Christine Bonansea Company Presents The New York Premiere of ONLYHUMAN

Christine Bonansea - a French-born, NYC-based choreographer known for her striking, virtuosic performances - brings OnlyHuman, a visually arresting, media-enhanced work to New York for its US premiere at Danspace Project. Developed in collaboration with an international group of stellar multidisciplinary artists, and following successful presentations at DOCK11 in Berlin and 2018 Tanzmesse in Düsseldorf, Germany, the evening-length version of this production will be presented for the first time to the American audiences November 15-17. Tickets ($22 General / $15 Danspace Members) are available online through OvationTix (https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/996935) or by calling 866-811-4111.

Inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's aphoristic volume Human, All Too Human, Bonansea investigates the stark contradiction between our race's capacity for beauty against its most destructive tendencies, embodying the struggle with her intensely kinetic choreography. In OnlyHuman, Bonansea ruminates on corporeal images and stereotypes of self in the context of the landscape of emotions, geography and social structures. As most of Bonansea's multidisciplinary works, OnlyHuman has been created during an intimately collaborative process. The dance - featuring a lead performer and a cast of supporting ones - is wrapped into a ultra-modern, Matrix-like, futuristic layer of striking multimedia visuals.

"This work observes the future of the human race with a critical gaze. It reveals tensions between contradictory and conflicting information in our physical life experiences. It also embodies the paradox of human condition as our species is transforming from the human to the post-human in the digital age," says Bonansea. Referring to the extended cast employed in the work's final incarnation, she explains:

"Because OnlyHuman performances engaged local community as well as international audiences, I created a longer version including an eclectic cast of nine dancers completing the multimedia team, each bringing their own, unique moving history and potent presence."

The show's animated visuals are conceived and executed together with acclaimed photographer Robert Flynt, video and multimedia artist Yoann Trellu, and lighting designer Solomon Weisbard; the composer Nicole Carroll's droning sounds create an aural environment for the performance. Originally developed as a solo performance with Bonansea as a main dancer, this iteration of the work features Mei Yamanaka in the lead and a supporting cast of nine dancers - including well-known New York performers Alvaro Estado, Maya Orchin, Becca Loevy, Amelia Heintzelman, Ichi Go, Cameron Mckinney, Charles Gowin, Kristopher K.Q. Pourzal, and Malcolm Betts.
OnlyHuman is presented as part of Danspace Project's Community ACCESS which provides subsidized off-season rental opportunities for Danspace Project community members. The production was made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by LMCC.
Video trailer: https://vimeo.com/196811333

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Christine Bonansea (Concept and Choreography) is a US-European dancer and choreographer with almost two decades of international experience in conceiving, directing/ choreographing and performing movement-based works. She creates performances, installations, and films. She is the Artistic director of Christine Bonansea Company, founded in 2010. Defined by expressive, virtuosic, improvisation-driven movement, her work inhabits an experimental, interdisciplinary, and collaborative environment in which other media - theater, video, visual art and design, spoken word, and music - play an integral part. Having studied Modern Literature at Paris' La Sorbonne, she cites writers and philosophers as major influences. Bonansea received her degree in contemporary dance in France and studied dance with such luminaries as Regine Chopinot, Catherine Diverres, Mathilde Monnier, Ralph Lemon, Anna Halprin, Nancy Stark Smith. She's also an accomplished dance teacher in both professional performative and therapeutic setting.
She collaborated and performed with internationally artists such as, Nita Little, Katie Duck, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Sara Shelton Mann, Faustin Linyekula, Tino Sehgal, Yoshiko Chuma. In New York City, Bonansea's work has been presented by Danspace Project, Dixon Place, Movement Research at the Judson Church, and JACK. Her dances have also been developed in art residencies and commissioned by numerous venues and festivals worldwide, including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, ODC Theater, San Francisco International Arts Festival, and The FRESH Festival (San Francisco); Headwater Theater (Portland); Atlantic Center for the Arts (Florida); Earthdance (MA), Artscape (Toronto); Whenever Wherever Festival (Tokyo); The Centre Nationale De la Danse (Paris) and at DOCK11 (Berlin).

Christine Bonansea Company has been supported by funds from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, American Dance Abroad, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Theater Bay Area the LAD-Dancer's Group, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and is sponsored by New York Live Arts. www.christinebonansea.com

Yoann Trellu (Video and Multimedia Design) is a photographer and digital media artist based in Berlin. He creates imagery as well as project specific multimedia software. She is particularly interested in geometry, the relationship between image and sound, and computer creativity understood as an artistic partnership between a human and a machine. Over the last decade Trellu has worked on over fifty stage productions with various theater and dance companies throughout Europe, USA and Asia, including Post-Theater (Berlin, New York, Tokyo); Konzert Theater Bern (Switzerland); Jess Curtis-Gravity (Berlin, San-Francisco), Shang Chi Sun (Berlin, Taiwan), and many others.

Robert Flynt (Photography) is an artist whose work in photography and visual arts has been widely exhibited in the United States and abroad since 1980, both in major museums (including 1992 show "New Photography 8" at the MoMA in New York), galleries, and alternative spaces. His collaborative works in performing arts include commissions from Brooklyn Academy Of Music (with choreographer Bebe Miller), the L.A. International Arts Festival (with Ishmael Houston-Jones and Dennis Cooper,) and many others. Flynt has received fellowships from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, Art Matters, and the Peter S. Reed Foundation, as well as many prestigious American and international residencies. www.robertflynt.com

Nicole Carroll (Composer/Live Sound) is a composer, performer, sound designer, and builder based in Providence, RI. Her work spans installation, improvisation, and fixed media performance. She is active as a sound designer and composer in theater, performs electronic music under the alias "n0izmkr", and builds custom synthesizers and performance sensor systems. Through her work, she seeks to reconcile the natural world with technology. Themes found in her work derive from reflections on nature, supernatural phenomenon, literature, and the human psyche. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Music and Multimedia at the Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments (MEME) program at Brown University. nicolecarrollmusic.com

Solomon Weisbard (Lighting Design) is a freelance lighting designer for all types of performance. His most recent project was lighting for Robert Wilson's production of Il Trovatore at Teatro Farnese in Parma, Italy. Credits in dance, dance/theatre and avant-garde music include original full-length pieces with Alethea Adsitt, Jennifer Archibald, Joshua Beamish/MOVE, Maria Chavez, Ximena Garnica/LEIMAY, Lane Gifford, Invisible Anatomy, LoudHound Movement, Ofelia Loret de Mola, Stefanie Nelson, The Nerve Tank (as resident designer), Jen Shyu, WaxFactory, and four major works as associate set designer with Bill T Jones. Selected New York theatre: Duat (Soho Rep); Men on Boats (Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed Thumb); This is the Color (Door 10/Baryshnikov Arts Center); Christina Anderson's Hollow Roots (Public Theatre - Under the Radar); Rite of Spring (Martha Graham Dance Co.); The Soldier's Tale (Carnegie Hall); The Film Society (Keen / Theatre Row); The Pavilion, Enemy of the People (Barrow Group); I Came to Look for You on Tuesday (LaMama). www.solweisbard.com