David Appel Will Premiere WHERE WE ARE, WHAT WE DO as Part of Take Root at Green Space

Choreographer David Appel premieres Where we are, what we do on Friday November 16th and Saturday November 17th at 8:00pm as part of the series Take Root at Green Space, 37-24 24th Street, in Long Island City, NY. Tickets may be purchased online for $15 by going to www.greenspacestudio.org/november or for $20 at the door (no reservations). Also performing on this program is the Catey Ott Dance Collective.

The existence and activity of three people in a space brings unique and particular qualities to how that area can be filled, charged, re-configured, and perceived. Yet we live in the world, things happen, and it does affect how we organize ourselves to move together. Here we start with three articulate individuals repeatedly engaging each other, primarily through their dancing. At the same time, members of a second group come and go, shadowing them and offering support, commentary, bits and pieces culled from our everyday goings-on, and sheer nonsense. As in the rest of our lives, there are known signposts, and the prospect of the unexpected; here, we play off the preconceived and the improvised. Over extended time, simple encounters or strategies set in motion intriguing chains of events, and the cooking pot reveals a cornucopia of delectable morsels.

The work will be performed by Randy Burd, Kelley Donovan, Ava Heller, Jenni Hong, Allison Knuth, Efrén Sánchez, and David Appel.

The primary ongoing and linked touchstones of Appel's work are a fascination with the body's capacity to be more subtly articulate, the ways we find to move together, and our links to and amidst the world around us. This often translates into a search for possibilities, toward heightening our responsiveness in the moment, while uncovering and shaping a coherent narrative. To pose the question "what happens if?", and then to see what arises.

David Appel is a choreographer, dancer, and teacher whose work has been presented in a range of contexts throughout North America, Europe, and in Mexico since 1973. Part of the early post-Judson generation that transmitted and transformed those artists' innovations, he has since primarily followed his own path, while performing along the way with Simone Forti, Steve Paxton, City Dance Theater of Boston, as an instigator and/or part of several dance/music collaborative and improvisation groups, and with many other individual artists in various media. He has received a number of grants and awards, including three NEA Choreographers Fellowships, and has been invited to festivals in both the United States and abroad. [www.youtinydancer.com]

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