David Neumann Premieres New Solo Works at MASS MoCA's Hunter Center Tonight

Interdisciplinary choreographer David Neumann will present an evening of solos tonight, April 26 at 8pm at MASS MoCA's Hunter Center for the Performing Arts. A co-presentation by Jacob's Pillow Dance and MASS MoCA, the retrospective evening spans Neumann's career from his first choreographic endeavor, DOSE, to his current work-in-progress, I Understand Everything Better. The program, also including tough the tough (redux) (2008) and You Are In Control (2009), captures Neumann's exploration of lines between theatre and dance, audience and performer, movement and voice, mundane and theatrical.

Ella Baff, Executive and Artistic Director of Jacob's Pillow, comments, "David colors outside the lines and makes the boundaries of dance and theatre irrelevant. He's smart and witty. He is a compelling performer - someone we warm up to, because he knows the pitfalls, pratfalls and triumphs of life."

As Artistic Director of New York City-based Advanced Beginner Group, David Neumann has presented work at a number of prominent venues, including previous engagements at the Jacob's Pillow Season Opening Gala and a Jacob's Pillow world premiere on shared program with choreographer Jodi Melnick, both in 2011. He previously performed in the Berkshires in 2007, at MASS MoCA. In response to Neumann's work Claudia La Rocco of The New York Times comments, "By now the line on Mr. Neumann is well established: He is the smart joker of dance. What's not said as often is how deeply felt and deeply moving his work can be." As both a performer and choreographer, he works in theatre, opera and film, and is a renowned teacher having served on the faculties of NYU, Yale, and Barnard. He is currently a tenured professor at Sarah Lawrence College. In addition to his collaborations with such directors as Hal Hartley, Laurie Anderson, Lee Breuer, and JoAnn Akalaitis, he has created two duets for himself and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Neumann and his company have received four Bessie Awards and a number of grants, including Creative Capital, BUILD, and MAP funds. Most recently, he was awarded a 2011 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award for Dance and a 2013 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Choreography.

Neumann's current work-in-process, I Understand Everything Better, premiering at the American Dance Institute in Rockville, MD in March of 2015, is a multi-disciplinary performance piece that explores the impulse to report on calamity, the consciousness of traumatic change, and one's proximity to dying. A union of theatre and dance-making methodologies, I Understand will incorporate innovative technology, weather reports, and personal narratives all within a framework composed of elements drawn from classical Japanese dance and theatre. I Understand Everything Better is co-commissioned by the Abrons Arts Center and the Chocolate Factory Theater; the work will be presented at the Abrons Arts Center in New York in April of 2015.

David Neumann comments, "The subject of death looms large in this work, as I recently experienced the deaths of both parents. With I Understand Everything Better, I feel compelled to honor this experience, as difficult at times as it was, as a way to share with others the remarkable journey I understand the process of dying to be."

For this April 26 performance, which follows a week-long residency at MASS MoCA, I Understand Everything Better will be presented as a work-in-process featuring the collective efforts of award-winning writer Sibyl Kempson, the stunning design of Tei Blow, and Neumann in his first new solo work in nearly ten years. Previously premiered works on the program include DOSE performed to the music of Tom Waits; a solo adaptation of a larger group piece with text by Will Eno, tough the tough (redux); and a solo extracted from You Are In Control set to an original score by Eve Beglarian and text by Karinne Keithley. Following the performance, Jacob's Pillow Executive and Artistic Director Ella Baff will lead a post-show discussion.