With Womens Work: Mariana Valencia - Dearest

Wednesday, March 3rd, at 8pm EST, ISSUE is pleased to stream Dearest, a new work by choreographer and performer Mariana Valencia. The piece is part of the With Womens Work series, commissioning artists to interpret and respond to scores included in Womens Work, a magazine first edited and self-published in 1975 by Alison Knowles and Annea Lockwood.

Notes from Mariana Valencia on Dearest:

For a while now, I’ve had a recurring dream that takes place in Tulum, New York; in Dearest, I recount this dream to my friend. I work through a stream of consciousness description as my body performs a dissonant movement score. In Dearest, I reach for intimacy where there might not be any; like walking past all the bodies in Midtown all the while hoping to bump into an ear that will listen.

The piece responds to a score by artist, dancer, choreographer, and writer Simone Forti included in Womens Work Volume #1, 1975.

Choreographer and performer Mariana Valencia, is an LMCC Extended Life grantee (2020), a Whitney Biennial artist (2019), a Bessie Award recipient for Outstanding Breakout Choreographer (2018), a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award to Artists grant recipient (2018), a Jerome Travel and Study Grant fellow (2014-15), and a Movement Research GPS/Global Practice Sharing artist (2016/17). Her work has been commissioned by Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Chocolate Factory Theater, Danspace Project, The Whitney Museum, The Shed and Performance Space New York. Valencia has toured nationally and internationally in England, Norway, Macedonia and Serbia; her residencies include AUNTS, Chez Bushwick, New York Live Arts, ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Gibney Dance Center, Movement Research, and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (OR). Valencia is a founding member of the No Total reading group and she has been the co-editor of Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence (2016-17). She’s worked with Lydia Okrent, Jules Gimbrone, Elizabeth Orr, Kate Brandt, AK Burns, Guadalupe Rosales, Em Rooney, robbinschilds, Kim Brandt, Morgan Bassichis, Jazmin Romero, Fia Backstrom and MPA. In 2019, Valencia published two books of performance texts, "Album" (Wendy's Subway) and "Mariana Valencia's Bouquet" (3 Hole Press). She holds a BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA (2006) with a concentration in dance and ethnography.