Pace University Presents NYC Debut of Motionhouse's SCATTERED, 2/12-13
By: BWW News Desk Feb. 12, 2013
After four highly successful tours to venues across the United Kingdom plus performances in Macau, Romania, Belgium and Portugal, the critically acclaimed dance-theatre company Motionhouse comes to North America for the first time with Scattered at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts in New York City.
Scattered, directed by Motionhouse's visionary Artistic Director Kevin Finnan, combines Motionhouse's trademark highly physical dance theatre and mesmerizing imagery in a unique interaction between film and live performance, created in collaboration with filmmakers Logela Multimedia from the Basque region of Spain.
Scattered explores our relationship with water and how it surrounds us in different forms throughout our lives: in birth water ties us to life and on a more elemental scale, while in ice, floods and tides, it can sweep lives away. Scattered delves into both the majesty and savagery of water, a fundamental force in our lives as seven dancers plunge into an ocean, wrestle a raging tide and slide on an avalanche to a frozen landscape of arctic beauty.
Performed on a huge curved floor that disappears skywards, Scattered uses projection technology, daring dancing, plus aerial harnesses and bungees to create an extraordinary world in which the dancers move seamlessly in, on, and through the image. The performers are at one moment on the stage then suddenly sprinting up the upstage curved wall (think half pipe snowboard or skate ramp), immersing themselves in sensational images of cascading waterfalls, rainstorms and swimming pools. They hang, suspended over a frozen landscape of arctic beauty at the very top of the curve before diving onto the stage through the ice floes and frozen waters; they hurl themselves into tidal waves, they stride up projected escalators, they fling themselves onto projected deckchairs and they catch, throw and hold each other in impossible embraces.
Motionhouse Artistic Director Kevin Finnan said, "We create startling, passionate dance theatre. Our productions are designed to challenge as well as delight our audiences and they fuse images with action and dynamism. Our performances are rooted in dance but draw on theatre, circus, acrobatics and film to create works that make audience members think and feel. We pride ourselves on producing shows of outstanding quality that are accessible and enjoyable for all."
Scattered is performed on and within an extraordinary set created just for this production, designed by long-term collaborator Simon Dormon, with an original music score by Sophy Smith and Tim Dickinson and lighting design by Natasha Chivers. Scattered is performed by Jade Barton, Claire Benson, Martina Bussi, Giorgio de Carolis, Daniel Connor, Junior Cunningham (Rehearsal Director), Anthony Middleton, Alasdair Stewart and Rebecca Williams.
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Kevin Finnan and Louise Richards founded Motionhouse in 1988. Their company has since become one of the leading dance theatre companies in the UK making their work locally, touring their work globally. Since its launch, the company has toured eighteen full-scale productions, built up a formidable educational program for schools and colleges across the UK, trained dozens of dancers, pushed contemporary dance into the aerial arena by combining choreography with sling and bungee skills, and developed large-scale site-specific dance spectacles with increasing ambition and shorter festival pieces for performance in a wide range of public places and spaces.
They tour their productions to theatres and festivals throughout the world. They have developed a reputation over the years for ambitious experimentation and their productions, in which setting, action and context collide, have become world-renowned. A wide ranging education and participatory program runs parallel to their touring performances. They have won the 'Audience Prize' at both the Critics' Circle National Dance Awards in the UK and at the MiramirO Festival in Belgium. Recent company milestones include: The Voyage, a spectacular outdoor event with a cast of hundreds for the London 2012 Festival which celebrated the Olympic and Paralympic Games, international touring of Scattered, European touring of festival piecesUnderground and Cascade, the addition of Traction and Waiting Game to their touring repertoire, the development of a new outdoor piece Captive, R&D for a new production Broken, and Finnan's appointment as Choreographer and Movement Director for the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, which was witnessed by a world-wide audience of 1 billion.
Artistic Director Kevin Finnan, together with Louise Richards, founded Motionhouse in 1988. As Artistic Director of Motionhouse he has created, either alone or in collaboration with Louise, each of the company's major touring productions, numbering eighteen full-length works to date as well as his smaller festival works which have taken street festivals by storm over the last few years. Kevin also undertakes commissions and projects for other companies and agencies. In 1998 he founded 'Fierce' performance company, and in 2000 created the critically acclaimed True - a performance event for the Tramway, Glasgow, in collaboration with writer A. L. Kennedy and installation artist Rosa Sanchez.
In addition to Kevin's work with Motionhouse and Fierce, credits include: Mamu [1994] for Headlines Theatre Company, Vancouver; Transform [1996] for Copenhagen European City of Culture celebrations; Peter Pan [1997] for TAG Theatre Company, Glasgow; two commissions for Blue Eyed Soul in 1998 and 2000; Taking Flight for Gravity and Levity in 2005; and Shift for Gravity and Levity in 2008.
Kevin is passionate about exploring and exploding the traditional use of space in performance and has a history of creating extraordinary dance spectacles including the acclaimed Machine Dance for JCB diggers and dancers. In 2012 he created The Voyage for the London 2012 Festival - an enormous outdoor performance event performed on a life-size ship in the center of Birmingham and made in collaboration with Legs On The Wall from Australia. Kevin has been commissioned to make work for numerous other companies in the UK and further afield and also been invited to create bespoke performances to celebrate cultural capital celebrations in Copenhagen and Marseille-Provence. He was also Choreographer and Director of Movement for the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
He has an MA in Contemporary Performing Arts from University College Bretton Hall, and a PhD in Theatre from Warwick University.
Executive Director Louise Richards is co-founding Director of Motionhouse. Together with Kevin Finnan, she was co-Artistic Director of the company for eleven years until, in 1998, she moved into her current Executive Director role.
In addition to her role as choreographer and Co-Artistic Director for the company, Louise achieved a number of independent commissions for other companies and also danced as a member of the Motionhouse performing company until 1996. Louise has always played a key role in the development and delivery of Motionhouse's artistic vision. As a co-author of the company's movement style she continues to teach on a regular basis, offering inspirational dance training to dancers, students, teachers and practitioners both in the UK and beyond including, most recently, master classes at the School of Contemporary Dance in Irkutsk, Siberia. Louise is instrumental in producing all aspects of the company's extensive program and is responsible for strategic direction, business planning and management, and program booking.
Louise is regularly invited to attend and speak at seminars and conferences. Committed to the development of the sector, she also acts as a mentor for young performers and smaller organisations, as well as developing a range of apprenticeships and professional development strands to the Motionhouse programme. She is currently on the management group for Mimbre and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Ticket prices for Scattered at The Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University range from $30 to $55. $5 Student rush tickets available day of performance with valid student ID. The performance will take place tonight, Febuary 12 & 13, 7:30PM.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit http://schimmel.pace.edu or call toll-free (866) 811-4111. Pace Presents performances take place at The Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts located at 3 Spruce Street between Park Row and Gold Street in downtown Manhattan.
Located one block east of City Hall and immediately adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge, The Schimmel Center's 670-seat theatre regularly hosts academic and community events in addition to its yearly schedule of the world's finest music, theatre and dance. Over the past twelve years, The Schimmel Center has served as a founding venue for The River-to-River Festival (2002), hosted both The Tribeca Film Festival and The Tribeca Theatre Festival (2001), provided a headquarters for The National Actors Theatre (2002 to 2004), presented the only Democratic Presidential Debate to present all ten candidates for the 2004 election, and actively hosts James Lipton's award-winning Bravo series Inside The Actors Studio, taped on the Schimmel Theatre's stage since 2005.
For more than 100 years, Pace University has helped prepare students to become leaders in their fields by providing an education that combines exceptional academics with professional experience. Pace has three campuses in New York City, Westchester and White Plains. A private metropolitan university, Pace enrolls approximately 13,500 students in bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs in the Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, via its rapidly growing Performing Arts Department, Lienhard School of Nursing, Lubin School of Business, School of Education, Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems and School of Law.
Photo Credit: Patrick BaldwinComments
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