The Tank Presents DISPOSABLE GOODS

By: Mar. 05, 2010
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The Tank: home for emerging arts presents "Big APE: Disposable Goods" Friday, March 05, 2010; 7:30pm for $12, Saturday, March 06, 2010; 7:30pm for $12. The Tank is located at 354 W. 45th Street, New York, NY 10036. To get there take the A, C, E, to 42nd Street; 1, 2, 3, S, 7 to Time Square

DISPOSABLE GOODS is an examination of consumption and a portrait of excess. The latest evening length production from Big Action Performance Ensemble (Big APE) illuminates the obsessive cycle of waste in our culture and questions who and what are deemed expendable. Comprised of four movements: SPILL, AWAY (from here), TRASH, and NECESSITY, the ensemble blends intricate phrasing, rigorous partnering, text, and lively audience interaction that often blurs the tenuous boundaries between performer and observer.

Artistic Director Tiffany Rhynard performs with Ellen Smith Ahern, Yina Ng, and Simon Thomas-Train.

Original compositions by Ash Brittenham, Juliet Case, Kareem Kahlifa, and Ron Rost

Lighting Design by Jennifer Ponder
Costumes by Hannah Dorman

Presale tickets are available here:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/99369

Disposable Goods has been under development for the past year and the February 26 performance at FlynnSpace marks the culmination of Rhynard's artistic research and the premier of Disposable Goods, an amalgamation of the aforementioned pieces reconfigured, reworked, and recast.

Spill, a new solo by artistic director Tiffany Rhynard, was developed this summer while in residency at Hotel Pupik in Scheifling, Austria. Integrating a new composition by bassist Kareem Khalifa, Spill contemplates the physical body as object-both its confrontation with the space and the experience of being observed. Raw in her physicality and with a warped sense of humor, the soloist traverses through a range of performance personas and styles.

The newest work in the collection, Away (from here) generates a complex cycle of excess, at times both literal and abstract. The quartet oscillates from formal to casual, with the dancers constantly slipping into a dizzying wardrobe of characters, qualities, and affects; a multilayered sound score of flute and electronics by composer Juliet Case accompanies their journey.

Trash, reconfigured for Ng and Rhynard, was the original seed for Disposable Goods. Dual solos presented in two sections, Trash explores themes of neglect and isolation while presenting a dichotomy between what the audience and the performer hear throughout the piece. The audience encounters a dissonant sound score created by local musician Ron Rost while the performers remain absorbed in personal music radiating out from their headphones.

The duet Necessity is still fresh from its first performance in March. Still malleable in form and sequence, the duet is currently being reworked for Smith Ahern and Thomas-Train. A new relationship will emerge but the content remains the same: the piece questions the ‘essential' versus the ‘frivolous.' Both personal and reflective, Necessity evokes what is both vital and extraneous in the dancers lives.

About Big APE:
Big Action Performance Ensemble (Big APE) strives to create and present theatrical and daring performances that stretch The Edge of contemporary dance. The productions interlace activism, technology, and bold athleticism into an provocative, sensory experience. Big APE was formed in 2008 by movement and video artist, Tiffany Rhynard. Through elements of dance, theatre, and visual media, Rhynard creates a visual dialogue between movement and the architectural design of the performance space. In her work, the body serves as a conduit for translating and analyzing the mechanics of human behavior. Big APE's reportory includes solo and ensemble work created in collaboration with the dancers and contributing artists. Current and past ensemble collaborators include: Marlon Barrios Solano (real-time media), Christal Brown (dancer), Juliet Case (composer), Kara Golux (dancer), James Gutierrez (dancer), Peter Hamlin (composer), Louisa Irving (dancer), Karma Mayet Johnson (composer), Kareem Khalifa (composer), Lei Liang (composer), Adriane Medina (dancer), Yina Ng (dancer), Jennifer Ponder (lighting designer), Brian Robison (composer), Ron Rost (composer), Ellen Smith Ahern (dancer), and Simon Thomas-Train (dancer). Participating artists vary for each production.

Mission:
To create and promote art that is daring, provocative, and curious. To question the standard conventions of dance and awaken audiences to a blend of performance that responds to the brutality and bliss of living and speaks to the humanness in all of us. We are not interested in simply entertaining you; we want to take you somewhere, somewhere that will make you think, feel, react, move, sit up, stand up and...dance.


About The Tank
Founded in 2003, The Tank is a non-profit arts presenter whose mission is to provide a welcoming, creative, collaborative, and affordable environment for artists and activists engaged in the pursuit of new ideas. Through a wide range of low-cost, high-concept arts and public affairs programming, The Tank seeks to cultivate a new generation of audience for live performance, civic discourse, and the work of emerging artists.

Follow The Tank online:
http://twitter.com/thetanknyc



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