LayeRthythm Commences Bridge Street Theatre's Dance Residency

Next up in Bridge Street Theatre's ongoing 2021 Winter Dance Residency initiative is French-Vietnamese dance artist Mai Lê Hô's LayeRhythm. The troupe will be using their two-week residency at the Hudson Valley-based performing arts complex (February 1 - 12) to develop a new piece called SWITCH, culminating in an online performance excerpt from Section One (out of five) of this evening-length work-in-progress.

The remaining four sections will be freestyle-based, ready to be performed/transformed with each new audience. During their time in Catskill, the dancers will be exploring the meaning of "routine" and of "switching roles" on personal, societal, artistic, and mind-body levels.

Created in 2015 in NYC, LayeRhythm is a cutting-edge jam session that creatively layers live musicians and vocalists with freestyle dancers. Now in its 5th year, the project has taken its club roots to the stage with performances at Jacob's Pillow and 92nd Street Y. The LayeRhythm Experiment (LE) company features prominent dancers who have won world-class competitions in breaking, hip-hop, popping, and house dance. They are accompanied by musicians and vocalists at the forefront of NYC's funk, hip hop, jazz, and soul scenes. The LE usually generates approximately 90% new content each performance. At each show, audience ideas are collected by LE's MCs. Performers instantaneously draw from personal experiences and artistic knowledge to turn those ideas into movements, sounds and improvised lyrics. In western dance, artists commonly rely on recorded or rehearsed music to create movement. With the LE, musicians, dancers and the MC stretch artistic boundaries and "take turns" conducting the rest of the ensemble. This call and response culture is intrinsic to many generations and genres of African-American and Latin based street and social dance forms.

As their residency draws to a close, a free video excerpt of LayeRhythm's SWITCH will be streamed to the public beginning at 7:00pm February 11 on Bridge Street Theatre's web site (BridgeStreetTheatre.org), Facebook page, and YouTube channel.

Underwritten by Bridge Street Theatre fans and local community members Duke Dang and Charles Rosen, the entire Bridge Street Theatre Dance Residency initiative is dedicated to the memory of their friend and mentor Anh-Tuyet "AT" Nguyen. A native of Vietnam, Nguyen served on the boards of Dance to Unite, Dorrance Dance, and The Joyce Theater. Residency artists were selected to honor Nguyen and to support Vietnamese dancemakers and Dorrance Dance and Joyce Theater alumni. For more information about the 2021 Bridge Street Theatre Winter Dance Residency initiative, visit https://bridgest.org/bridge-street-dance-residencies/

SWITCH by the LayeRhythm Experiment, with Mai Lê Hô
In residence at Bridge Street Theatre February 1 - 12
Digital performance excerpt available on February 11 @ 7:00pm