Susan Rethorst Announces World Premiere This Month at Bryn Mawr College

The Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series presents the Philadelphia premiere of Behold Bold Sam Dog and the world premiere of 208 East Broadway Part 5, part of Susan Rethorst: Inquiring Mind/Choreographic Mind, an exploration into the artistic process of acclaimed New York choreographer and dancer Susan Rethorst, a recent Philadelphia transplant. Rethorst's work has been called "meticulously made, sensually satisfying and thrumming with possibilities" by The New York Times. Performances take place February 22-24, 2013.

On Saturday, February 23, Danspace Project's Judy Hussie-Taylor will curate a day of dance focusing on Rethorst's career in Bryn Mawr's Goodhart Hall. Rethorst's choreographic approach includes ideas such as "collaboration with circumstance" influenced, in part, by John Cage's explorations of chance and circumstance and the teachings of choreographer Judith Dunn. Cage will be represented through the performative lecture "How to Get Started," a structured improvisation conceived by Cage in which he addressed the "creative process, and improvisation, a subject about which he had long been deeply ambivalent," according to Slought Foundation's director Aaron Levy. "This amounted to an experiment having to do with thinking in public before a live audience."

In considering Rethorst's thinking around choreographic and poetic minds (her recent book A Choreographic Mind was named "Best of 2012" by the New Yorker magazine) Hussie-Taylor has invited four artists to think in public before a live audience for a unique iteration of Cage's piece. Presenting will be two "choreographic minds", Elizabeth Streb and Douglas Dunn, and two "poetic minds" Anne Waldman and Claudia La Rocco, frequent contributor to The New York Times who will each engage with Cage's instructions. How To Get Started is a permanent installation created and presented in collaboration with the Slought Foundation in partnership with the John Cage Trust. Rethorst's dance/film installations can be viewed from 4 pm - 7 pm between performances of 208 East Broadway and Behold Bold Sam Dog.

Bryn Mawr's Campus is located at 101 N. Merion Ave. General admission for performances is $20, $18 for seniors, $10 for students with ID and Dance Pass holders, and $5 for children under 12. Day pass for events on Saturday, February 23 is $45 and includes dinner. Tickets and information: brynmawr.edu/arts/series.html or 610-526-5210.

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