MN's The O'Shaughnessy and Northrop Dance to Present Bebe Miller Company, 2/12

The O'Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University and Northrop Dance at the University of Minnesota present Bebe Miller Company on Tue, Feb 12 at 7:30 pm at The O'Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University.

Bebe Miller has been making dances for over 25 years, forming Bebe Miller Company (BMC) in 1985. Known for a mix of virtuosic dancing and fundamental humanity, her choreography has been produced at major dance centers throughout the world. Miller's vision of dance and performance reside in her faith in the moving body as a record of thought, experience, and sheer beauty. Her aesthetic relies on the interplay of a work's idea, its physicality, and the contributions of company members to fashion its singular voice. A History is a new dance work choreographed by Bebe Miller in collaboration with longtime BMC members Angie Hauser and Darrell Jones, as well as dramaturg Talvin Wilks, and video artist Lily Skove. A History viscerally captures the threads of BMC's creative conversation in live performance and media. This guerrilla mode-nimble, strategic, with multiple points of entry-delivers the interactive spontaneity of truly accessible theater.

This performance will be accompanied in the lobby of The O'Shaughnessy by a specially created video installation, Tracing History, which illuminates Bebe Miller's choreography, personal story, and creative process with her dancers.

Tickets: $18, $25, $31. Prices do not include processing fees. Single tickets to Women of Substance events are sold by The O'Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University at 651-690-6700 or online at oshaughnessy.stkate.edu. Buy in person and save on fees, Mon - Sat, 12;00 - 7:00 pm at The O'Shaughnessy Ticket Office. Discounts available when purchasing single tickets in advance. Rush tickets based on availability, sold in person the evening of a performance are $10 for U of M and St. Catherine University students, and $20 for general students and U of M and St. Catherine University staff and faculty.

Groups of 10+ save 15% off original ticket prices to Women of Substance events at The O'Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University. To order group tickets for Women of Substance events presented at The O'Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University, contact The O'Shaughnessy Ticket Office at 651-690-6700.

Bebe Miller Company Post-Performance Conversation
FREE
Connect with the dance company's artists for a Q & A immediately following the performance from the stage of The O'Shaughnessy.

About A History
A History is a new dance work directed by Bebe Miller in collaboration with long-time BMC collaborators Angie Hauser, Darrell Jones, and Talvin Wilks, which premiered in fall 2012. An evening-length duet for Hauser and Jones, with video by Lily Skove and accompanying installation by Maya Ciarrocchi, the work is designed to invite audiences into what dance-making feels like, sounds like, and thinks like. These projects offer the uniqueness of a joint performance, installation, and interactive website, ultimately shifting the paradigm of an artist's archive from artifact to artwork.

A History reveals the interpersonal subtext that drives our particular mode of inquiry. As such, it connects an audience to their own experiences of creative partnerships. It is filtered through the collaboration between Hauser and Jones that began with the Bessie award-winning Verge (2001). A History probes findings from a 10-year perspective to expose the collision of their internal processes as dancers. It shares that vulnerability in an interactive format, creating something new.

A History is viewed as both the evidence and performance of a creative process. All four BMC collaborators-appearing live and virtually-create a dynamic exposure of how we do what we do and in turn catalyze the next questions. The performance is coupled with media installations offering dance "tracks" and thematic journeys that audiences try on for size, experiencing the process and arriving at new conclusions of their own. This guerrilla mode-nimble, strategic, with multiple points of entry-is designed to give both artists and audience the interactive spontaneity of truly accessible theater.

About Bebe Miller: Tracing History (Accompanying exhibit)
Audiences are invited to view a video installation presented in conjunction with A History in the lobby of The O'Shaughnessy the night of the performance. Bebe Miller: Tracing History provides further insight into Miller's process for dance-making and for creating physical language for the human condition.

The experience gives literal space and figurative breathing room to the idea that her work is about the doing and not the done. It is about the evolution leading up to the stage, and ultimately what happens while you are living your life.

About Bebe Miller Company
The mission of Bebe Miller Company is to support the artistic vision of choreographer Bebe Miller in creative, cross-disciplinary explorations and in creating and performing new works. Miller's vision of dance and performance resides in her faith in the moving body as a record of thought, experience, and sheer beauty. Her aesthetic relies on the interplay of a work's idea, its physicality, and the contributions of company members to fashion its singular voice. Seeking to expand the language of dance, Miller's work encompasses choreography, writing, film, video, and digital media. Committed to keeping dance available to a wide spectrum of people, the company is also dedicated to providing access to the creative process and expression to diverse people in a community.

The company is in its 28th year and, after two decades of operating as a traditional touring dance company, BMC is now structured as a "virtual company," with members living in various locations around the U.S. New work is developed over a period of years in long-term residencies that bring BMC dancers and project collaborators together for creative exploration, rehearsals, and community-based activities. BMC is pioneering the use of digital media as "process bulletins" for dancers and collaborators to effectively communicate in an ongoing "virtual residency." The public availability of this media is a means to share company process and technological explorations with the dance field, artists in other disciplines, and the public.

Bebe Miller Company has toured extensively throughout the United States and in eight countries. The company has been commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy Of Music NEXT WAVE Festival, City Center Theater, The Joyce Theater, Wexner Center for the Arts, Walker Art Center, Northrop Concerts and Lectures, On The Boards, Hancher Auditorium, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Theater Artaud, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, New England Presenters, Bates Dance Festival, Dance Place, Painted Bride Art Center, Creative Time, Dance Theater Workshop, Dancing in the Streets and The Danspace Project. All of this would not have been possible without the contributions of all of the dancers, collaborators, and board members who have been a part of the work for over twenty years. Miller was awarded the Doris Duke Artists Award in 2012 for her sustained achievement in the field of dance.

Bebe Miller, Choreographer/Director
Bebe Miller has been making dances for over 25 years and formed Bebe Miller Company in 1985. Known for a mix of virtuosic dancing and fundamental humanity, her choreography has been produced at major dance centers throughout the U.S. and abroad. In addition to her ongoing work with her ensemble, Miller has received commissions from Boston Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theater, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Philadanco, Phoenix Dance Company in Great Britain, and Johannesburg's PATH Dance Company, among other groups across the country and abroad. Collaboration being fundamental to her creative process, she has worked with numerous composers, visual artists, writers, filmmakers, and directors; she has received four Bessie Awards for choreography and direction, most recently for her collaboration with the eleven-member creative team in Landing/Place (2005). She has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and is a United States Artists Ford Fellow. Currently a Full Professor in Dance at The Ohio State University, she serves on the boards of Danspace Project and Bearnstow, and is a member of the International Artists Advisory Board of the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Angie Hauser, Dancer/Collaborator
Angie Hauser has been a dancer/collaborator with the Bebe Miller Company since 2000. She has contributed to BMC company works Verge, Landing/Place, and Necessary Beauty, receiving a 2006 BESSIE award for her work in Landing/Place. In addition to her work with BMC she is a dance maker, performer, and teacher who has been presented throughout North America and Europe. Hauser collaborates with many gifted artists and leaders in the field of dance improvisation including Andrew Harwood, K.J. Holmes, Darrell Jones, and Kathleen Hermesdorf. She has an ongoing collaboration with dance artist Chris Aiken creating evening length improvisation performances in collaboration with musicians and other dancers. The duo received NPN Commission grants in 2007 and 2011 for their works Dwell and Utopia Parkway. Recently she has taught and performed at Bates Dance Festival, Florida Dance Festival, Transformation Festival (Montreal), Earthdance (MA), TransContact Festival (Romania) and International Improvisation Festival (Germany) as well as other colleges and universities. Hauser has danced with the companies of Elizabeth Streb, Liz Lerman, and Poppo Shiriashi. She received her MFA in dance from the Ohio State University and holds a BA in Art History from University of South Carolina. She is an Assistant Professor at Smith College, Northampton, MA.

Cody Chen, Stage Manager
Cody Chen is a freelance stage manager currently based in New York City. He is grateful to collaborate with Miller and the company on the development of A History. Chen has worked internationally with companies such as TheatreWorks Singapore, Millbrook Playhouse, Line Storm Productions LLC, Armitage Gone! Dance, Trisha Brown Dance Company, Katherine Helen Fisher Dance, TAO Dance Theatre, Jinliansheng Gaojia Opera, Canum Entertainment, and Xiamen Media Group. Chen received an MFA in Stage Management from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Darrell Jones, Dancer/Collaborator
Darrell Jones has performed in the United States and abroad with a variety of choreographers and companies such as Bebe Miller, Urban Bush Women, Ronald K. Brown, Min Tanaka, Ralph Lemon, and KOKUMA Dance Theater. Along with performing, Jones continues to choreograph and teach. He has collaborated with other choreographers including Kirstie Simson, Angie Hauser, Jeremy Wade, Lisa Gonzales, Paige Cunningham, and writer, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor; musicians Jessie Mano, Brian Schuler, and DJ Franco De Leon; and designer, Mawish Syed, in dance films, documentations and interactive multimedia installations. In addition to his collaborative work Jones has also choreographed and produced group projects. Jones is presently a full-time, tenure-track faculty member at The Dance Center of Columbia College in Chicago. His classes are informed by his training and studies in a variety of contemporary dance techniques and traditional dance forms.

Maya Ciarrocchi, Video Artist and Projection Designer
Maya Ciarrocchi is a video artist and projection designer. Her work has been exhibited in New York at: Chashama; the Chocolate Factory; Dance Theater Workshop; the 2010 Governor's Island Art Fair; School of Visual Arts; Westbeth Gallery; Sasha Wolf Gallery; and Artisphere, (VA); Borderlines Film Festival, (UK); Hammer Museum, (CA); Moving Pictures Festival, (Canada). In addition to her gallery installations she has created video and projections for dance and theatre with such performing artists as Merce Cunningham, Ping Chong, Bebe Miller, and Donna Uchizono. Ciarrocchi has received residencies from the Kala Arts Institute (CA), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (NYC), and the Ucross Foundation (WY), and is the recipient a 2006 Bessie award for her video design in Bebe Miller Company's Landing/Place. Upcoming projects include a commissioned installation for New York Live Arts and a large-scale installation centering on Mountain Top Removal mining practices in Appalachia. Ciarrocchi earned a BFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase and an MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts.

Lily Skove, Video Artist
Lily Skove is a filmmaker and choreographer, creating for the screen, installation, and live performance. Her films have been shown at Dance Theater Workshop's Digital Series, The Ohio Short Film and Video Showcase, The San Diego/Tijuana DANCEonFILM Festival, and Dance Camera Istanbul, her music videos have been released for The Chandeliers on record labels Pickled Egg Records in Europe, and Obey Your Brain in the States, and she has worked as the video editor on Synchronous Objects For One Flat Thing, Reproduced, a website and installation made in collaboration between The William Forsythe Company and The Ohio State University. Her dance company, Skoveworks, has been presented at the Chocolate Factory Theater in New York City, the Laiks Dejot International Contemporary Dance Festival in Riga, Lativa, and Oberlin College among other venues. Skove has been on faculty at the The Ohio State University teaching in the Dance and Technology program, and has taught at Oberlin College and the Latvian Academy of Culture's Institute for Choreography in Riga, Lativa. Currently, Skove freelances in camera departments of feature films and owns the Production Company, Electric Orange Media, with her husband, TJ Hellmuth. Skove holds a Diploma in Dance Studies from the Laban Centre, U.K., an MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University, and a BA in Dance and English from Wesleyan University.

Michael Mazzola, Lighting Design
Michael Mazzola is a long-time Bebe Miller Company collaborator. His critically acclaimed lighting and scenery have been seen in venues all over the U.S. and Europe, ranging from opera houses to circus tents to outdoor amphitheaters. A three-time New York Dance and Performance Award recipient, Mazzola has recently been given awards on the west coast for his lighting of musical theater and drama.

Michael Wall, Sound Composition/Design
Michael Wall began collaborating with dance and other art forms at an early age and continues to work with artists, internationally. He has made work for the Jose Limon Company, Mark Haim, Lisa Race, John Evans, Lucky Kele, David Dorfman, David Grenke, Rudy Perez, Pam Pietro, Pat Mayer, K.J. Holmes, Paulette Sears, Julia Ritter, Randy James, Martha Tornay/East Village Dance Project, Jenn Nugent, Wally Wolfgruber, Heather McArdle, everything smaller, Incidents Physical Theater, Merge Dance, and many others. Wall and designer, Jamie Karczewski, have formed the company ASIMPLESOUND, LLC that produces music and resources for dance, film, and other media. Wall works full-time in the Department of Dance at Ohio State University and accompanies at the Bates Dance Festival and the American Dance Festival. His music and new recordings can be found at asimplesound.com

Talvin Wilks, Dramaturg
Talvin Wilks is a playwright, director and dramaturg. His plays include Tod, the boy, Tod, The Trial of Uncle S&M, Bread of Heaven, and An American Triptych. Directorial projects include the world premiere productions of UDU by Sekou Sundiata (651Arts/BAM), The Love Space Demands by Ntozake Shange (Crossroads), No Black Male Show/Pagan Operetta by Carl Hancock Rux (Joe's Pub/The Kitchen), Banana Beer Bath by Lynn Nottage, (Going to the River Festival), the Obie Award/AUDELCO Award winning The Shaneequa Chronicles by Stephanie Berry (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Relativity by Cassandra Medley (Ensemble Studio Theatre - AUDELCO nomination for Best Director 2006), and On the Way to Timbuktu by Petronia Paley (Ensemble Studio Theatre - AUDELCO nomination for Best Director 2008). He has served as co-writer/dramaturg for ten productions in Ping Chong's ongoing series of Undesirable Elements, and dramaturg for four collaborations with the Bebe Miller Company: Necessary Beauty, Going to the Wall, the Bessie Award winning Verge, and Landing/Place for which he received a 2006 Bessie Award for Dramaturgy.

WOMEN OF SUBSTANCE DANCE SERIES
The Women of Substance dance series is copresented by The O'Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University and Northrop Concerts and Lectures, and focuses on women in dance.

Created at St. Catherine University in 1996, The O'Shaughnessy's acclaimed Women of Substance events have featured national and International Artists in the Twin Cities. Building on St. Catherine's outstanding reputation of developing women to lead and influence, Women of Substance has served thousands of girls and women from various backgrounds and nationalities, offering them inspiration and hope by attending performances of extraordinary role models.

Founded to encourage women to find their voice and place on life's stage, the events continually reminds audience members of all genders the importance of living lives of substance.

NORTHROP CONCERTS AND LECTURES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
Northrop Concerts and Lectures, the University of Minnesota's arts presenter, is dedicated to the advancement of the education, research, public engagement, and diversity mission of the University of Minnesota through the pursuit of excellence and innovation in the performing arts, community service, and creative exchange.

Northrop Concerts and Lectures is also committed to civic engagement and community discourse. We proceed with the values of partnership and collaboration, and we are committed to bridging the intellectual and artistic life of the university with the goals and issues of the local community, the nation, and the world.

THE O'SHAUGHNESSY AT ST. CATHERINE UNIVERSITY
Located on the scenic main campus of St. Catherine University in St. Paul, The O'Shaughnessy is one of the Twin Cities' premiere venues for showcasing the arts. During the first 15 years of operation the hall was filled with classical, orchestral, and modern music. After the construction of the Ordway Music Theatre in St. Paul, and Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, The O'Shaughnessy established itself as a venue for regional and local dance organizations such as CAAM Chinese Dance, The James Sewell Ballet, TU Dance, Katha Dance, Ballet Minnesota, Out on a Limb and countless others. In addition, the venue features performances by a number of local arts companies, hosts public events, student performances and multicultural programming with an emphasis on dance, music and theater. The O'Shaughnessy is the home of Women of Substance, which showcases the artistry and innovative work of women, both prominent and emerging in their field, whose voices need to be heard. In addition, The O'Shaughnessy hosts concerts and lectures featuring prominent artists and dignitaries.

The O'Shaughnessy holds a unique place in the cultural landscape of the Twin Cities as both an arts presenter and rental hall. The venue also has a strong focus on education, and hosts thousands of students and teachers each year from schools and institutions throughout Minnesota.

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