David Gordon's Live ARCHIVEOGRAPHY Premieres at ODC Theater

ODC Theater is proud to present David Gordon and Pick Up Performance Co(s) in the world premiere of LIVE ARCHIVEOGRAPHY, a retrospective tracing five decades of the legendary theater and dance artist's work. Live Archiveography runs April 20 -22, Thursday to Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30 - $35, and may be purchased online at odc.dance/tickets or by phone at 415.863.9834.

Since 2011, Gordon, a founding member of the postmodern collective Judson Dance Theater, has been assembling and annotating his 50-plus year archive on invitation from the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, a project he calls Archiveography. Live Archiveography is the evening-length performance component of the collection.

The event includes scripted storytelling interlaced with projected collage and live performances by founding company member Valda Setterfield, Gordon's wife, with Karen Graham and Scott Cunningham, who joined the company in 1986. In Live Archiveography Gordon reexamines the artifacts of his history to the present in an attempt to demystify the relationship between an artist's life and work.

Gordon's relationship with ODC goes back more than 40 years. His last visit to the Bay Area was hosted by ODC in 2007 for the touring production of his critically acclaimed Dancing Henry Five, but Gordon first met and worked with ODC's Brenda Way, KT Nelson and Kimi Okada while they were participating in the national dance and performance revolution at Oberlin College in the 1970s.

"Those who think postmodern dance sounds about as fun as a root canal need to get themselves to ODC Theater to see...David Gordon's 'Dancing Henry Five.' Yes, those Judson Church rebels of 1960s New York could be an ascetic, left-brained bunch ("No to spectacle!" Yvonne Rainer famously railed), but Gordon was always one of their wittiest members, and his delight in the simple magic of theater is fresh as ever." - Rachel Howard, San Francisco Chronicle

While ODC has the honor to present the premiere of Live Archiveography, Gordon is quick to note that his oeuvre prefers not to acknowledge premieres. His works are always in process: "everything is new and used," he says. From ODC, Live Archiveography will travel to The Kitchen in New York for performances from June 1 - 3.

For more information, visit odc.dance/davidgordon.

Live Archiveography was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

ABOUT David Gordon

From his beginning as a founding artist of the seminal Judson Dance Theater and the improvisational Grand Union, David Gordon purposefully examined, expanded and torpedoed conventional lines between theater and dance, and pioneered the use of text and textual narrative in movement work. He presaged his later writing and directing for the stage and predated the live theater form that became known as "performance art." His dual status as movement artist and theater artist was acknowledged when he was awarded a Pew Charitable Trust National Dance ResidenCy Grant and a National Theater ResidenCy Grant in successive years. In the last decade he has received three NEA American Masterpiece Grant Awards and a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award.

Commissions for directing or choreographing include: Actors Studio, American Ballet Theatre, American Conservatory Theater, American Repertory Theater, Barbican (London), BBC UK, Channel 4 UK, London Dance Umbrella, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Guthrie Theater, Joyce Theater, The Kitchen, PBS series Alive from Off Center, Mark Taper Forum, New York Theatre Workshop, On The Boards (Seattle, WA), PBS Great Performances, Serious Fun @ Lincoln Center, Spoleto USA, Theatre For a New Audience, Walker Art Center, White Oak Dance Project. Specific information can be found on the website component of Gordon's Archiveography project at davidgordon.nyc.

ABOUT PICK UP PERFORMANCE CO(s)

Founded in 1971 and incorporated in 1978 as Pick Up Performance Co., Inc. to facilitate projects by David Gordon, the company was expanded in 1992 to include projects by Ain Gordon and renamed Pick Up Performance Co(s) in recognition of its dual father-son leadership with independent projects by each. PUPCos continues to be artist-led with multi-generational New York City roots supporting the wide-roaming interests of both artists in dance, theater, media, social practice and the fusing of disciplines. This work manifests annually in both New York City and nationally. For 46 years PUPCos has charted a personal aesthetic path.

ABOUT ODC THEATER

ODC Theater participates in the creation of new works through commissioning, presenting, mentorship and space access; it develops informed, engaged and committed audiences; and it advocates for the performing arts as an essential component to the region's economic and cultural development. The Theater is the site of over 120 performances a year involving nearly 1,000 local, regional, national and International Artists.

Since 1976, ODC Theater has been the mobilizing force behind countless San Francisco artists and the foothold for national and international touring artists seeking debut in the Bay Area. The Theater, founded by Brenda Way and currently under the direction of Julie Potter, has earned its place as a cultural incubator by dedicating itself to creative change-makers, those leaders who give the Bay Area its unmistakable definition and flare. Nationally known artists Spaulding Gray, Diamanda Galas, Bill T. Jones, Eiko & Koma, Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, Karole Armitage, Sarah Michelson, Brian Brooks and John Heginbotham are among those whose first San Francisco appearance occurred at ODC Theater. For more information about ODC Theater and all its programs visit odc.dance.

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