The Chocolate Factory Theater to Present Premiere of A CHILD RETIRES, a New Performance by Tess Dworman

A Child Retires emboldens artifact and artifice to reference, in Tess Dworman's words, "the collapse of my own maturation as an artist". The work includes her mother's old t-shirt (costume), a tote bag (prop), and a soundtrack of The Beach Boys rehearsing Good Vibrations. Stand-up comedy, memoir, performance art and Irish Step dancing abide by lines of faulty reasoning as the piece accumulates a world of fiction that becomes indistinguishable from reality. Real and imagined figures blend together upending thought patterns and expectations. The spontaneous yet determinant nature of the piece reflects the process of thinking something through, changing your mind and grappling with the consequences.

Created by Tess Dworman. Performed by Tess Dworman, Doug LeCours, Tingying Ma and Alex Rodabaugh. Lighting Design by LD DeArmon.

Tess Dworman is a Brooklyn-based choreographer and performer originally from Oak Park, IL. She studied at the Laban Centre in London and graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BFA in Dance. In New York, her work has been presented by AUNTS, Center for Performance Research, Catch, Dixon Place, Danspace Project, Movement Research at the Judson Church, New York Live Arts, and PS122. She has been an artist in residence at Links Hall, Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance Center, PS122, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Dworman has an ongoing teaching practice with Laurel Atwell that operates under the moniker WellMan. Within this practice, Atwell and Dworman offer classes in qi gong and meditation as a means of integrating wellness with artistry. As a performer, Dworman has had the pleasure of performing in the work of niv Acosta, Laurel Atwell, Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, Kim Brandt, Yanira Castro, Moriah Evans, Julie Mayo, Sam Kim, Tere O'Connor, Marissa Perel, Mariana Valencia, and Juliana May. tessdworman.com

The Chocolate Factory Theater exists to encourage and support artists in their process of inquiry. We engage specifically with a community of artists who challenge themselves and, in doing so, challenge us. We believe that by supporting the labor of these artists, we contribute to elevating New York City as a thriving and more equitable wellspring of ideas. The Chocolate Factory embraces artistic practice as an integral part of the artist's whole life, an essential component of the life of our community and a key element of a larger national and international artistic dialogue. As such, we host artists as our equal partners with shared autonomy, trust and appreciation. While we seek to make big ideas and extended relationships possible, we commit to working at a small, intimate and personal scale, with few artistic compromises or boundaries. We achieve all of this by creating a vessel for artistic experimentation through a residency package serving the whole artist - salary, space, responsive and flexible support for the development of new work from inspiration to presentation.

For more information visit: chocolatefactorytheater.org

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