Premiering as an evening-length work in 2010, IRIS began in 2007 as an experiment, a project with a commitment to keep searching until something is discovered. IRIS is being developed through work in progress showings, residencies and equipment borrowed from Digital Performance Institute.
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photos: JAHMANI PERRY

David Gordon / Pick Up Performance Company
Trying Times
Dec 11- 13, 16 – 20 7:30PM
$26
Post-Show Talk Dec 17 with Micki Wesson

 http://www.pickupperformance.org/

David Gordon offers up this
updated version of what has been called his "anti-signature" piece. Set
to Igor Stravinsky’s Apollo, one of George Balanchine’s signature
ballets, the production, features a new Gordon script based on the 1982
production, with some of the original collaborators and some new faces.  The piece uses video from the orignal production as well.

IRIS is a multimedia theatre movement work, premiering in Spring 2010. It is
an experiment, an evening-length piece being developed through residencies
and work in progress showings; equipment borrowed from Digital Performance
Institute is being used to explore the visuals.

The character IRIS, her predicament and her inner world are developing
through improvisation, which started with a black wig, a colored tie, and
then movement. How to relate the content of the movement to the content of
the visuals is a continual question. What do I want to say. How do I say it?

In the first of four sections, there is at various times the sounds of birds
and dogs barking. A window, which had always been part of the piece in my
mind, soon appears on the back wall, and moving branches come and go. The
props in IRIS¹s bedroom include large purple bras and high heels, as she is
exploring her feminity, sexuality, power. I have experimented with various
types of imagery. This includes images of a Victoria Secret catalogue which,
through the program Isadora, enlarge & reduce areas of the images through a
fisheye lens ... to a large bra, surrounded in color, in which one layer of
the bra expands and contracts with the movements of the performer ... to a
single bra tumbling out of a light, turning and expanding until it overtakes
the screen and disappears.

The character¹s projected shadow is something I am very interested to
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Born in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, in 1982.

Choreographer, dancer and lighting designer. Has presented his own dance productions “The Factbook”, “White is the color of death”, “This was, this appears”, “Totoro”, “Disappear”, “Consagración”, “Zugarramurdi, o el prado del Gran Cabrón”, “Dim” and “Goat” on diferent venues in Amsterdam (NL), Buenos Aires and Santiago del Estero (AR). He also participated as a performer in dance projects, besides his own, by Nora Heilmann, Katerina Bakatsaki, Diana Theocharidis, Doron Hirsch, Koyama Ai, Diana Gadish, Cecilia Gómez and Liliana Toccacelli. His artistic interests cover a very broad range. His choreographic work, characterised by high energy and intense physicality, is based on the exploration of very diverse creative approaches, that range from the abstract and conceptual to the very narrative.

Has designed lighting for concert, dance, opera and theater performances in multiple cities in Argentina, The Netherlands and Belgium. He lectured on “Communication in lighting and dance” and taught as assistant to teacher Arq. Eli Sirlin at IUNA’s Bachelor in Lighting Design (Buenos Aires). He authored the project for exterior decorative lighting to two national monuments and two City Government offices in the City of Pigüé, Argentina.

At present he is a fourth year student of the School for New Dance Development (SNDO; bachelor degree) of the Amsterdam Arts University (AHK). He is a holder of the prestigious Huygens Scholarship granted by the Dutch Ministry of Culture, and has received grants to support his work from Instituto ProDanza (AR) and AHK Fonds Practicum Generale (NL).
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Prince: Neal Medlyn's Unpronounceable Symbol
PERFORMANCE: July 9th-20th 8PM
additional late show Sat 11PM
PS122

"Neal Medlyn's Unpronounceable Symbol is Neal Medlyn's fourth and largest to date pop song tragic-comedic extravaganza. Following the success of his Lionel Richie Opera, R. Kelly cabaret, and wild and bloody spin on Phil Collins, Medlyn takes on the purple, hyper- sexualized world of Prince.

Set to many of Prince's biggest hits and infamous b-sides, all performed onstage by a live band, Neal plays out an evening of seduction and intense internal spiritual conflict between two characters: an engaged cab driver and a messianic libertine. Jealousy, band troubles, violence, death, a dream ballet, decent into hell and the eventual transubstantiation of body fluids and redemption all find their place in an operatic and overblown evening of androgynous musical entertainment.

Co-written and with musical arrangements by Tony-Award Nominated and Obie winner Kenny Mellman; Herb of Kiki & Herb and co-creator, with Bridget Everett and Michael Patrick King ("Sex and the City") of At Least It's Pink. Neal will also be joined by Adrienne Truscott, lauded choreographer and half of the award winning neo-vaudeville duo the Wau Wau Sisters, who will also contribute choreography, and Carmine Covelli.
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