FreeMove Dance Presents the World Premiere of ...IT'S TIME...

Freemove Dance in partnership with The Theater at the 14th Street Y presents the world premiere of ...it's time... The company makes its debut with this evening-length production dealing with intricacies of human relationship to time, choreographed by Jenn Freeman, with the original score by renowned percussionist/drummer Dani Markham (Tune-Yards, Childish Gambino). The work will be presented October 11-14, 2018, as part of The Theater at the 14th Street Y's 2018-19 curated season, titled War + Peace, at the venue's main theater located at 344 East 14th Street, New York, NY 10003. The tickets ($20 advance, $25 at the door) can be purchased online at 14streety.org/itstime.

In FreemoveDance's ...it's time..., everyone is literally "on the clock." The piece, conceived as a meditation on each individual's complex relationship to time, features five dancers whose performances are both constrained and propelled by the presence of a large digital timer, inexorably counting down towards zero. The show's creator and director Jenn Freeman introduces this device to make a point about how measuring the passage of time - a distinctly human pursuit that does not apply to other species - shapes the perception of it and inevitably begets a variety of complex emotions: the sense of limitation, mortality, anxiety - but also experience of leisure, escape, and a new beginning at the end of each cycle. The evocative live drum score, composed by Dani Markham (who is touring nationally with the Grammy Award winning Childish Gambino), literally dictates the tempo of the 60-minute piece. The work is conceived as a metaphor of a lifetime - one long, cinematic take in which performers transition through changing ambiances, styles, and energies.

...it's time... is a bold step into a new territory for both the choreographer Jenn Freeman and composer Dani Markham. Freeman, who is an accomplished performer and dancemaker with large commercial productions (she has been collaborating on projects for such artists as Florence and the Machine and Cirque du Soleil) is producing her first evening-long work with a company she has founded this year. Markham, whose creative career has until now been focused on group collaborations with other musicians, is making her debut as a composer of an expansive, solo-drum score. The two artists met as collaborators of NYC-based choreographer Sonya Tayeh and connected over the idea of exploring the emotional dimension of time in a piece that, while eschewing narrative, has a strong theatrical slant. "It's an interesting challenge to be solely responsible as a composer for the entire complexity of moods and emotions, conveyed just in one instrument; it's exhilarating to bring my musical ideas front and center, " says Markham, while Freeman remarks: "The presence of a live musician added a completely new dimension to how I conceive and direct the piece that initially focused only on the movement; suddenly, it is a combination of dance theatre and a live concert all in one."

The work features five dancers: Maddison Burg, Mia DeWeese, Matt Luck, Christopher Ralph, and Chelsea Thedinga. Dani Markham's score for the piece will be performed live by Price McGuffey. The lighting design of the piece is by the 2010 Bessie-winner Philip Treviño (awarded for his work on Pam Tanowitz's Be In The Gray With Me) and costumes are designed by Mondo Morales (known for his work with Alvin Ailey II.)

Jenn Freeman (Choreographer) is the founder and the Artistic Director of Freemove Dance and an accomplished choreographer, dance performer, and educator. She has worked as assistant and associate choreographer on major commercial productions for TV (including Fox's The X-Factor US with Florence and The Machine and So You Think You Can Dance), theater (Iphigenia in Aulis at the Second Stage Company, dir. Rachel Chavkin and The Wild Party at the City Center, dir. Leigh Silverman), and concert tours (among many others, for Madonna and Cirque du Soleil.) As a performer, she was featured in The MTV Video Music Awards, The Jimmy Fallon Show, Comedy Central's The Comedy Awards, and in The Rolling Stones' 50th Anniversary Tour. Her appearances in the modern dance pieces by top contemporary choreographers include leads in the works by Sonya Tayeh and Kyle Abraham | Abraham.in.Motion.) Freeman is an internationally recognized educator who has been teaching across the U.S. at Revive Dance Convention, The Dance Sessions, and Wintermove Dance Intensive in her native town of Star, Idaho. She also frequently appears as a guest/master teacher at Peridance Capezio Center in NYC. www.freemovedance.com

Dani Markham (Composer) is a percussionist/drummer who has recently been recording and touring with such artists as indie-rock group Tune-Yards and the Grammy Award-winning Childish Gambino. Her Off-Broadway credits include a collaboration with the band The Bengsons as a original music cast member of the recent production of Hundred Days at New York Theatre Workshop. TV appearances include 2018 Grammy Awards, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night With Conan O'Brien, and Saturday Night Live, among others. A native of Louisville, KY, she holds a degree in Music Performance from the University of Miami's Frost School of Music.

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