Performance Space New York Presents Brontez Purnell's INVISIBLE TRIAL Next Month

Performance Space New York presents Brontez Purnell's Invisible Trial, a dance solo from the acclaimed writer (100 Boyfriends, MCDxFSG) and dancer (Brontez Purnell Dance Company), June 16-18 (in The Sydney Neilma Theatre, 150 1st Ave. 4th floor). Choreographed by Larry Arrington, Invisible Trial is loosely based on the Sylvia Plath short story "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams"-with anxiety as the work's overlord.

In "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams," the protagonist, a receptionist at a mental health clinic, acts as a sort of medium for the living-secretly recording the dreams, fears, and anxieties of those he comes into contact with. His boss is Johnny Panic, the God of Anxiety himself, who is secretly keeping tabs on the protagonist's snooping. Through dance, text, and installation, Invisible Trial attempts to name the fears and fantasies around patriarchal inheritance, shadow work being done against us, and the burning question: are we ever the sole agents of our own fate?

Purnell has been described as "a restless, prolific artist in almost every conceivable genre" (The New York Times). Invisible Trial-Purnell's first evening-length dance solo piece-has been on the artist's mind for over a decade. He began dancing in contemporary Haitian and West African companies and in his 20s was part of the electroclash queer dance band Gravy Train!!!, before devoting himself to studying dance and founding the Brontez Purnell Dance Company (which builds works that combine punk rock subversion and free jazz improvisation in a company comprising movers and artists of all disciplines) in 2010.

Purnell elaborates on his approach to dance theater, "Unlike writing, which is 2-dimensional, dance theater is where I can have a total 6-dimensional approach to what I'm trying to say. You have sound, movement, light-it's closer to how the actual mind works. I like that the story works with memory, because my dance is based in a sort of gestural, magical practice, and it is in parts something of a refusal of how we consume dance these days, where dancers are treated as workhorses, expected to pull out as many tricks as they can-especially those dancing in a Black body, where I feel like if you're not doing hip hop dance or voguing to the Gods your body is read as illegible. I tend to let my body stand as a statement in and of itself."

Though Purnell's writing rises from movement and his dancing is often steeped in language, this also marks the first time he's ever directly set a dance around a short story. He describes having always been "obsessed with Plath's short story because it's both a hallmark of her work, since the themes that emerge in it also pop up in her later writing - but it's also a lesser-known piece that feels like the beginning of where her voice is cemented. 'Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams' is also a cool f-ing name."

Other collaborators on the project include Savannah Knoop (who's creating the installation around which the dance is performed) and Jeremy O. Harris (dramaturg).