Abrons Arts Center to Premiere Aynsley Vandenbroucke's AND This Spring

Abrons Arts Center will present the world premiere of choreographer Aynsley Vandenbroucke's And, an evening-length solo of three-dimensional essays. Performances are Thursday, March 30 - Saturday, April 1, at 8pm, and Sunday, April 2, at 3pm, in Abrons' Underground Theater.

In And, Vandenbroucke uses experimental literary devices to create a series of live, three-dimensional essays. With nods to the lyric essay, constraint-based "potential" literature, and the performance lecture,

And searches for a multi-centered choreographic approach to holding multiple truths. Vandenbroucke plays with lines between fact and fiction, narrative and abstraction, legibility and complexity. She works with-and against-the role of formal structures in writing, moving, and making a life. Some words that tussle for importance in the piece are art, life, body, marriage, knowing, divorce, uncertainty, gentleness, power, sex, and dance. Lighting design for And is by Vandenbroucke's longtime collaborator Nelson Downend.

Tickets are $20 and can be purchased through Abrons Arts Center's box office at 212-352-3101, or online at www.abronsartscenter.org. Abrons Arts Center is located at 466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street) in Manhattan.

Commissioning support for And is made possible by the Jerome Foundation. Additional support provided by a Late Stage Stipend from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, research grants from Princeton University, and residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Mount Tremper Arts, and Abrons Arts Center.

Aynsley Vandenbroucke has been creating dance since 2000. Her work has been performed throughout New York City at the Chocolate Factory, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Danspace Project, CPR?Center for Performance Research, Dixon Place, and Lincoln Center Institute's Clark Studio Theater, among other venues, as well as in San Francisco, Colorado, and Brazil. She received the 2012 Art & Action award from Gibney Dance Center, recognizing "an extraordinary artist who is also committed to taking action on behalf of the dance field." She was a 2014 fellow at the MacDowell Colony and in residence at Yaddo in 2012, 2013, and 2016. Her work has been supported by the Jerome Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, LMCC, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and an emergenCy Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Vandenbroucke and photographer Mathew Pokoik founded Mount Tremper Arts, a center for contemporary performance and visual art in the Catskill Mountains. There she played a large role in the design and building of the studio performance space and served as artistic director and then co-curator until 2014.

Vandenbroucke has taught at Princeton University since 2011. She has developed innovative courses at the intersections of dance, somatics, philosophy, and writing, and has helped foster collaboration across arts disciplines. A Laban Movement Analyst, she was on the faculty of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies for five years, where she helped coordinate the yearlong graduate-level certificate program. Her writing on dance has been published in The Performance Club, The Brooklyn Rail, BOMBlog, and Movement Research Performance Journal. For more information about Aynsley Vandenbroucke, visit www.movementgroup.org.

The Abrons Arts Center is the 2014 Obie Award-winning performing and visual arts program of the Henry Street Settlement. The Abrons supports the creation and presentation of bold multidisciplinary work; cultivates artists in all stages of their practice through residencies, educational programs, and commissions; and serves as an international intersection of cultural engagement for artists and audiences. Each year, the Abrons offers more than 250 performances, 12 gallery exhibitions, and 25 residencies for emerging and international performing and visual artists. The Abrons also provides New York City public schools with teaching artists, involving more than 3,000 students annually. Go to www.abronsartscenter.org for more.