NYU SKIRBALL Presents the New York City Premiere of Tere O'Connor's LONG RUN

NYU Skirball will present the New York City premiere of Tere O'Connor's Long Run, playing for two performances on Friday, October 12 and Saturday, October 13 at 7:30 pm. The work features dancers: Simon Courchel, Marc Crousillat, Eleanor Hullihan, Emma Judkins, Joey Loto, Silas Riener, Lee Serle and Jin Ju Song-Begin. Costume design is by Strauss Bourque-LaFrance; lighting design by Michael O'Connor and a musical score created by O'Connor himself.

Long Run (2017) pushes the emotional content of O'Connor's movement to new physical extremes, allowing time-based elements like polyrhythms, velocity and duration to become external forces in the work, overtaking the eight performers as they repeatedly struggle to bring their bodies into a state of calm. O'Connor's score enhances the referential potential of the work and drives its rhythmic trajectory. LONG RUN Video Excerpt

Tere O'Connor is Artistic Director of Tere O'Connor Dance. His works bring formal and conceptual concerns into direct dialogue. Engaging the tension between the geometries of the rectangular stage, the organic forms of nature, and the vast terrain of human behavior, he reconsiders abstraction. O'Connor has created over 40 works for his company and toured these throughout the US, Europe, South America and Canada. He has created numerous commissions including works for Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jean Butler, and the Lyon Opera Ballet, to name a few. He has received three Bessie Awards and is a Center for Advanced Studies Professor in Dance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. tereoconnordance.org

Tere O'Connor's choreography finds its logic outside the realm of translation, operating in an area of the imagination far from the concerns of language. He views dance as a system with its own properties; an art form that doesn't search to depict or explain. The lenses of western culture, spoken language and dance history, often used to interpret dance, are subsumed into layers of the work and deemphasized. In addition to a great love of movement and a deep commitment to choreographic craft and design, more philosophical urges also animate the work. From his earliest efforts, the complex entanglement of passing time, metaphor, constant change, tangential thought, and memory have ignited an exploration into the nature of consciousness for O'Connor. The performers and renowned collaborators surrounding him constitute a family of artists who are dedicated to expanding the potency and presence of dance as a serious art form.

Tickets for Long Run begin at $35 and can be purchased online at www.nyuskirball.org, by phone at 212.998.4941, or in person at the Box Office, 566 LaGuardia Place at Washington Square: Tuesday-Saturday, 12:00-6:00 P.M. NYU Skirball is located at 566 LaGuardia Place at Washington Square, New York, New York 10012. www.nyuskirball.org

NYU Skirball, located in the heart of Greenwich Village, is one of New York City's major presenters of international work, and has been the premier venue for cultural and performing arts events in lower Manhattan since 2003. The 800-seat theater, led by Director Jay Wegman, provides a home for internationally renowned artists, innovators and thinkers. NYU Skirball hosts over 300 events annually, from re-inventions of the classics to cutting-edge premieres, in genres ranging from dance, theater and performance arts to comedy, music and film.

NYU Skirball's unique partnership with New York University enables it to draw on the University's intellectual riches and resources to enhance its programming with dialogues, public forums and conversations with artists, philosophers, scientists, Nobel Laureates and journalists. www.nyuskirball.org.

Jay Wegman is the Director of NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Prior to Skirball, he served as Director of the Abrons Art Center for ten years. During his tenure, Abrons was awarded various honors, including a 2014 OBIE Award for Innovative Excellence and a 2015 Bessie Award for Best Production. He was also a Fellow at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and for over a decade served as the first Canon for Liturgy and the Arts at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He is the recipient of the 2015 FRANKY award for "making a long-term, extraordinary impact on contemporary theatre and performance in New York City." While not a performer, he has appeared in Brian Roger's film "Screamers" (2018), Sibyl Kempson's "12 Shouts to the Ten Forgotten Heavens" (2017), and "Romper Room" (1969). Jay is a graduate of Yale University. www.nyuskirball.org.