Sorry I Missed Your Show: Christopher Rudd

Witness: Part I – Yesterday

Witness is a three-act contemporary ballet at the intersection of art and activism that serves as a mechanism to open a dialogue on the challenging issue of race. Witness mixes different genres of dance with contemporary circus, film, & theatricality to put America’s racial landscape into historical context, combat systematically taught racial biases, & imagine hope for a more equitable future. For May’s Sorry I Missed Your Show, Christopher Rudd will share insights into his Witness: Part I – Yesterday. Yesterday portrays the dehumanizing brutality of slavery in America. Shackled in chains, the dancers illustrate the fierce need to flee captivity as the bungee pulls them back into bondage.

About Christopher Rudd

A Jamaican born dance-maker, Christopher Rudd credits the Thomas Armour Youth Ballet, Dance Theater of Harlem, & New World School of the Arts for his performance career, which has included dancing for Carolina Ballet, Les Grands Ballet Canadiens de Montréal, & Cirque Du Soleil. He founded RudduR Dance in 2015 to accomplish the goal of bettering the world through dance and is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow. Recently commissioned by American Ballet Theatre, he has been awarded choreographic residencies at the CUNY Dance Initiative, Vendetta Mathea’s La Manufacture, Tofte Lake Center, Kaatsbaan, and STREB Lab for Action Mechanics. He has also been awarded grants from the U.S. Department of State’s Arts Envoy, World Learning, U.S. Embassy Burkina Faso, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, New Music USA, American Dance Abroad, Career Transition For Dancers, Harlem Stage’s Fund for New Work, & the NWSA Alumni Foundation.

Christopher Rudd is proud to have presented RudduR Dance on 4 continents in its first 4 years and that the Company has made its SummerStage debut by participating in a globally accessible Juneteenth Tribute on June 19, 2020.

A screening and discussion series, Sorry I Missed Your Show highlights dance works from the recent past to explore their relationship to the dance canon and contemporary practice.

Gibney will hold all Winter & Spring 2021 Season events online via Zoom. You can reach Gibney’s Box Office via email. For ticketing inquiries or requests, please email Marketing & Audience Services Manager, Kimiko Tanabe, at boxoffice@gibneydance.org.

Gibney encourages people with disabilities to attend online offerings, and we welcome the opportunity to make this event more accessible. This event features live ASL interpreters and live captioning. If you have any questions or additional access needs, please email us at constanza@gibneydance.org or call us at 212-677-8560 (voice only) at least 24 hours in advance of the event you plan to attend.

Photo by Devin Ball.