CHUNKY MOVE
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THE JOYCE THEATER FOUNDATION
PRESENTS
CHUNKY MOVE
AUSTRALIAN-BASED COMPANY PRESENTS NY PREMIERE OF
CONNECTED
NOVEMBER 2 – 6, 2011
The Joyce Theater Foundation is
proud to present the Australian-based dance company Chunky Move performing the New York premiere of Connected,
a full-evening length work, from Wednesday, November 2 – Sunday, November 6. Tickets for this week-long engagement
are $10-$49 ($26 - $37 for Joyce Members) and are available through JoyceCharge
at www.Joyce.org or by calling 212-242-0800. Please note: ticket prices are subject to change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175
Eighth Avenue at 19th Street, in Chelsea.
Bucking the current trend of integrating digital
media, projections and motion tracking into modern dance, the Australian-based Chunky
Move has created Connected, a full-evening length piece that
marries human strength and art with precise, simple mechanics.
Choreographer Gideon Obarzanek (Chunky Move founder), in collaboration
with California artist Reuben Margolin, combines bodies and machine
through physical connection between the dancers and Margolin’s startlingly
live, kinetic sculpture. Reuben’s sculptural works – made
from wood, recycled plastic, paper and steel, and suspended by hundreds of fine
strings receiving reacting to multiple camshafts and wheels – come
beautifully to life once set into motion, in a smooth, wavelike flow.
Athletic and agile dancers’ bodies twist and hurtle throughout Connected,
interacting with hundreds of tiny pieces. Their performance builds while
they simultaneously construct the sculpture in real time right there on
The Joyce’s stage. Eventually, the voice of a museum security guard,
telling the true story of a stolen work or art, is heard and the piece suddenly
becomes less abstract as the audience begins to discover the connection between
what’s happening on stage and the story being told.
Chunky Move, performing the highly anticipated New York premiere of Connected,
will run at The Joyce Theater from November 2 – 6 as follows: Wednesday
at 7:30pm; Thursday – Friday at 8pm; Saturday 2pm & 8pm; Sunday 2pm
& 7:30pm. This enlightening discussion is open to all patrons attending that
evening’s performance. Tickets
range in price from $10-$59 ($26 - $44 for Joyce Members) and are available
through JoyceCharge at www.Joyce.org or by calling 212-242-0800. Please note: Tickets prices are subject
change. The Joyce Theater is
located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street, in Chelsea.
# # #
About Chunky Move
Founded by Artistic Director Gideon
Obarzanek in 1995, Chunky Move has earned an enviable reputation for producing
a distinct yet unpredictable brand of genre-defying dance performance.
Chunky Move’s work constantly seeks to
redefine what is or what can be contemporary dance within an ever-evolving Australian
culture. The company’s work is both diverse in form and content; to date the
company has created a number of works for the stage, site specific, new-media
and installation work.
Chunky Move’s multi-tiered programming
initiatives foster and support a strong and vibrant dance culture in its home
city of Melbourne and also creates critically acclaimed and popular larger
productions for touring. Recent cities toured include: New York, Hong Kong,
Beirut and Barcelona.
In 2008 Chunky Move received Best Dance
Work for Glow and Best
Visual or Physical Theatre Production for Mortal Engine at the Live Performance Australia Helpmann
Awards. In 2009, Mortal Engine received
an Honorary Mention in the Prix Ars Electronica awards in the Hybrid Arts
category.
About Reuben Margolin
Reuben was raised in Berkeley,
California. A love of math and physics propelled him to Harvard, where he
changed paths and completed a degree in English. He then went on to study
traditional painting in Italy and Russia. In 1999 he became obsessed with the
movement of a little green caterpillar, and set out to make wave-like
sculptures. In 2004 he moved to his current studio in Emeryville and began
making a series of large-scale undulating installations that attempt to combine
the logic of mathematics with the sensuousness of nature. He has since made
about ten of these mechanical mobiles and shown them internationally. He also
makes pedal-powered rickshaws and has collaborated on a couple of large-scale
pedalpowered vehicles.
About The Joyce Theater Foundation
The Joyce Theater Foundation, a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance
community and its audiences for three decades. The founders, Cora Cahan and
Eliot Feld, acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea, which opened
as The Joyce Theater in 1982. The Joyce Theater is named in honor of Joyce
Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther’s clear,
undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately
possible to build the theater. One of the only theaters built by dancers for
dance, The Joyce Theater has provided an intimate and elegant home for more
than 320 domestic and international companies. The Joyce has also commissioned
more than 130 new dances since 1992. In 1996, The Joyce created Joyce
SoHo, a dance center providing highly subsidized rehearsal and performance
space to hundreds of dance artists, as well as special residency opportunities
for selected choreographers to support the creation of new work. In 2009, The
Joyce opened Dance Art New York (DANY) Studios to provide affordable studios
for rehearsals, auditions, classes, and workshops for independent
choreographers, non-profit dance companies, and the dance/theater
communities. New York City public school students and teachers annually
benefit from The Joyce’s Dance Education Program, and adult audiences get
closer to dance through informative Dance Talks, Joyce Pre-Show gatherings, and
post-performance Dance Chat discussions. The Joyce Theater now features an
annual season of approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for
audiences in excess of 135,000.
# # #
Leadership support for The Joyce
Theater’s 2011–2012 season has been received from the LuEsther T. Mertz
Charitable Trust.
Lead support for
accessible and inclusive programming provided by MetLife Foundation.
This presentation
is supported by The R. Britton Fisher and Family Gift for International Dance;
and funded in part by the National Dance Project of
the New England Foundation for the Arts. NDP is supported by lead funding
from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, with additional funding from the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife
Foundation, and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust.
Additional support for this engagement
was provided with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts; the
New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong,
creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties; and the New York City
Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; and with
private funds from the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund to encourage
the performances of out-of-town companies at The Joyce Theater.
Major support for The Joyce has been provided by Alphawood Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, First Republic Bank, The Hearst Foundations, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Open Society Foundations and the Fund for the City of New York, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, and The Shubert Foundation.