Dance
Justine Lynch: Middle of Man
Melinda Ring: Hmmm…

Thursday-Saturday, April 23-25, 8pm
Tickets: $10

Curated by Dean Moss
Choreographers Justine Lynch and Melinda Ring each premiere a new dance work in this shared evening.

Lynch’s Middle of Man challenges the links between performance and healing through a kaleidoscopic merging of alchemy and movement. Employing a non-linear approach that connects her eccentric style of performance with the force and imagery of ritual, Middle of Man highlights individual performers while at the same time creating a collective, powerful, centripetal force. Choreography by Lynch, music composed by Tom McCauley and performed by McCauley and Gus Mergins, set and costume design by Johanna Burke and Lynch, production assistant Sarah Paulson, and lighting design by Roderick Murray. With performers: Laura Barnard, Finnian Barnard, Sigal Bergman, Burke, Paul DuBois, Stacey Gengo, Jessie Gold, Lynch, Mergins, Ansis Mergins, Anna Mergins, Paige Martin, McCauley, Holly Faurot, and Paulson.

Starting with what’s available — some generic dance movement, two nice-looking young women, some found stuff — Melinda Ring’s Hmmm… then proceeds to move the audience and performers further and further from common experiences into a disorienting atmosphere of questioning and uncertainty. Impulses, mistakes, attempts, and impossibilities from the dance-making process are accumulated, embedded into ever more disruptive versions of themselves towards eventual exquisite chaos. With performers Kimberly Hamlin, Inka Juslin, and Sari Nordman, and lighting designer Roderick Murray.

This program is made possible with generous support from Altria Group, Inc., The Greenwall Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Jerome Foundation, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

Hmmm… is also made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Lynch photo: Sarah Paulson (top); Ring photo: Jennifer Nelson (bottom)