Merging dance, live music and visual arts, Choreographer/Director Pavel Zuštiak examines the multiplicity of concepts of beauty and its permanence within art in CUSTODIANS OF BEAUTY.
The new work forges towards abstraction, minimalism, and restrained expressive modes while amplifying the potency of an image, as well as the human body as sculpture, emotional trigger, or political symbol. Zuštiak continues his acclaimed working relationship with composter/musician Christian Frederickson and lighting designer Joe Levasseur.
Zuštiak is the 2015 Juried Award Recipient for The New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Awards.
In an age when humanity, disenchanted with itself, seems to have rejected the necessity of beauty, CUSTODIANS OF BEAUTY asks us to look again, beyond the surface, to see differently. Where do we find beauty today and does it need our defense?
New York City premiere of CUSTODIANS OF BEAUTY by Pavel Zuštiak comes to New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011. Tickets start at $15. Performances play December 2 - 5, 2015 at 7:30 PM.
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.
Pavel Zuštiak (Direction and Choreography) is a NYC-based director, choreographer, and performer, born in the communist Czechoslovakia and trained at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam. Presenting spectators with multi-sensory theatrical experiences, Zuštiak's works for stage and public spaces center around the exploration of the corporeal body and draw towards the darker side of the human condition. Described as both human and humane, his work merges the abstract aspects of dance with nonlinear qualities of "theatre of images" into multidisciplinary works that are rich in evocative imagery and piercing emotional resonance.
Zuštiak established Palissimo Company in 2004 as an interdisciplinary platform for the research, development and production of live art works, with a mission to attain artistic liberty and to inspire and impact audiences and the art field. Palissimo facilitates diverse artistic collaborations-notably with lighting designer Joe Levasseur, musicians
Christian Frederickson,
Ryan Rumery, Bobby McElver, visual artist Robert Flynt, and video designers
Tal Yarden and Keith Skretch.
Zuštiak is the 2015 Bessie Juried Award winner for his "poetic layering of movement and visual imagery, conceiving the stage space as a decentralized world in which the corporeal body is the focus and canvas for a wide range of human expression," a 2015-17 Princeton Arts Fellow, the recipient of 2013 LMCC President's Award for Excellence in Artistic Practice, 2012 NEFA/NDP Production and Residency Grants and 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2010 MANCC Fellowship, and 2014, 2009, and 2007 Princess Grace Awards. His 5-hour trilogy The Painted Bird received a 2013 Bessie Award nomination for Outstanding Production.
Zuštiak was an artist in residence at Vermont Performance Lab, LMCC, Movement Research, BAC, MANCC, Abrons Arts Center, Czech Center NY and Grotowski Institute. His work has been commissioned and presented by Wexner Center for the Arts, PS122, COIL Festival, Abrons Arts Center, Baryshnikov Arts Center, La MaMa, and
92nd Street Y, among others, and additionally toured to Legion Arts (IA), PADL West (CA), New Hazlett Theater (PA), Archa Theatre, Akcent Festival (Czech Republic), Bratislava in Movement, KIOSK Festival, Slovak National Theatre, State Theatre Kosice (Slovakia), and Bytom Intl. Dance Festival (Poland).
Photo Credit: Robert Flynt
