Date: September 17
Time: 7.30 pm
Price: 160 :-
Supporting members: 120 :-
Student/Senior/u 26 years: 80 :-
The sound volume in the performance is intended for people over 12 years.
– A TRIBUTE TO STEVE PAXTON AND ART OF IMPROVISATION
Performing Underscore is a celebration of the lineage of improvisation as a rigorous way of practicing dance and life. Practice as performance. An exhibition of a practice.
In our second iteration of Performing Underscore we will meet pioneering dance artists with a dedication to improvisation as a dance practice, philosophy and way of living life.
Performing Underscore is a choreography of unpredictability, intimacy, risk-taking, collectivity and autonomy. Unrehearsed, the choreography lives in the excitement that neither audience nor performers knows what will happen next. You will witness and follow the dancer’s journey of making instant choices through careful listening and deep trust. Through each choice the dancer’s personal world as well as their dance history unfolds in front of you.
We ask questions through our moving tissues and practice dance as a critical investigation of human behavior. Dance as philosophy. “How does language influence how we move through the world, and how can movement influence how we use our language?” – Lisa Nelson and Steve Paxton
We stand on the shoulders of those who were here before us. During the last five years pioneers of somatic and improvisational methods within dance have passed away, such as Nancy Stark Smith, Joan Skinner, Trisha Brown, Anna Halprin, Mary Overlie and Steve Paxton most recently in February 2024. How do we archive embodied knowledge to continue sharing it? Dancers are living moving archives. This performance is a celebration of those who live within us through our dancing, as well as the embodied knowledge within improvisation.
The structure of Performing Underscore was originally inspired by the score Underscore by Nancy Stark Smith, a series of instructions that can be used while improvising in a contact improvisation jam.