THE RECEPTION World Premiere Begins Tonight at HERE

HERE presents the world premiere of The Reception, a HERE Resident Artist Production, as part of its 2016-2017 producing season. The Reception will have 10 performances, tonight, June 14, through June 24, at HERE (145 Sixth Avenue, just below Spring Street).

Created by Sean Donovan and Sebastián Calderón Bentin (Donovan & Calderón) in collaboration with the company, and co-directed by Sebastián Calderón Bentin and Sean Donovan, this new dance theater work is performed by Jane Comfort, Leslie Cuyjet, Sean Donovan, Hannah Heller and Ishmael Houston-Jones.

In Donovan & Calderón's latest work, The Reception, the audience is a voyeur at a lively social gathering. Popular music, fizzy drinks and friendly chatter hit the marks of a playful party, but something's not quite right. The Reception features a multigenerational company of accomplished performers in an intimate, surreal and suspenseful interplay, through a mix of written text and improvised speech and gestural, deliberate choreography. Surrealist cinema, in particular the works of Bunuel and Resnais, Antonioni, and Tati provided a palette of inspiration in the conception of the work. Bit by bit, The Reception depicts an uncanny cracking at the seams, as The Revelers contend with an increasingly unanchored world.

The Reception features Jane Comfort, Leslie Cuyjet, Sean Donovan, Hannah Heller and Ishmael Houston-Jones. Choreographed by Sean Donovan and Sebastián Calderón Bentin in collaboration with the company. Directed by Sebastián Calderón Bentin. This premiere of The Reception marks the culmination of Donovan & Calderón's residency in the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP).

The Reception features Set Design by NeAl Wilkinson, Lighting Design by Amanda K. Ringger, Sound Design by Brandon Wolcott and Tyler Kieffer, and Costume Design by Felix Ciprián.

Donovan & Calderón have been in collaboration for the past thirteen years. Previous works include Not Unclear at New York University (2003), Sublimate at the Galapagos Art Space (2006), their improvisational film, Copy/Edit (2007), and the site-specific bilingual piece, Se Vende (2008) at the FAE Festival in Panama. In 2008 they received a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council for the creation of Equator, which premiered at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange. In 2011 they were Artists-in-Residence at Stanford University where they created The Climate Chronicles, which premiered at The Incubator Arts Project in New York (November 2011). Their latest work, 18 ½ Minutes, was created through a residency at Stanford University (2012) and a Brooklyn Arts Exchange Space Grant (2013). 18 ½ Minutes premiered at JACK in Brooklyn in 2013. While Donovan & Calderón are longtime collaborators committed to creating original performance as artistic partners, they also make work with many other prestigious artists and companies such as Bessie Award-winning Faye Driscoll, Bessie Award winning Miguel Gutierrez, Obie Award-winning Builders Association, Witness Relocation, Goat Island, Every House Has a Door, Jane Comfort and Company, John Jesurun and others. Individually, Donovan and Calderón each hold a B.F.A. in Theater from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where each trained at the Experimental Theater Wing. Sebastian Calderón Bentín also holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Stanford University and is currently assistant professor in the Department of Drama at NYU.

The Reception plays June 14 - 24: Wednesday - Sunday at 8:30pm (June 14-18) and Tuesday - Saturday at 8:30pm (June 20-24). General admission tickets are $25.00. VIP Reserved Tickets: $45.00. Tickets can be purchased at www.here.org or by calling (212) 352-3101 or at the HERE Box Office (5PM until curtain on show days). For more, visit www.here.org.

The OBIE-winning HERE (Kristin Marting, Artistic Director and Kim Whitener, Producing Director), named a Top Ten Off-Off Broadway Theatre by Time Out New York, is a leader in the field of producing and presenting new, hybrid performance viewed as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines-theater, dance, music and opera, puppetry, media, visual and installation, spoken word and performance art. Standout productions include Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique and Arias with a Twist, Hazelle Goodman's On Edge, Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle's all wear bowlers, Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, Corey Dargel's Removable Parts, Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge, Kamala Sankaram's Miranda and Robin Frohardt's The Pigeoning, among many others. In 2008, following an extensive renovation, HERE re-opened the doors to its long-time downtown home for the arts, where it continues as a vibrant, welcoming haven for artists and audiences alike.

The HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) has been HERE's signature development and producing program since 1998. HARP commissions, develops and premieres new hybrid performances. Productions developed at HERE challenge existing boundaries between disciplines. Through HARP, the Resident Artists are given the unique opportunity to develop their projects for up to three years through free works-in-progress showings, workshop presentations in HERE's annual CULTUREMART festival, culminating in full-scale productions.

Each season, HERE premieres several of these Resident Artist productions as mainstage works. These innovative projects are grown in a diverse artistic community where artists receive career development resources and hands-on training. HARP has been widely recognized as a unique model for artistic development for the field to emulate. In honoring HERE with the 2009 Ross Wetzsteon Award, the OBIE Committee noted, "it's become increasingly hard for artists to find a place to take risks, a safe haven where they can develop daring new work. One theater has regularly bucked the trend, making its mission to ensure that artists have a home for their research and development, and that theatregoers can sample the exciting results."

HERE is also home to the cross-disciplinary productions of Artistic Director Kristin Marting. Currently in development is Assembled Identity featuring Purva Bedi and Mariana Newhard. Exploring ethnic ambiguity, race and identity, this duet uses original and found text, live cinematography, and contemporary music to explore the science of identity, including genomics, genetics, eugenics and cloning, all of which impact our culture.

HERE proudly hosts adventurous artists, companies and productions, whether emerging or acclaimed, through its SubletSeries. It also presents work from New York, across the country, and around the globe through the Dream Music Puppetry Program (co-curated with Basil Twist), and the acclaimed PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now festival of opera-theater and music-theater, co-produced with Beth Morrison Projects.

HERE's 2016-2017 Season launched with Ship of Fools, a Dream Music Puppetry Program production by Resident Artist Jessica Scott (October 12 - 22, 2016); and continued with Chiflón, El Silencio del Carbón, a Dream Music Puppetry presentation by Chile's Silencio Blanco (February 23 - 26, 2017). Most recently, HERE presented CasablancaBox, by Sara Farrington & Reid Farrington, which was nominated for a 2017 Drama Desk Award in the category of Unique Theatrical Experience. Up next is Dark Circus, a Dream Music Puppetry presentation by France's STEREOPTIK (May 30 - June 4, 2017). This production of The Reception, by Sean Donovan & Sebastián Calderón Bentin concludes HERE's 2016-2017 producing season. The season also included the two annual highlights, PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now (January 2017), the premier global festival of opera-theatre and music-theatre in New York City, co-produced by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE; and HERE's annual CULTUREMART Festival (March 2017).

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