Nicole Beutler at EMPAC

Nicole Beutler in 1: Songs. Photo: Anja Beutler

Wednesday, March 30, 2011 + Thursday, April 1, 2011 at 7:00 PM

'2: Dialogue with Lucinda' (based on Radial Courses + Interior Drama by Lucinda Childs)

EMPAC Studio 1, Goodmen - Troy, NY

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Thursday, March 30, 2011 + Thursday, April 1, 2011 at 9:00 PM

'1: Songs' (ft. Sanja Mitrovic and Gary Shepherd)

EMPAC Studio 2 - Troy, NY

For tickets

The dialogue with Lucinda Childs covers the underlying choreographic scores and fiendishly complex performances of the dancers. Radial Courses is based on three movement sequences in a constantly shifting, circulatory composition. In Interior Drama, five dancers conform to an apparently perfect system, moving in repetitive and hallucinatory patterns. Childs describes her own work as an "intense experience of intense looking and listening." Beutler's reinterpretations focus on the individual dancer's roles and actions within the group patterns, revealing parallel realities and the ritualistic qualities of both dances.

'1: Songs' is a dramatic solo performance in the style of a rock song-cycle that crosses rough terrain. Performer Sanja Mitrovic channels the final words of tragic female protagonists from the history of theater, including Antigone, Medea, and Gretchen, allowing their timeless cries of suffering to enter her body and distinctly contemporary voice. As she shouts, speaks, and sings, she violently shifts between characters, at times fragile, raw, calculating, or emotional. Created by director and choreographer Nicole Beutler, with electronic music by DJ/composer Gary Shepherd, 1: Songs asks us to reconsider the words of these classic literary heroines (and anti-heroines) in the here and now.

Nicole Beutler works with the tension between intense emotionality and cool calculation while also reflecting on the history of theater. How do we look at emotions - what moves us and what doesn't? How does the past resonate in our contemporary reality? These are issues that are at stake in Nicole Beutler's work. Always searching for new forms, she currently is drawn to working with existing texts or dances.

Nicole is a choreographer, curator and performer based in Amsterdam. Her work is situated on the threshold of dance, performance, and visual arts. She seeks to precisely articulate sense and experience through performances, installations, and books. Her performances are composed musically, and suffused with subtle humor. They are characterized by minimal stage sets and a focus on the performer as a human being.