POP Performance: Summation Dance & Sikora + Dance

MARCH 23-25, 2023 at 7:30pm
THE THEATER
GIBNEY: AGNES VARIS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
280 BROADWAY

Summation Dance NYC and LA and Sikora + Dance present an evening of works investigating the social structures that envelop and direct our lives.

Summation/NYC is investigating how individual challenges brought on by the pandemic are a microcosm of society’s broader economic and social realities. When the world stands still, personal progress feels like an exercise in futility. How do we make change when the power structures themselves are immovable? The work will highlight the inner lives of the artists against a backdrop of uniformity and explore the dichotomies of action and resignation, isolation and cooperation, and agency and conformity.

Summation Dance/LA will premiere an excerpt of a larger work examining ideas of home as not just a sense of place but the body itself. Our thoughts shape the way we inhabit our bodies – our first and constant home – carrying us through life. We move from space to space recreating patterns and moments of familiarity to find comfort amidst the ever shifting unknown. The work asks us to confront how we care for our mental health and ourselves in a late-stage capitalistic society.

Sikora + Dance will premiere an exploration of how religious structures–with their memorized verses, choreographed rituals, moral obligations, and restricted expression–exclude many people’s truths but also provide comfort in the face of grief and meaning in the absence of answers. The piece reimagines the Catholic requiem mass as a eulogy for religious practice and identity, a place to grieve the losses for those of us who have chosen a different path. Sikora’s dancers will also perform Three Italian Songs, a 2019 duet depicting the power dynamics within a domestic partnership and the struggle to fulfill one’s expected social role.

ABOUT SUMMATION DANCE COMPANY

Summation Dance Company, founded by Sumi Clements and Taryn Vander Hoop, is a New York City and LA-based contemporary dance company. Clements and Vander Hoop founded the company in 2010 after graduating with their MFAs in Dance Performance and Choreography from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. The mission of Summation is to find the beauty in struggle and the humor in the mundane. Our works are powerfully kinetic and emotional explorations of the human experience that demand physicality and vulnerability as we push the limits of the body. Summation has performed most notably at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Jacob’s Pillow, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Judson Memorial Church, La MaMa Moves Festival, FlicFest at the Irondale Center, 92nd St Y, Baruch Performing Arts Center, City Center, St. Mark’s Church, and Skirball Center, among many others. Summation has conducted numerous commissions and residencies from universities across the country.

ABOUT SIKORA + DANCE

Sikora + Dance is a new NYC-based contemporary dance company that serves as a vehicle for the creative works of Artistic Director Caitlin Sikora, a NYC-based dancer, choreographer, and software engineer. Sikora has undergraduate degrees in physics and dance from UC Irvine, an MFA in dance from NYU Tisch, and an MS in Integrated Digital Media from NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering. Her creative work has been featured in the Boulder International Fringe Festival, Warwick Summer Arts Festival, MIT’s Hacking Arts Festival, and SXSW. Sikora has danced with the Hannah Kahn Dance Company, Winifred Harris’ Between Lines Dance Company, and Indah Walsh Dance Company, and has performed works by William Forsythe, Merce Cunningham, Ohad Naharin, Cora Bos-Kroese, Kate Sicchio, and many others. She currently works on multi-modal perception systems at Google, runs Sikora + Dance, and collaborates from time to time with media artist R. Luke Dubois.

POP: PERFORMANCE OPPORTUNITY PROJECT

POP provides the dance community with increased support for showings and performances.

POP enables dance artists to self-produce performances and showings at Gibney through a curated rental process. Artists can participate in POP through Performances, Showings, or Open Rehearsals. POP Performances offer a three-night run in The Theater (Studio H) at 280 Broadway. POP Showings & Open Rehearsals are more informal showings in our studios.

All events take place at our 280 Broadway location, across from City Hall. The main entrance for this location is at 53A Chambers Street. Gibney 280 Broadway is an accessible venue. This event will take place on the 2nd floor of Gibney in The Theater, which is accessible via elevator from the main entrance at 53A Chambers Street.

Image Description: A woman wearing a flowing white dress falls to her knees in the center of a stage while a second woman looks on from behind; Summation Dance in performance at Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2014. Dancers: Taryn Vander Hoop (foreground), Devin Oshiro (background)

Photo by Christopher Duggan