Lucky Plush Productions Presents PUNK YANKEES, 1/13

PUNK YANKEES is a provocative and entertaining dance theater work that combines live performance, video, and the internet to unpack ideas about authenticity, originality, and the ownership of dance in the digital age. The Chicago-based dance theater company, Lucky Plush Productions, is led by Artistic Director Julia Rhoads, who teams up with music sampling artist Stefen Robinson (Yea Big) and media artists John Boesche and Julie Ballard.

With the controversial nature of dealing with issues of intellectual property, the piece takes on difficult questions such as: What defines “fair use” in dance? Is it permissible to “borrow” choreographic devices or spatial patterns if the movement is reinvented? If someone stylistically references a choreographer, should it be credited, or is it what naturally occurs through dance education? As dance is passed from body to body, how does personal lineage fit into ideas about authenticity? Punk Yankees addresses this murky terrain with transparency and humor.

WHERE Joyce SoHo 155 Mercer Street (Houston/Prince),B/D/F/M to Broadway-Lafayette, R to Prince or 6 to Bleecker, New York, NY 10012

WHEN January 13-14, 2012 @ 7:30pm (Post-performance discussion: Jan 13th)

TICKETS $18 ($12 students/seniors)

* Approximate run time: 85 minutes. Purchase tickets in advance at joyce.org or 212-242-0800 or onsite one-half hour before. There are no service fees for tickets to Joyce SoHo performances purchased at joyce.org!

LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS is known for its witty commentary, surprising immediacy, and artful integration of dance, theater, and visual design. The company is led by choreographer Julia Rhoads, one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2010, who has received a fellowship from the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Award, a NEFA National Dance Project grant, and an NPN Creation Fund Grant for her work with Lucky Plush. Features in publications include The Chicago Reader’s “Best of Chicago 2010”; Time Out Chicago’s “The Decade’s 10 Best Original Dance Works” for Endplay; and a Time Out Chicago feature cover story “5 reasons to love dance in Chicago”. Rhoads was also included in NewCity’s 2010 feature “The Players: The 50 people who really perform for Chicago”. For more information, please visit http://www.luckyplush.com.

The creation of Joyce SoHo was made possible by the magnanimous support of the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust. Joyce SoHo is generously supported by Alphawood Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, First Republic Bank, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Open Society Foundations and the Fund for the City of New York, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, and The Shubert Foundation. Lead support has been provided by The New York Community Trust. Special support has been provided by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Mertz Gilmore Foundation. Joyce SoHo is made possible with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties; and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photo by William Frederking