devynn emory

Fri 19 Apr, 2013, 8pm

ISSUE Project Room, 22 Boerum Place, Brooklyn

devynn emory, best known for heavily structured, formal, spatially detailed dances, opens their 2013 residency with "baby". Working with classically trained vocalist Margot Bassett, a collaborator for the last three years, this text piece is a collision of this formal movement structure as it pushes off the body and through the mouth to create hyper composed sounds, revealing multiple understandings and truths.

Part obstacle course, part solo ritual, part group ritual, part collective action, 'baby" can only be performed once. Working from a written score of directives, a corps of secret dancers are asked to memorize the score and present it this evening, unrehearsed, for its premiere. emory brings together a cast of performers drawn from the queer and transgender communities of New York, Pennsylvania, Los Angeles, and Massachusetts.

"i want performance to insist on another version of reality. i want to contribute to a queering of a performance aesthetic that invites a closer relationship to the ways we actually see and experience the world. i want to not only move from a queer lineage of resistance and outrage--i also want to, as a mixed-race native american person, welcome this queer movement on staged ground with peace and persistence. I want to create an experience that is just for us, shifting the experience from the position of object to a position of subject. As we culturally step forward into a boldness of being seen, the foreground of what is missing is strong. Can we fill that empty space by joining our bodies together? I want to feel around in those pockets where joining other queered bodies feels strong yet can also seem like isolation, and furthermore: how separating from one another can feel like assimilation. I want to allow for the messiness of this composition to force me to let go of design and formality, and in so doing allow for the stumbling blocks, the hindrances, the collisions and resistances, and the moments of trust to invite a discovery for myself and the performers as working equals, making untrained choices."

devynn emory is a dancer and choreographer based out of New York. emory is founder of the dance company devynnemory/beastproductions, and a member of Headlong Dance Theater and Tere O'Connor. Their recent work This Horse is not a Home, created in the studio series at NYLA, was shown recently at Abrons Art Center, The Poetry Project and Roulette.

Developed by: devynnemory/beastproductions
Vocals: Margot Bassett and devynn emory covering Perfume Genius
Corps of secret dancers

Established in 2006, ISSUE's AIR program provides emerging artists with a 3-month residency including rehearsal space, production, curatorial, and pr/marketing support to create new works, to reach the next stage in their artistic development, and gain exposure to a broad public audience. ISSUE’s Artist-in-Residence program is made possible, in part, through generous support from the Jerome Foundation, the Suzanne Fiol Memorial Fund, HBO, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York’s 62 counties.

devynn emory

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Artists-in-Residence 2013