The Joyce Theatre Foundation Presents CHUNKY MOVE

By: Oct. 12, 2011
Enter Your Email to Unlock This Article

Plus, get the best of BroadwayWorld delivered to your inbox, and unlimited access to our editorial content across the globe.




Existing user? Just click login.

The Joyce Theater Foundation is proud to present the Australian-based dance company Chunky Move performing the New York premiere of Connected, a full-evening length work, from Wednesday, November 2 - Sunday, November 6. Tickets for this week-long engagement are $10-$49 ($26 - $37 for Joyce Members) and are available through JoyceCharge at www.Joyce.org or by calling 212-242-0800. Please note: ticket prices are subject to change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street, in Chelsea.

Bucking the current trend of integrating digital media, projections and motion tracking into modern dance, the Australian-based Chunky Move has created Connected, a full-evening length piece that marries human strength and art with precise, simple mechanics. Choreographer Gideon Obarzanek (Chunky Move founder), in collaboration with California artist Reuben Margolin, combines bodies and machine through physical connection between the dancers and Margolin's startlingly live, kinetic sculpture. Reuben's sculptural works - made from wood, recycled plastic, paper and steel, and suspended by hundreds of fine strings receiving reacting to multiple camshafts and wheels - come beautifully to life once set into motion, in a smooth, wavelike flow. Athletic and agile dancers' bodies twist and hurtle throughout Connected, interacting with hundreds of tiny pieces. Their performance builds while they simultaneously construct the sculpture in real time right there on The Joyce's stage. Eventually, the voice of a museum security guard, telling the true story of a stolen work or art, is heard and the piece suddenly becomes less abstract as the audience begins to discover the connection between what's happening on stage and the story being told.

Chunky Move, performing the highly anticipated New York premiere of Connected, will run at The Joyce Theater from November 2 - 6 as follows: Wednesday at 7:30pm; Thursday - Friday at 8pm; Saturday 2pm & 8pm; Sunday 2pm & 7:30pm. This enlightening discussion is open to all patrons attending that evening's performance. Tickets range in price from $10-$59 ($26 - $44 for Joyce Members) and are available through JoyceCharge at www.Joyce.org or by calling 212-242-0800. Please note: Tickets prices are subject change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street, in Chelsea.

About Chunky Move
Founded by Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek in 1995, Chunky Move has earned an enviable reputation for producing a distinct yet unpredictable brand of genre-defying dance performance.
Chunky Move's work constantly seeks to redefine what is or what can be contemporary dance within an ever-evolving Australian culture. The company's work is both diverse in form and content; to date the company has created a number of works for the stage, site specific, new-media and installation work.

Chunky Move's multi-tiered programming initiatives foster and support a strong and vibrant dance culture in its home city of Melbourne and also creates critically acclaimed and popular larger productions for touring. Recent cities toured include: New York, Hong Kong, Beirut and Barcelona.
In 2008 Chunky Move received Best Dance Work for Glow and Best Visual or Physical Theatre Production for Mortal Engine at the Live Performance Australia Helpmann Awards. In 2009, Mortal Engine received an Honorary Mention in the Prix Ars Electronica awards in the Hybrid Arts category.

About Reuben Margolin
Reuben was raised in Berkeley, California. A love of math and physics propelled him to Harvard, where he changed paths and completed a degree in English. He then went on to study traditional painting in Italy and Russia. In 1999 he became obsessed with the movement of a little green caterpillar, and set out to make wave-like sculptures. In 2004 he moved to his current studio in Emeryville and began making a series of large-scale undulating installations that attempt to combine the logic of mathematics with the sensuousness of nature. He has since made about ten of these mechanical mobiles and shown them internationally. He also makes pedal-powered rickshaws and has collaborated on a couple of large-scale pedalpowered vehicles.

About The Joyce Theater Foundation
The Joyce Theater Foundation, a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance community and its audiences for three decades. The founders, Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea, which opened as The Joyce Theater in 1982. The Joyce Theater is named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther's clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to build the theater. One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance, The Joyce Theater has provided an intimate and elegant home for more than 320 domestic and international companies. The Joyce has also commissioned more than 130 new dances since 1992. In 1996, The Joyce created Joyce SoHo, a dance center providing highly subsidized rehearsal and performance space to hundreds of dance artists, as well as special residency opportunities for selected choreographers to support the creation of new work. In 2009, The Joyce opened Dance Art New York (DANY) Studios to provide affordable studios for rehearsals, auditions, classes, and workshops for independent choreographers, non-profit dance companies, and the dance/theater communities. New York City public school students and teachers annually benefit from The Joyce's Dance Education Program, and adult audiences get closer to dance through informative Dance Talks, Joyce Pre-Show gatherings, and post-performance Dance Chat discussions. The Joyce Theater now features an annual season of approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 135,000.

 



Videos