30 or 120-min. cycles
Premiere:
Julian Schnabel's Casa del Popolo (NYC), 2014
Adaptations:
Armory Arts Week (NYC), 2015
Arts on Site (NYC), 2023
National Academy of the Performing Arts (TT), 2023
Co-Prosperity Galleries (CHI), 2024
Sage Chapel Crypt (ITH), 2024
Choreography & Direction:
Danielle Russo
Performance:
Alexander Anderson
Jason Collins
Kayla Farrish
Maxwell Perkins
Danielle Russo
Kevin Shannon
Joshua Stansbury
Jaruam Xavier
Film:
Mary John Frank
Angelo Vasta
Photography:
Whitney Browne
Steven Schreiber
Created courtesy of Springboard Danse Montréal Professional Project. Special thanks to James Morrow for his contributions to this duet in its larger arrangement, Learning to forget and other tragic fortunes, at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.
Technical Aspects:
2 opposite walls; weight-bearing
Adaptable for indoor & outdoor sites
SINCE THOU WAST PRECIOUS IN MY SIGHT
SITE-ADAPTABLE DANCE FOR INDOOR AND OUTDOOR SPACES HAVING OPPOSITE, WEIGHT-BEARING WALLS WHERE ON AN ACCELERATING 30-MINUTE LOOP, TWO BODIES ENGAGE IN A HIGHLY ATHLETIC DUEL CONFRONTING A HABIT, DESIRE, AND GRIEVANCE TO SUBMIT.
PARED DOWN AND FREE OF ANY THEATRICAL LIGHTING OR RECORDED MUSIC, THE WORK IS EQUALLY WITNESSED BY ITS INCIDENTAL SOUNDSCAPE IN ITS HEARD DEVOTION.
Underlying research identifies frameworks for the performance of power through posture, gesture, and movement motifs, and in response, cyclical choreographies of compliance and deference that are not only adjacent, but conditioned. What is the endurance, the ceiling, the undoing of a body of trust and conviction? With an observational audience as bystander, the installation seeks to provoke and confront collective cultures and ideas about resistance versus resignation.
This project contains three volumes. Volumes 1 and 2 pertain to a cast of two performers, and Volume 3 involves a total of four performers on site. Here are excerpts of the earliest iteration of Volume No. 1, featuring Jason Collins and Jason Stansbury as documented by Mary John Frank.
Click here to view a full 30-minute cycle as provided in a work sample of Volume No. 2, featuring Kevin Shannon and Jaruam Xavier.