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  On Display

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  The New York Times has described Heidi Latsky as a “choreographer and dancer of uncommon intelligence and fluidity” and has written that, for her, “there are no unbeautiful bodies and no bodies incapable of dancing. In what some might call disability, she finds possibility.” With her ongoing series On Display, she turns a cast of diverse bodies into a sculptural installation, appropriating the notion of the body as spectacle and addressing society’s tendency to objectify, judge, and stigmatize people who are different from ourselves. On the stage of the Kasser, in collaboration with lighting designer Robert Wierzel, New York Live Arts associate artistic director Janet Wong, and a cast of 14 performers, she has created an arresting new-filmed version of the work. We have always been taught not to stare; not to look at someone deeply because it might offend them; that if someone “different” catches our eye we have objectified them. This is the life of the viewer. Alternatively, should we possess a birthmark, a glorious height, or unknown disability we risk being ostracized. This is the life of the viewed. For both the viewer and viewed, there are harsh limitations–the viewer does not have time to see beyond appearances, and the viewed risks only being seen as other. Can a dynamic, safe space for both to truly look and experience each other exist?

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  The New Adventures of Old David

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  David Gordon’s six-decade career has been a journey of constant self-reimagining in which new productions frequently incorporate fragments of his past works and his personal life often becomes explicit source material. In The New Adventures of Old David (What Happened – 1978/2021), Gordon builds upon not only a previous performance, but also his experience making work expressly for the screen—as in the three-time Emmy-nominated David Gordon’s Made in U.S.A. (1987), starring his partner, Valda Setterfield, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. The New Adventures of Old David is a film written, directed, and choreographed by Gordon, in which he returns to his 1978 dance-with-words What Happened to create something whose content and form are new. A company of recent and longtime collaborators— Wally Cardona, Scott Cunningham, Leslie Cuyjet, Karen Graham, Iréne Hultman, Justin Jain, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Dean Moss, Cynthia Oliver, and Setterfield—perform movement from the original work, in their homes and on the stage of the Alexander Kasser Theater, while Gordon, Setterfield, and Gordon’s stage manager of 30+ years, Ed Fitzgerald, tell the story of how What Happened happened. The result is a revealing memoir, a loving tribute to Setterfield, and evidence of Gordon’s ever-expanding artistry.

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  Art of the Fugue

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  The Art of Fugue is an evening-length, multimedia dance performance collaboration between Artistic Director Zvi Gotheiner, composer Scott Killian, lighting designer Mark London, media designer Joshua Higgason, and eight dancers. Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Art of Fugue is a point of departure for this choreographic exploration that highlights the individual contribution of each of his creative team. In music, a fugue is a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody is introduced by one voice and successively taken up by others; Gotheiner introduces this compositional structure as a metaphor to portray a non-hierarchical society. Killian integrates electronic original music with Bach, anchoring the work in contemporary culture. Higgason’s live and pre-recorded video projection adds an additional “voice” to the complexity of the canonic composition.

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  LEONORA, LA MAGA Y LA MAESTRA

  Office of Arts + Cultural Programming and PEAK Performances at Montclair State University

  A magical stage work inspired by the notorious life of the surrealist artist and feminist Leonora Carrington. Created by director Stacy Klein and performed by Double Edge Theatre.Captured at the Alexander Kasser Theater on 10/21/2020 - 10/22/2020.