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Big Dance Theater (USA)

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Presentation

Background, cast and crew, thanks to

Price, duration, residence, tour dates, link

Dance - theatre

23.24.25.26 april 09

Thursday, Friday 10.45pm / Saturday 9:45pm / Sunday 6pm

The Big Dance Theater, an American collective, is tackling a French icon: Agnès Varda’s movie Cléo de 5 à 7. New-Yorkers Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson, who for several decades now have been mixing dance, theatre and pictures want to grasp a very peculiar form of the French language, that of the French arthouse movies. This particular movie, an iconic movie of the New Wave movement, deals with a drifting sick young pop singer. With subtlety and humour, Varda managed to give us an intimate portrait of a woman and a society threatened by destruction. In partnership with videomaker Jeff Larson, the Big Dance Theater (BDT) reinvents the character of Cléo. She is like yesterday’s Cléo, who would have found herself on the stage of today, in fear of death but in awe of the city. This is an American tribute to what exemplifies for them French culture.

’’Some of the most interesting and intelligent performers in New York.’’ The Village Voice

’’Deeply brilliant ...people need to see this amazing company.’’ The New York Times

See synopsis (pdf in french/56KB)

Background

The company Big Dance Theater was founded in 1991. It mixes dance, music, text and visual design. It is codirected by Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, and has produced 15 dance and theatre shows over the years. In 2000, the company was awarded an OBIE (Off-Broadway Theater Award) for ’’conjuring up the most implausible choreographic and literary concoctions’’ and in 2002, co-directors Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson were awarded a Bessie (New York Dance and Performance Award) for their ’’boldly arranged marriage between dance and theatre.’’ Finally, they were awarded the first Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award in 2007. The Big Dance Theater has performed in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Georgia, Belgium and France. This is their first French production, which will be performed again in New York in the autumn.

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Cast and crew

With: Molly Hickok, Tymberly Canale, Chris Giarmo, Ryutaro Mishima, Kourtney Rutherford, Aaron Rosenblum, Jeff Larson, Chris Wendelken.

Direction: Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar

Choreography: Annie-B Parson

Set: Joanne Howard

Video: Jeff Larson

Sound: Jane Shaw

Lights: Joe Levasseur

Costumes: Claudia Stephens

Production Manager: Will Knapp

Stage Manager: Aaron Rosenblum

Company Management: Shira Milikowsky

Based on the filmscript, Cleo from 5 to 7, by Agnes Varda. Used with permission.

Title song by: Robyn Hitchock

Thanks to

Co-production & Residence: Les Subsistances / Lyon / France, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco).

This residence is part of the FUSED (French-US Exchange in Dance), a programme coordinated and supported by the cultural services of the French Embassy in the US, CulturesFrance, FACE (French American Cultural Exchange), The New England Foundation for the Arts/National Dance Project, with the generous support of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Florence Gould Foundation.

With the support of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation/ USArtists International, National Endowment for the Arts and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.