USC Visions and Voices to Present Monica Bill Barnes & Company's THE RUNNING SHOW in September

USC Vision & Voices in conjunction with USC Kaufman School of Dance presents the highly anticipated West Coast premiere of Monica Bill Barnes & Company's (MBB&CO) The Running Show, a humorous and thought-provoking work melding dance and theater that portrays dancers as sports heroes propelled by an inner force that keeps them moving against all odds, on Thursday, September 29, 2022, 7 PM, at Bovard Auditorium on the USC campus in Downtown Los Angeles. The engagement marks the celebrated New York-based company's first Southern California appearance in more than seven years. Admission is free but tickets are required.

According to creators Monica Bill Barnes (choreographer/performer) and Robbie Saenz de Viteri (writer/performer), the company, noted for its razor-shape choreography and insightful humor, teams with local artists ranging in age from 12 - 80 years old to develop a new iteration of The Running Show for each performance. For the USC edition, they will collaborate with students from the USC Kaufman School of Dance, a young local ballet student making her solo debut, and seventy-seven-year-old Gerri Houlihan who will join Barnes in performing rigorous athletic movement to witty play-by-play commentary and narration delivered live by Saenz de Viteri from his "press box" on stage. He will interview the cast through the course of the week leading up to the performance and incorporate their stories and voices into "a marriage between dance and persuasive essay" (Chatham Life & Style) that uses details about their lives as dancers to "create a glorious and touching metaphor" (Arts Air) for all audiences. The result is "full-throttle, humor-infused dance-theater" (Dance Magazine) that skews traditional notions of dancers while also serving as a "kinetic love letter" to dance.

MBB&CO premiered The Running Show in July 2022 at The American Dance Festival in Durham, NC. It was commissioned and generously supported by Jody and John Arnhold/Arnhold Foundation. Additional support came from Howard Gilman Foundation, Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation, Emma Sheafer Foundation and The Harkness Foundation for Dance. It is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, by the NY State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the NY State Legislature and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Monica Bill Barnes & Company is a contemporary dance company recognized for bringing dance where it does not belong. It creates and produces each work entirely from its own rulebook-dancing to radio interviews on the biggest stages in the world, hosting a weekly show in a crowded office party, or leading a choreographed exercise routine in an art museum. Within each of these new contexts and borrowed environments, the company constantly finds humor in awkward, everyday human triumphs and failures.

Following the USC Visions & Voices engagement, in October, Saenz de Viteri and Barnes will be in residency at Berkeley Rep, through the Ground Floor program, developing a new work they describe as "a physical version of a memory play."

Free tickets are available at https://visionsandvoices.usc.edu. For information call 213-740-0483. Bovard Auditorium is located at 3551 Trousdale Pkwy, Los Angeles, CA 90089.

Monica Bill Barnes & Company began with a suitcase of costumes and a collection of solos that could be performed anywhere. Since the company's inception in 1997, Founder Monica Bill Barnes has worked with numerous artists and performers, including long-time collaborators/designers Jane Cox and Kelly Hanson and performer Anna Bass, in developing relatable work with a subversive sense of humor. Since 2013, MBB&CO has been co-led by Monica Barnes in partnership with Robbie Saenz de Viteri. Under their direction, the company's mission has evolved to "bringing dance where it doesn't belong." Together, Barnes and Saenz de Viteri make performances that combine their shared interest in the underlying comedy at work in our lives and create shows that strive to find something sacred in the mundane. They cross genres between dance, theater, storytelling, creative nonfiction, feminist treatises, and comedy. Their work has traveled to a wide range of theaters ranging from off-Broadway's WP Theater to The Sydney Opera House, and many in between. They've also created performances in malls, conference rooms, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and interactive websites. They redefine what constitutes performance in every show, while maintaining the audience's experience as the center of everything they create. Their work has been honored by the Bessie Awards, the Lilly Awards, and the Chita Rivera Awards, as well as numerous foundations.

Monica Bill Barnes is a dancer and choreographer. Since MBB&CO's founding in 1997, her choreography has been seen in many places, such as New York City's Bowling Green public fountain, on stage at Carnegie Hall, throughout the galleries of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and in Greta Gerwig's film "Little Women." The company has been presented in over 50 cities and internationally in venues ranging from The Kennedy Center to the Sydney Opera House in a collaboration with Ira Glass in Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host. Barnes began collaborating with Robbie Saenz de Viteri in 2013 at which point the company adopted the motto of "bringing dance where it doesn't belong." Recent collaborations include a national tour of The Running Show; a site specific show in a mall - Days Go By; and two online works created during the pandemic - Keep Moving and It's 3:07 Again. They are currently developing a new show, Many Happy Returns, through a residency at Berkeley Repertory this fall.

Robbie Saenz de Viteri writes, creates, produces, and performs live theater. He has created performances and toured production throughout the world with the Obie Award winning Nature Theater of Oklahoma and worked with genre redefining artists such as Anna Deavere Smith, Stew, and Ira Glass. He has collaborated with Monica Bill Barnes to create Happy Hour, The Museum Workout, One Night Only (Lilly Award), Days Go By (Bessie Honoree), The Running Show, Keep Moving, It's 3:07 Again, and Many Happy Returns. He grew up in New Jersey, holds a BA from Muhlenberg College, where he studied writing with David Rosenwasser, and lives in Greenpoint Brooklyn, which he believes is best reached by bicycle.

USC Visions and Voices is a university-wide arts and humanities initiative that was launched in 2006 and features a spectacular array of performances and presentations. Highlighting USC's excellence in the arts and humanities, the initiative provides transformative and provocative experiences for all USC students and the larger Southern California community.

USC Kaufman exists due to the visionary philanthropy of Glorya Kaufman, whose transformational gift in 2012 established the first new school at USC in nearly forty years. USC Kaufman expands the University of Southern California's unique signature as a private research university with a deep commitment to the arts. With its innovative vision for arts education, USC Kaufman is at the forefront of developing versatile dancers, risk-taking choreographers and thought leaders in the field.

Photo Credit: Mallory Lynn

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