CHEZ BUSHWICK PRESENTS:
An Evening Of Resident Artists, featuring new work by Jonah Bokaer and Moving Theater

PERFORMANCES
Friday, October 20th at 7:30pm
Saturday, October 21st at 7:30pm

ABRONS ARTS CENTER
466 Grand Street
New York, NY 10002

Chez Bushwick is pleased to present an evening of groundbreaking new dance and theater by its resident artists, Jonah Bokaer and Moving Theater. The performances will take place at the historic Harry Dejur Playhouse, of the Abrons Arts Center at The Henry Street Settlement, on October 20th & 21st, 2006 at 7:30 pm. General admission for the concert is $15.

TICKET INFORMATION
General admission: $15
Visit www.henrystreet.org/arts or www.theatermania.com or call 212-352-3101

Jonah Bokaer will present | underscore | – a multi-disciplinary performance designed for the unique architecture and acoustics of the venue. A three-channel video composition will be on view in the pulpit of the auditorium; four performers then deconstruct the NTSC videotapes, using the underlying celluloid to create a moving installation within the performance space. This installation – extracting movement from the internal materials of video – is also responsible for motion and sound, destabilizing the relationship between sculpture, movement, and music. The performers will dance in the installation for a twenty-five choreography, which has been designed by Bokaer using the digital tool DanceForms 1.0 software. Movement for the work has been created to plot the possibilities of the moving body within a built domain of digital media, creating a loss of continuity as the work progresses. Additionally, Bokaer has collaborated with the Collective Opera Company (under the direction of Ryan Tracy) to interpret an ancient piece of music (c. 2000 B.C.), to be performed live in Aramaic. This live soundscore will both accompany and disrupt the moving image, creating an “underscore” that accentuates visual perception of the moving body.

Fresh from its creative residency at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, Moving Theater will present Mass Particle No. 1, also designed specifically for the Henry Street Settlement. Co-directed by Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly, Mass Particles is a series of performances created by Moving Theater leading up to the company’s production of MASS in December 2007 in New York City. The complete work will involve 100 dancers set in part to Mozart’s Mass in C minor. The Mass Particles series is a research phase of the concepts behind the project—the collective versus the individual, devotion and sacrifice, the spectacle of mass movement, mass production, and in the case of Mass Particle No. 1, mass entertainment. Particle No. 1 combines the music of John Cage (Credo in US, 1942) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Overture to Cosi fan tutte, K. 588), played live (and on a radio). John Cage’s composition is played live by the International Contemporary Music Ensemble (ICE). ICE was founded in 2001, and has rapidly established itself as one of the leading new-music ensembles of its generation, winning first prize in the 2005 CMA/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming , and performing over forty concerts a year in the United States and abroad.

BIOGRAPHIES

Chez Bushwick is a celebrated artists performance cooperative founded Jonah Bokaer in 2002. Guided and operated by artists, Chez Bushwick is dedicated to fostering the research, development, and presentation of new dance and performance works. The organization has succeeded in developing the most inexpensive artists subsidy program in New York State, and advocates towards economic justice for the performing arts. Chez Bushwick also produces programs of contemporary dance, music, performance, video art, and related forms, and is often renowned for its progressive arts programming. Funding for Chez Bushwick has been received by Dance Theater Workshop, The Department of Cultural Affairs, The Brooklyn Arts Council, 2wice Arts Foundation, and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and numerous individuals.

Jonah Bokaer is a dance and media artist based in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and is a native of Ithaca, New York. A graduate of North Carolina School of the Arts, Bokaer is a current member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (2000-present), has worked with John Jasperse (2004-2005) and David Gordon (2005-2006), and has also interpreted the choreography of George Balanchine as restaged by Melissa Hayden. While studying Visual & Media Art at The New School University, Bokaer began exploring digital media to produce movement, and has developed a unique, multi-disciplinary body of work that addresses the human body in relation to contemporary technologies. He has been presented widely throughout venues in the United States and abroad, including Dance Theatre Workshop, Danspace Project/St. Mark’s Church, Dixon Place, La Mama ETC, P.S. 122, Symphony Space, The Laban Centre (London), the ISB (Bangkok), Naxous Bobine (Paris), and OT301 (Amsterdam), among others. Bokaer is also the recipient of a National Human Rights Award (Public Volunteerism, 2000), and an award from the Foundation For Contemporary Arts (Dance & Media, 2005-2006). His writings have been published in Artwurl, The American Society for Alexander Teachers, DIAL Magazine, Goldrush Dance Magazine, and the Movement Research Performance Journal. Additionally, Bokaer is the founder of an interdisciplinary arts studio called “Chez Bushwick,” which provides subsidized rehearsal rental, and a home for challenging, experimental work in New York. Chez Bushwick is a collaborative arts center that has succeeded in establishing the cheapest rehearsal space for artists in the New York area, and has been subsidized by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Dance Theatre Workshop’s Outer/Space Fund, and the generous support of numerous individuals. The independently-produced salon at Chez Bushwick, known as “SHTUDIO SHOW,” was recently nominated for the 2nd Annual Ethyl Eicherberger Award from P.S. 122.

Moving Theater is a performance group committed to interdisciplinary collaboration, formal experimentation, and the convergence/collision of dance and theater. Founded by Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly in 2002, Moving Theater has created five original productions. From Without, an evening-length dance/theater work on the explosive encounter of Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, to Sixty, an hour-long directed improvisation, these projects share an unconventional dramaturgy, a fierce commitment to performer/creator collaboration, and a basis in movement research. Moving Theater has performed these works on stages in New York City (Dance New Amsterdam, Works & Process Series at the Guggenheim Museum, Joyce SoHo, Mazer Theater), Montreal, Boston, East Hampton, and at Jacob’s Pillow, as well as in non-traditional spaces ranging from an abandoned glue factory in Hudson, NY, to a coffee emporium in SoHo. Moving Theater develops projects through immersive and intensive periods of collaboration, sometimes bringing artists outside of the city. The company has completed residencies at the Old American Can Factory in Brooklyn (2005); the Morriss Center Dance Institute in East Hampton, NY (2004), and in Hudson, NY (2003). Moving Theater is in currently in residence at the Watermill Center. As of August 2006, Moving Theater is the company-in-residence at Chez Bushwick. More information at www.movingtheater.org.

ABOUT THE ABRONS ARTS CENTER

The Henry Street Settlement’s Abrons Art Center, located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, is an expansive, one-block facility, which is home to three theaters, one outdoor amphitheater, galleries, and dance and art studios. The Playhouse – the Center’s national landmark built by Harry C. Ingalss and F. Burral Hoffman, Jr.—opened in 1915 with the aim to enrich the lives of local residents by offering them a neighborhood playhouse. The 350-seat original design accommodated showing of both silent films and live shows, and has housed performances by Ethel Barrymore, James Cagney, George Burns, Fred Astaire, Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Dizzy Gillespie, and Buddy Rich. In 1938 it was the setting for the premiere of Aaron Copeland’s opera, The Second Hurricane, starring Eartha Kitt and directed by Orson Welles. Today, under the new directorship of Jay Wegman, the Abrons Arts Center is re-establishing itself as a prime venue for New York’s avant garde, offering new, bold and experimental programs in dance, music and theater.

CREDITS

| underscore |

Choreography, Costumes, Digital Media, Direction and Set: Jonah Bokaer
Performance: Jonah Bokaer, Banu Ogan, Davon Rainey, Liz Sargent
Music: Collective Opera Company, Adriana Chavez, Jon Pratt, Ryan Tracy (Dir), Paula White
Video Footage Shot On Location In: Budapest, Rome, Modena, Grenoble, Paris, Brooklyn

Mass Particle No. 1 (work in progress)
Choreographed & directed by Brennan Gerard & Ryan Kelly
Created & performed by Jonathan Drillet, Benjamin Evans, Danny Gittelman, Thea Little, Emilio Martinez-Lopez, Hadley B Nunes, Ashley Searles, Elyse Sparkes & Natalie Thomas
Music by John Cage & Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Live music performed by ICE | International Contemporary Ensemble
Lighting design by Marcus Doshi
Scenographic collaboration by Josef Asteinza
Costume collaboration by Camille Assaf

DIRECTIONS TO ABRONS ARTS CENTER

SUBWAY: F to East Broadway or Delancey (at Essex)
D, B, to Grand
J, M, Z to Essex

BUS: M15, M14, M9 to Grand Street
M22 to Montgomery Street
B39 to Essex

CAR: Take FDR Drive southbound and exit at Grand St. Northbound FDR must take Houston St exit

PARKING: Parking lots are available on Suffolk Street between Broome and Delancey; and East Broadway and Clinton Streets.