An up close look at Pentacle’s Gallery artists Keith A. Thompson, Indah Walsh, Erin Carlisle Norton, and Marisa Gruneberg.
danceTactics performance group (c) Gerry Goodstein
Keith A. Thompson/danceTactics performance group
Keith A. Thompson, former dancer/rehearsal assistant for Trisha Brown and current dancer/rehearsal director for Liz Lerman, has capitalized on his dance career to travel worldwide. After years spent abroad and stateside, Thompson established danceTactics performance group in October 2005 with the vision to inquire how movement can communicate to audiences on its own by intentionally seeking out new challenges in movement investigation.
With this as their mission, Thompson and the company have taken a literal leap to the west to invigorate their practice. Thompson was drawn to Montana to inspire the first “section” of his latest on-going work, 9th Rib. Montana’s sprawling expanse juxtaposed to the company’s New York City home base helped Thompson conjure questions related to environment, origins, and home as a jumping off point. By engaging the community in Butte to participate in the creation of 9th Rib, the work is rich in dance, music, theater, and experience. As a company hailed by The New York Times as “so exhilarating [in the] choreography’s simplicity and directness,” each iteration of 9th Rib, in collaboration with Performer / Creative Producer Tamara Pullman (Montana & California) and Composer Maesa Pullman (California), will undoubtedly discover how “home” brings us all together.
Indah Walsh Dance Company (c) Tisch Dance and New Media
Indah Walsh/Indah Walsh Dance Company
Indah Walsh Dance Company (directed by Indah Walsh) is an intensely collaborative group. As a result, each piece presents a unique idea that ranges in both movement and theme. Walsh explains “In some works, performers can be seen brushing teeth (not necessarily their own), fighting over pasta and meatballs, crying, yelling, sneezing, laughing … [while] other works paint haunting scenarios with dancers creepily circling like predators in and out of light.” From silly to serious, dramatic to delightful, Walsh’s willingness to explore all aspects of what dance can express has allowed her to capture a wide audience range.
Her last collaboration derived from a residency at The Watermill Center in Water Mill, NY, where Walsh had the opportunity to collaborate with Lisa Ross, a New York City-based visual artist, renowned Uyghur musician Perhat Khaliq, and traditional Uyghur dancer Mukaddas Mijit. Together, they created a live performance in dialogue with Ross’s RISE, a video 10 years in the making capturing Ross’s experiences in the Xinjiang region of China.
Next up for Walsh and company is homespun (please remove your shoes) at the Jack Crystal Theater in NYC. The performance will begin at 7:30pm on June 10th and encourages you to come hungry and bring your friends. RSVP Here.
The Moving Architects (c) Rachel Neville
Erin Carlisle Norton/The Moving Architects
Erin Carlisle Norton, artistic director and choreographer of The Moving Architects, channels research of places, structures, their histories, and associated cultural transformations into choreography, exploring the embodiment of past and distant spaces in the heightened presence of live performance. Influenced by her training in Laban, Gaga, and modern and postmodern studies, Norton creates highly visual performances that blend technical precision with subtly nuanced movement.
This is no exception for Americana, The Moving Architects most recent creation. Premiered in March at Triskelion Arts, Americana looks to the iconic images and interpersonal struggles of the migrating American family through the Midwest during the Great Depression era. Norton takes a particular gaze at the role of woman during these tough times, exploring the spaces between gentleness and true grit. The Moving Architects will be performing excerpts from Americana at the Montclair Art Museum on June 2nd as part of the Free First Thursday Nights program. Click HERE for more information.
white road Dance Media (c) RockPaper
Marisa Gruneberg/white road Dance Media
white road Dance Media (wrDM), a Brooklyn-based dance company led by artistic director, Marisa Gruneberg, has set its mission to create dance work that is “intellectual, accessible, and artistically refined” by exploring the relationship between technology and movement, blending live performance with moving images. Their latest and on-going series, The Virginia Suite, urges the audience to take part in this process. By clicking HERE you can “get your piece” of wrDM’s latest installment of their series. As described on their site:
“By inputting your email address on this website, you become a part of The Virginia Suite, and the exclusive caretaker of the 3 to 15 second film tessera (video piece) that is sent to you free of charge. Some tesserae are more specific than others, and all are part of an abstract narrative. These video pieces, like the tesserae of a mosaic, are each and all originals, and are each and all part of a longer linear whole. Each tessera is connected to another. Someone will have a piece that follows yours, somewhere in the world.”
It is up to you what you do next with your piece, perhaps watching it and deleting it, sending it to a friend, or even creating your own artwork as influenced by your tesserae. If you are curious to see how this amalgamates, The Virginia Suite will premiere as an evening length production in New York City in December 2016.