked and strummed, swelling distortion, and high hums. The choreography is action-packed with a strong flow, a current that is sometimes tidal, washing the dancers back and forth across St. Mark's Church, turning the terrarium into an aquarium," said Brian Seibert of The New York Times of The Mantises Are Flipping W.3.

"Cohn's choreography possessed immaculate shifts of texture and mood that were enthralling to watch...The smallest movement seemed to garner the greatest impact... What made the work so powerful was Cohn's choreography paired with her performers' highly responsive bodies, susceptible to these new twists and turns at any second," said Tara Sheena of DIY Dancer of Into the Dark.

Watch a trailer for HOME below

Photo credit: Jaqlin Medlock