NY-Moving Theater Presents Five Performances Of LAST DANCE

Moving Theater Presents Studio Showings of LAST DANCE by Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly at Park Avenue Armory

Park Avenue Armory-643 Park Avenue (bet 67th and 68th streets)
Wednesday, January 7, 7:30pm, $10
Friday, January 9, 7:30pm* $50
Saturday, January 10, 7:30pm, $10
Sunday, January 11, 7:30pm, $10
Monday, January 12, 7:30pm, $10
* Benefit performance & after-party

New York, NY-Moving Theater will present five performances of its show LAST DANCE at Park Avenue Armory on Manhattan's Upper East Side from January 7 through January 12, 2009. LAST DANCE is a new performance work choreographed and directed by Brennan Gerard & Ryan Kelly, and will be performed by and created in collaboration with Emilio Martinez Lopez, Marion Ramirez, and Anthony Whitehurst, with special musical guests Jason Abrams and Rupert Boyd.

Three performers enter an empty stage and recite poetry by a disco queen. With a single microphone and minimal choreography, the performers recover dances they've almost forgotten. LAST DANCE investigates loss as a part of every performance. With performers/collaborators Emilio Martinez Lopez, Marion Ramirez, and Anthony Whitehurst, LAST DANCE insists on the most enduring characteristic of every performer in every show--presence.

LAST DANCE previewed at CUNY Graduate Center's Prelude 08, a festival of contemporary theater and performance. Presented by Moving Theater in association with Park Avenue Armory. These showings are made possible in part with the support of Cowles Charitable Trust and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

$10 cash only at door

Reservations required in advance: lastdance@movingtheater.org

Known for performance works that bridge contemporary dance and experimental theater practices, Moving Theater is the first theater company in residence at Park Avenue Armory. Under the direction of founders Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly, the company has created more than 10 works in dance, theater and performance that have been presented in New York at Prelude 08, Whitney Museum of American Art, Chez Buswick, Abrons Art Center, Dance New Amsterdam, Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum, in Chicago at the Renaissance Society, in Paris at La Générale and the Il faut brûler pour briller festival, in Montreal at Studio 303, the Greenwich Music Festival, Jacob's Pillow, and in an abandoned glue factory in Hudson. Moving Theater's repertoire has been developed in residencies at the Watermill Center, Chez Buswick, The Old American Can Factory, and the Morris Center Dance Institute. Moving Theater is an ever-shifting ensemble of artists who come together from different disciplines-dance, visual arts, music, theater, architecture, and film-to collaborate to create and produce performance art projects. Moving Theater is a frame in which these artists find the freedom to experiment and take creative risks. More information at www.movingtheater.org

Moving Theater has become the first company-in-residence at the landmark historical site and dynamic center for the arts. During its yearlong Armory residency, Moving Theater brings together an interdisciplinary, international ensemble of artists to a fully functioning studio on the Armory's fourth floor (formerly the mess hall of the Seventh Regiment of the U.S, National Guard) to create new work in performance.

Moving Theater is producing a full calendar of rehearsals, workshops, performances, film screenings, discussions, and other events throughout the 2008-2009 season. All of these programs are created and facilitated by artists to foster an environment in which artists and the creative process can flourish. Many of the events during Moving Theater's residency at the Armory are open to the public, including a monthly series of Open Studios presenting Moving Theater's work in progress. Park Avenue Armory is an unusual and invigorating place for the incubation of new work, compelling artists to think outside of the white cube and the black box.

Built between 1877 and 1881, Park Avenue Armory is unique in two respects: it contains what the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission calls "the single most important collection of 19th-century interiors to survive intact in one building" with rooms by Louis Comfort Tiffany, Stanford White, Herter Brothers, and other prominent designers of the period; and its Wade Thompson Drill Hall-reminiscent of a 19th-century European train shed-is one of the largest unobstructed spaces in the city. Part palace, part industrial shed, it is offers an alternative space for visual and performing arts that fills a void in the cultural landscape of New York.

In its first year of partnering with other cultural organizations, Park Avenue Armory demonstrated its capacity for accommodating extraordinary work best realized in a non-traditional setting. It began with AaRon Young's Greeting Card produced by Art Production Fund, a 9,216-square-foot action painting created by the skid-marks and tire burnouts of 10 choreographed motorcyclists. For the 2008 Whitney Biennial, the Armory hosted site-specific installations and performances by 37 artists, creating an experience that one critic called "this Biennial's best surprise." An evening of Stravinsky's Sacred Masterpieces presented in association with Columbia's Miller Theatre drew rave critical reviews as did the epic production of the opera Die Soldaten, presented by Lincoln Center Festival in association with Park Avenue Armory, in which the audience moved "through the music."

 

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