Contours takes off from and responds to the installation Electric Shadows by Gibson + Recoder. The dancing wends its way in and around Gibson + Recoder’s enticing riffs on light, dark, and the hum of wire-power. Avoiding literalness, Dunn’s choreography embodies themes aroused by the sinuousness of cords, the mysterious power within them, and illumination’s dominion over appearance and disappearance. Music by Steven Taylor. This performance will take place on Friday, September 29th, at 8:00pm at MAB. Runtime is approximately one hour. It is free to the public.
Vain Combat is a street dance that Douglas Dunn + Dancers have been performing since 2010. Dunn describes the work: “Trying for something rougher than my indoor work, I made the street dance Vain Combat in 2010. The word Vain was meant to mean both arrogant and futile. No irony. From past experience I knew the difficulty of grabbing the attention of New Yorkers in their daily rounds. I allowed simple configurations and welcomed unison. The piece has been performed many times all around the boroughs over the last seven years. There are fifteen sections, well over an hour of material. The dancers get together before a foray and settle on a score for the day. We behave as a guerrilla force, entering public and private spaces without permission. Sometimes we are stopped and driven away. We are dedicating September 2017 to this dance.” This performance will take place rain or shine on Saturday, September 30th, starting outside at the lot located at 140 South Front Street in Milton, PA. The audience will follow the dancers as they traverse the downtown streets of Milton, PA. Music by Steven Taylor. Runtime is approximately one hour. It is free to the public.
Douglas Dunn has been dancing and making dances for forty-six years. In order to offer a multifaceted theatrical experience, he collaborates with poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, composers and playwrights. He has set pieces for many companies besides his own, including the Paris Opera Ballet, and has composed numerous outdoor and site-specific events. He is renowned as a teacher of Technique and of Open Structures, with a long tenure at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Awards include a Guggenheim, a Bessie, and Chevalier in the Ordres desArts et des Lettres. Douglas produces Salons at his studio in Soho, and is a Board Member Emeritus of Danspace Project. His collected writings, Dancer Out of Sight, are available at Amazon.com. More information can be found at DouglasDunnDance.com.
Steven Taylor collaborated on poetry and music works with Allen Ginsberg for twenty years. He plays with the Fugs. He holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from Brown University. From 1995 to 2008 he taught in the Writing & Poetics and Interarts programs at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and since 2011, has taught at the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University. In 2014 he collaborated with Douglas Dunn, Charles Atlas, and Anne Waldman on Aubade and was nominated for a New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award for that work.