RacocoRx & Rachel Cohen Present CONSTRUCT, 8/23-25

RacocoRx & Rachel Cohen present Construct, choreographer/director: Rachel Cohen Composer: Lynn Wright Set designer: Stephanie Beck Lighting designer: Jon Harper.

Stage manager: Alex Pfister Performers: Rachel Cohen, Warren Craft, Alisa Fendley, Masumi Kishimoto, Cassie Tunick Musicians: Lynn Wright, Paul Watson, Eric Eble, Paul Wallfisch

August 23 - 25 // $18 general // 8pm curtain

"Construct" employs pinball, movement, live music, carpentry, and the story of Don Quixote to illustrate the confusion inside one man's brain visually, sonically, emotionally, and physically.

As the story unfolds, the characters build, dismantle, and reconstruct wooden set elements around themselves; gradually the stage becomes more cluttered, claustrophobic, and chaotic and the individual stories become hopelessly merged.

Don Quixote is re-imagined as a kind of constructed pinball game in this unique dance theater production from Racoco/Rx. The physical pinball score plays out combining composed and choreographed elements of improvisation alongside musicians tasked with the same challenge. While storylines become tangled; individual performers become obscured and their movements limited, their bodies eventually becoming the negative space amongst the wooden rubble.

Racoco/Rx's idiosyncratic movement-theater installations explore interactions between the human body and inanimate materials-including clay, flour, taffy, chewing gum, neon, wine, paper, and pinatas-frequently in collaboration with composers and visual artists to build fantastical tiny universes uncannily similar to our own. In 2005 the company's If the Shoe Fits, created with composer Chris Becker and visual artist Olek, was listed among The New York Times' dance highlights of the year. Racoco has been awarded grants from NYFA's BUILD Stability; the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation US Arts International grant; Meet the Composer's

July 19, 2013Creative Connections; and American Music Center's Live Music for Dance program. Racoco was in residence at Galapagos Art Space in 2006 and CAVE from 2010-12. The company has performed at the World Financial Center among other NYC venues and has toured nationally and internationally, most recently to the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Racoco also performs and gives workshops at psychiatric centers.

Rachel Cohen (director/choreographer) graduated from Harvard University, where she studied movement and theater with Claire Mallardi, then moved to New York City in 1997. Since then she has performed and choreographed for dance, theater, film, parades, variety shows, benefits, music videos, and art installations, in New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, England, France, Poland, India, and Portugal. She founded Racoco in 2003.

Lynn Wright (composer) Lynn Wright is a composer, songwriter, producer and multi- instrumentalist based in Brooklyn, New York. His music is a collision of post-rock minimalism, avante-garde jazz, god-less gospel, musique concrète, and the rhythms of Latin America and Africa; it has been featured on the BBC, PBS, NPR, and in independent films in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. His work includes music for film, dance, sound installation, rock and jazz ensembles, and mixed media.

Olek (costume designer) Olek's work has been exhibited in galleries, museums and public spaces worldwide, and featured in numerous publications such as The New York Times, New York Magazine, Artforum, TimeOut New York ,TIME Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, ARTINFO, The Huffington Post, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, Village Voice, CNN, ABC News, CBS News and NBC News. Olek is the recipient of awards including the Ruth Mellon Award for sculpture in 2004, In Situ Artaq award (France) in 2011, and a grant in 2011 from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) for performance in public space. In 2012, Olek was part of

the 40 Under 40: Craft Futures exhibition at the Smithsonian, for which her entire crocheted studio apartment was exhibited.

Stephanie Beck (set designer) creates cut paper drawings and constructions inspired by patterns of settlement and the architectural structures around her. Stephanie has Master of Fine Arts from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, a post-baccalaureate from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia. She has exhibited work nationally and internationally, including Cite de 'l'architecture et du patrimonie, Paris, France; IMC 5533, Istanbul, Turkey; the Fort Collins Museum of Art, Fort Collins, CO; and the Philadelphia International Airport, Philadelphia, PA. Her work has been included in various publications, including Geo Graphic, Paper Works, and Elephant Magazine.

Tickets can be purchased in advance at incubatorarts.org or by calling TheaterMania at 212- 352-3101. Incubator Arts Project (located inside St. Mark's Church) • 131 East 10th Street (at 2nd Ave.) • L to First or Third Ave; R, W to Broadway/8th St.; 6 to Astor Place; N,Q, 4, 5 to Union Sq.

Incubator Arts Project cultivates and presents a multi-generational community of artists who challenge the conventions of live performance by producing original work at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery. IAP programs provide access to a fully equipped venue along with personalized career support and strategic investment of resources individually tailored to the needs of each artist.

By providing production opportunities for emerging to mid-career artists, Incubator Arts Project functions as a training ground where formative repertoire is conceived and new work can be constructed as each participant's artistic voice develops a distinct style. In addition to offering artists exclusive access to a theater, technical assistance and administrative support, staff provides professional mentoring and advisement to assist in the process of making well- considered choices in support of artists' long-term stability and success during all stages of their careers.

Core programs include the New Performance Series, Other Forces, Music and Short Form. Incubator Arts Project is fiscally managed by Performing Artservices Inc., a New York based non- profit arts organization, and is artistically led by a team of curators who collectively make programmatic, artistic and organizational decisions.

Since 2006, Incubator Arts Project has presented award-winning work by artists including: Hoi Polloi, Julia Jarcho, Banana Bag & Bodice, Bluemouth Inc., Debate Society, Daniel Fish, Half- Straddle, Karinne Keithley, Object Collection, Vampire Cowboys, and Witness Relocation. Incubator artists have seen their work tour nationally and internationally and go on to Off- Broadway runs.

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