RICHARD MOVE/MOVEOPOLIS! to Open New York Live Arts' LIVE IDEAS 2017 Festival

Richard Move/MoveOpolis! opens New York Live Arts LIVE IDEAS 2017 festival with the world premiere of XXYY, a multilayered work conceived and directed by Move, with costumes by acclaimed theater artist Alba Clemente and an original score by Italian electronic music pioneer Martux_m.

The program will also feature Martha@20, a special performance marking the 20th anniversary of Move's highly acclaimed performances as Martha Graham in the Martha@... series.

Performances will take place Wednesday, March 8, to Saturday, March 11, at 7:30pm at New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street, NYC. For tickets and information, call 212 924 0077 or visit livearts.

Presented as part of Live Arts LIVE IDEAS 2017 festival, which examines the idea of a world without binaries and is curated by trans-genre artist Mx Justin VivIan Bond, XXYY is a poetic and otherworldly dance-theater event exploring the multiplicities of the gender spectrum while deconstructing the conventional binaries of male and female. The piece combines Move's highly stylized choreography and Clemente's inventive and elaborate costuming to create a provocative, alternative vision of the world.

XXYY incorporates text from the obscure Autobiography of an Androgyne, written at the turn of the 20th century by Ralph Werther. The original sound score by Martux_m includes vocals by the Vatican's "last castrato", Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922), the only castrato singer to make solo recordings. XXYY is performed by Move and longtime collaborators Catherine Cabeen and Katherine Crockett. Lighting design is by Donalee Katz.

The program also features Martha@20, an anniversary celebration of Move's continuously evolving performance as legendary 20th-century icon Martha Graham. Having received a Bessie Award and accolades worldwide for their highly researched and nuanced portrayal of Graham, Move will present a special performance of Martha@... with monologues that illuminate Graham's unparalleled career and restagings of Graham's dances. Katherine Crockett, a former principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company, and Catherine Cabeen, a former member of the Graham Company, will again join Move in this performance.

A special highlight of the New York Live Arts' 2016-17 season is its annual interdisciplinary humanities festival Live Ideas. For the 2017 edition, trans-genre artist Mx Justin VivIan Bond curates a series examining the idea of a world without binaries. Titled Mx'd Messages, the festival arrives at a critical moment in which the very idea of binaries-across gender, politics, theology, sensory perception and race-are under question. A series of performances, keynote lectures, panel discussions and exhibitions will explore the hierarchies and assumptions resulting from a culturally dominant mode of binary thinking.

The creation of XXYY is supported in part through a commission from New York Live Arts, with additional support from the Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council with special thanks to Council Member Corey Johnson, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, and The Shubert Foundation. Additional funding for XXYY is provided by the Harkness Foundation for Dance. XXYY and Martha@20 have been developed during residencies at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, MASS MoCA and Dickinson College.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Richard Move is Artistic Director of the transdisciplinary collective MoveOpolis!.
Move is TEDGlobal Oxford Fellow, Ph.D. (ABD), in Performance Studies at New York University and Assistant Professor of Drama, Theatre & Dance at Queens College, CUNY. Move's commissions include productions for Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project, Martha Graham Dance Company, PARADIGM (Carmen DeLavallade, Gus Solomons, Jr. and Dudley Williams), Italy's Opera Ballet of Florence, New York City Ballet's Helene Alexopoulos, Guggenheim Museum/New York, Parrish Art Museum, European Cultural Capitol, Deborah Harry, Dame Shirley Bassey and Isaac Mizrahi. MoveOpolis! has been presented by Dance Theater Workshop, New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival and on tour internationally. Move's films include: Bardo (Jury Prize nominee at Lincoln Center's Dance on Camera Festival), BloodWork-The Ana Mendieta Story (National Board of Review Award/Directors Guild of America) and Ghostlight, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Move's performances as Martha Graham received a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) and have toured globally. Martha@...The 1963 Interview, named "Best of 2011" by ARTFORUM International, Time Out and other publications, had its world premiere at New York's Dance Theater Workshop in March 2011 and returned for encore performances in November 2011 at New York Live Arts. www.move-itproductions.com

Catherine Cabeen is a performer, choreographer, and teacher. She has received choreographic commissions from On the Boards, Donald Byrd's Spectrum Dance Theater, the Seattle Art Museum, Gallery Galleon in Vieques PR, the Visa2Dance Festival in Dar Es Salaam, Alsarab Dance Troupe in Byblos, Lebanon, Moving People Dance Theater in Santa Fe, Pig Iron Theater Company in Philadelphia, Western Washington University and Texas Women's University, among others. She is a former member of the Martha Graham Dance Company and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. She is also a répétiteur for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. She now performs in her own work, with Richard Move, and as a guest artist for various choreographers and directors.

Alba Clemente was born in Amalfi, Italy. In 1991, she performed in Triple Bogey on a Par Five Hole, a film by Amos Poe, shot entirely on a boat circling Manhattan. In 1994, she acted in The Human Voice by Jean Cocteau and performed the famous monologue at the Waverly Place Theater in a new translation by poet Rene Ricard, directed by John Heys. In 2009, she created costumes and props for choreographer Karole Armitage's Made in Naples. She has also created costumes for three of director Jay Scheib's productions: World of Wires (2012), the opera Powders Her Face by Thomas Ades, directed by Scheib for the New York City Opera and performed at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music; and Platonov by Chekhov, adapted and directed by Scheib, performed at The Kitchen. Clemente has written two songs with Pink Martini, "Una Notte a Napoli" in Italian and "Ninna Nanna" in Neapolitan dialect. She has performed her songs with Pink Martini at the Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Hall, Town Hall in New York and at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

Katherine Crockett attended SUNY Purchase and the Martha Graham School. She joined the Martha Graham Dance Company and quickly rose to the rank of principal dancer and toured internationally with the company for 21 years. Crockett starred as The Queen in the Off-Broadway immersive theater hit Queen of the Night, for which she created and choreographed her role. She is Cate Blanchett's dancer double in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button starring Blanchett and Brad Pitt, directed by David Fincher, and is the star of Fall to Rise, an award-winning feature film written and directed by Jayce Bartok, co-starring Daphne Rubin-Vega, Tamara Tunie and Desmond Richardson. Crockett starred alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov as Helen of Troy in Richard Move's The Show (Achilles Heels). She has performed as Amneris in Placido Domingo's Aida with the Washington Opera and has also been featured in works by Robert Wilson, Lucinda Childs, Martha Clarke, Larry Keigwin, Yvonne Rainer, Susan Stroman and Anne Bogart, among others.

Donalee Katz has worked as a designer and production/company manager for contemporary dance companies, theatrical productions and special events. Some favorites include Martha@..., Lisa Giobbi Movement Theatre, Amy Marshall Dance Company, Mazzini Dance Collective and Daniel Ezralow. Katz was operations manager for the Paul Taylor Dance Company, company manager for Dance Theatre of Harlem, technical director and lighting designer for Urban Bush Women and a lighting designer and company manager for Columbia Artists Management. She has also worked for several special event design companies, including Preston Bailey Entertainment and currently, Van Wyck & Van Wyck.

Martux_m is a musician, producer and pioneer of Italian electronic music. He began his career in the 1990s with the release of his first CD Meta-Harmonies for the German-Dutch label Staalplaat, under the name Martusciello. He started several electronic art groups with the name Martux_m, including Ossatura, Metaxu and the Martux_m Crew, producing numerous electronica and electro-jazz CD's. Martux_m has published more than 20 CDs with some of the most important international labels. He has collaborated with musicians such as Markus Stockhausen, Arto Lindsay, Eivind Aarset and Nils Petter Molvaer, among others, and is regularly invited to renowned international festivals such as Sonar (ES), Mutek (CND) and RomaEuropa (IT), to name a few.

Located in the heart of Chelsea in New York City, 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 its identity is Artistic Director Bill T. Jones, world-renowned choreographer, dancer, theater director and writer. New York Live Arts serves as home base for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and is the company's sole producer, providing support and the environment to originate innovative and challenging new work. New York Live Arts produces and presents dance, music and theater performances in its 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 offers an extensive range of participatory programs for adults and young people and supports the continuing professional development of artists and commissions.