Gibney Presents: ∞therside collective/Sarah Chien

Performances run April 27-29, 8:00 PM EST

WORLD PREMIERE

You Are In My Everywhere

is a vivid composition for three dancers and two musicians in New York.

Where every space has time

Where each time has space

Where sounds caress words

Where words dissolve into light

Where light fulfills a poem

Where poetry comes alive

…

Our choreography applies itself to the moment. Our moment in 2023 demands that we listen to different points of view. We are dedicated to manifesting the way in which different people create the poetry of the performance. It is and will be unique.

Join us for a panel discussion with Wendy Perron following the Friday, April 28 performance.

The performance will be accompanied by a gallery exhibition of the same name, on view at Gibney’s second-floor gallery, April 24th-29th. The exhibit features limited edition photographs, poetry, and video from the collective’s uniquely collaborative creative process.

Gibney Presents is Gibney’s premier presentation series, offering a rich blend of dance and performance in fully-produced, evening-length commissions. This performance is curated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa as part of the Gibney Center 2022-2023 Season.

CAST AND COLLABORATORS

Agata Gregorkiewitz (Poland)
Sarah Chien (USA)
Susanna Grob (Switzerland)
Sokratis Votskos (Greece)
Caitlin Cawley (USA)

Supporting Collective Members:

Mirko Lancerotto (Italy)
Francesca Caselli (Italy)
Alessio Bettoli (Italy)

ABOUT  ∞THERSIDE COLLECTIVE

We are a collective of international performers (United States, Greece, Switzerland, Poland, Italy) coming from music, dance, and fine arts backgrounds.

∞therside collective creates instant composition performances as an artistic choice to develop the presence and the power of the “here and now.” That interdisciplinary work includes movement, music, and vocal improvisation. This decision is maybe the most challenging in the performative field because it requires the combination of authenticity, high technical skills, and the listening to the environment in unknown situations. Both as individuals and as a collective, we have worked in that field for the last five years with multiple inspiring artists from around the world, as well as local collaborators during the residencies. We locate our work within a vibrant tradition of experimental improvised performance makers like The Grand Union, David Zambrano, and Julyen Hamilton.

Since 2017, the collective has produced intensive creation residencies, workshops, and performances around the world: Bratislava, Slovakia (2017); Thessaloniki, Greece (2019 and 2023); virtually/online (2020); Ferrara, Italy (2021); and Gdansk, Poland (2022).

www.ootherside.com

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Sarah Chien (USA / Producer, Dance)is a New York-based dancer, teacher, and producer who creates improvised works with collaborators from dance, music, circus, and theatre. She has performed her own and collaborative projects in Poland, Greece, Slovakia, Spain, and Italy. In New York, her work has been shown at Joe’s Pub, University Settlement, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Triskelion Arts, The Kraine, Arts on Site, The Brick, Eden’s Expressway, and Chez Bushwick. She is known for a grounded, emotive movement style and welcoming work that straddles the abstract and the accessible. Major projects include: ¡Spontaneous Combustion!, an all-improvised performance series that ran for three summers on her homemade rooftop dance floor, and Songs Stuck in My Body, her touring one-woman show. She attended Barnard College and is one of only a few Americans to have studied extensively with David Zambrano, whose work greatly influences her teaching and approach to performance. She is also a working farmer, with the conviction that art and farming nourish each other, as well as our communities. www.sarahchien.com

Caitlin Cawley (USA / Percussion) is a percussionist, improviser, and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. She’s interested in the capacity of live performance to engender empathy and facilitate authentic contact between human beings. She has played, sang, danced, and yelled in concert halls, garages, bars, living rooms, kitchens, forests, art galleries, and rooftops – using megaphones, triangles, gongs, drums, balloons, lamps, speaker drivers, vibraphones, EMT pipes, plastic buckets, tin cans, wine glasses, styrofoam, power tools, and paper airplanes – with newts, birds, Talujon, Mantra Percussion, Talea Ensemble, Heartbeat Opera, Cantata Profana, The Walter Thompson Orchestra, Slavic Soul Party!, Brass Queens, Gamelan Galak Tika, Brian Adler’s Human Time Machine, Danse Theatre Surreality, Bash The Trash, I Dewa Ketut Alit, Paul Pinto, Richard Kim, Sarah Chien, Melody Loveless, and sometimes by herself.

Sokratis Votskos (Greece / Wind Instruments) is a jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, educator, and bandleader from Greece, who is invested in unearthing the folk sounds and heritage music of Greece and Eastern Europe and weaving them into modern jazz composition and improvisation though the use of melodies, polyrhythms, and his reedy, timeless tone. A highly regarded sideman and ensemble player, he has worked extensively with other European jazz musicians on radio, in cinema, and on television. In addition to his standard soprano and baritone saxophones, Votskos also plays the contrabass, clarinets, duduk, bagpipe (gaita), and piano. Along with Harris P., he makes up one of half of the duo Kolida Babo. He has performed his music in numerous venues and festivals worldwide, such as Vinterjazz festival 2022 (Copenhagen, Denmark) alongside acts of Fatoumata Diawara, Sons of Kemet et.al., in London Jazz festival and the legendary Ronnie Scott’s jazz bar with Greg Foat et al. He is an archaeoacoustics researcher and enthusiast, having completed his Master studies in the field of ancient ritualistic caves of Greece.

Agata Gregorkiewicz (Poland / Dance) graduated from University Paris VIII (Dance department) and movement notation in CNSMDP, Paris. Gregorkiewicz has trained in contemporary dance and improvisation workshops in Poland and abroad and is a post- graduate student of therapeutic dance. Gregorkiewicz was a participant of the annual course of Experimental Choreography in Warsaw and is a choreographer, dancer and co-creator of performances, such as: serdUCHA, Botanic Body, Constellations, In the net, Obłoki jasne nad Tobą, and Bodyfullness. Gregorkiewicz is inspired by the mindful work that she embodies as a Lomi Lomi Nui practitioner and Mindfulness teacher. Gregorkiewicz is a Laureate of cultural scholarship of Gdansk and Pomerania and is supported by the EU program for artists, e-portunus.

Susanna Grob (Switzerland / Dance) graduated from TIP (Dance, Improvisation and Performance) in Freiburg, Germany. Through practicing, performing, and teaching, she has been honing her skills to compose pieces in the moment. Aspects such as self-knowledge, poetry, multidimensionality, focused expansiveness, time and space, atmosphere, the spectrum of movement, voice and words are of central importance to her. In addition to her dance career, she also works as a shiatsu therapist. With “dancing meridians,” she is developing a format to make Shiatsu and some TCM principles accessible in movement. As a member of TAIMcollective, she danced and co-created pieces, such as KirschblütenTornado, Between air and woman walking, Messiaen in Tanz and Impraktikabel.

FUNDING CREDITS

This project is funded through a commission by Gibney and community support. Agata Gregorkiewicz participation is supported by Adam Mickiewicz Institute’s Polish Culture Worldwide Programme.

The collective’s research residencies and performances in the past year have been supported in Gdansk, Poland, by the City of Gdansk Ministry of Culture, PIK- Pomorski Inkubator Kultury, and Plama | GAK Performance Space; and in Thessaloniki, Greece by the European Union, Culture Moves Europe & Goethe Institute, and Studio 29a.

COVID-19 Safety Policies at Gibney Center

Masks are required for all audience members attending live performances at Gibney Center. Proof of vaccination is no longer required. Nonetheless, Gibney encourages all who are eligible to maintain up-to-date vaccination status in accordance with CDC Guidelines.

Photo by Mirko Lancerotto