Cid Pearlman Presents Retrospective Of Dances With Joan Jeanrenaud

This fall, Cid Pearlman Performance will present the ALL JOAN SHOW, a retrospective of dances made in collaboration with renowned San Francisco-based cellist and composer, Joan Jeanrenaud. The All Joan Show runs September 21 to 22 at the Joe Goode Annex in San Francisco before moving to Santa Cruz for a three-evening engagement at Motion Pacific, October 19 to 21. All performances start at 8 p.m. Tickets, $15 to $25, may be purchased online at joegoode.org/box-office and motionpacific.com.

Veteran choreographer Cid Pearlman celebrates her longstanding collaboration with Jeanrenaud in an evening of three works: Strange Toys,small variations and Your Body is Not a Shark. The earliest piece on the program, Strange Toys, a 10-minute duet for two women, had its New York premiere at the Joyce Soho in 2004. Nominated for two Los Angeles Horton Awards, small variations premiered as a 30-minute sextet in 2006. For this program Pearlman is adapting the work for four female dancers. "In this reimagining of small variations, the women are doing the lifting that the men originally did, and it's exciting to see how they adapt this choreography to their bodies," said Pearlman.

Finally, Your Body is Not a Shark, an evening-length work, premiered at ODC Theater in San Francisco in 2013. Four sections of the nine-part whole will be presented on this program, with the role of the poet, originally performed by Denise Leto, shared by the dancers.

In addition, the Santa Cruz dates will include a 10-minute world premiere for the full ensemble with a new score by Jeanrenaud. The music for this and for all the works on the program will be played from studio recordings.

"I think Joan is one of the most extraordinary musicians and composers of her generation, and I feel lucky to have the opportunity to continue working with her," said Pearlman.

"In revisiting these old works, I'm conscious of making a place for the dancers to be themselves inside the dance," continued Pearlman. "These works are not frozen records from my archive. I see them as living things because dancers are not interchangeable. And if the works have a handmade feeling, that's by design. I want the selvage edge to show, for the seams to be visible, with threads waiting to be snipped off."

Jeanrenaud and Pearlman will take part in a pre-show talkback with the audience at 7:30 p.m. on September 21 and again at 7:30 p.m. on October 20.

For more information about Cid Pearlman Performance visit cidpearlman.org.

For its 2018 Season, Cid Pearlman Performance is grateful for funding from the Santa Cruz Arts Council and many generous individual donors.

ABOUT CID PEARLMAN

Inspired by the resilience, fragility, and resourcefulness of the human body, Cid Pearlman makes dances about how we negotiate being together in a complex world. Her work has been presented by numerous venues including ODC Theater, Joyce SoHo, Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Estonia), the Getty Center, Theatre Artaud and the Museum of Contemporary Art/San Diego. From 1991-99 Pearlman was the artistic director of San Francisco's critically acclaimed Nesting Dolls dance company. In 1999 she relocated to Los Angeles, establishing herself as an independent choreographer and curator. Her most recent collaborations have been with composers Joan Jeanrenaud and with Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven. In addition to her own works, Pearlman has choreographed for film, opera, and theater. Her evening-length dance High Fall won the 2002 Lester Horton Award for Visual Design, and 2006's small variations was nominated for two Horton Awards. Among other honors, Pearlman was a Fulbright Scholar in 2009-10 choreographing and teaching dance in Estonia. Currently she teaches in the Theater Arts Department at UC Santa Cruz and the Dance Department at Cabrillo College. More information at cidpearlman.org.

ABOUT JOAN JEANRENAUD

Joan Jeanrenaud, cellist and composer, has been involved in music for over 50 years. Growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, she was exposed to the sounds of the blues, Elvis, soul and classical music. She learned to play her instrument from cellists Peter Spurbeck, Fritz Magg and Pierre Fournier; studied jazz with David Baker and Joe Henderson; and toured with the Kronos Quartet for 20 years. For the last 20 years she has been involved with solo and collaborative projects in composition, improvisation, electronics and multidisciplinary performance. She has completed more than 80 compositions for cello, small ensembles and multimedia. Her compositions and recordings have been featured in films (Born This Way, John Brown's Body, Saltwater); installations ("Chrysopylae" by Doug Hall and "ARIA" with collaborator Alessandro Moruzzi); museums ("Body Language" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art); and theater and dance performances (Joe Goode, AXIS, ODC/Dance and Cid Pearlman Performance Projects). Her CD, Strange Toys, was nominated for a 2008 Grammy. Her latest recording, Visual Music, appears on her own label, Deconet Records. More information at jjcello.com.

Photo: Molly Katzman, left, and Damara Vita Ganley in the 2013 premiere of Your Body is Not a Shark. Photo by Beau Saunders.

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