Gretchen Ackerman Reflects on the Creation of Joshua L. Peugh's BUD

Pools of light warm our feet as we stand in a circle facing one another. The sun is always high in the sky by this time. It comes together like setting mosaic tiles into a window sill. The tiles are pretty themselves, but it is where they are placed and where they face which produces the magnificence. We each share our own tiles. We add tiles of books, events, ideas, questions, discoveries... They are thrown together, mix & matched, broken down, reversed, and scattered about. We glue and re-glue. How will the image appear? How will the image be understood? As dancers, we must be masters of communication. Our bodies must act as servants to the dictations of the mind for information to be absorbed and interpreted eloquently.

Josh’s creation process pushes us to explore levels of embodiment which we do not previously conceive. What is a duet missing one person? What is a solo with two people? What is a broken expectation, and how is it explicated? How do we inhabit multiple perceptions of reality so we can understand how someone else understands? Each rehearsal is spent turning questions like these inside out and backwards, chewed up and spit out. In our most recent work, ​BUD, ​we are exploring questions surrounding sexuality in our world today. What effect does one’s coming out experience have on years passed? How do homo/heterosexual people view the word gay? What role do the generalizations and archetypes of homosexuality play in how we view ourselves and others?

The company with NY based multimedia artist Brian Kenny in rehearsal for Bud.

I appreciate the work for the manner in which it forms. Pieces are placed and moved and removed until the result is a snug fit. It is eclectic and tumultuous. The room for question and discovery pushes us to steer from habit and demand ferocious curiosity. There is no “this is how it should be, how it will be.” Everything is explored in order to find the clearest message. We erupt around the studio to Brandon Carson’s original drum score. We let the light produce little drops on our foreheads and spill to the floor.

---

Reserve your seats for Bud as well as guest choreographer Eoghan Dillon’s Boys Are and Mark Caserta & Mikey Morado’s Dregs.

Performances will run January 24 – 27, 2019 at Addison Theatre Centre.

For tickets, CLICK HERE.

Shelly Cochrane Reflects on the Creation of Mikey Morado and Mark Caserta's DREGS // Photographs by Joshua L. Peugh

We begin our day in darkness, our sleepy bodies and minds quickly coming alive with the excitement of the unknown. The day is a soundscape, the soundtrack of rehearsal neutral enough to allow for uninhibited exploration, but daring and twisting with electronic drones, providing seamless transitions from the ordinary into the world Mikey Morado and Mark Caserta begin to build with us. Their practice is filled with improvisation scores, an open forum for discovery and movement research. They create a foundation, clearer rules for this emerging world, through their intricate phrase work. A spectrum of juxtaposition cradles flowing undulations against harsh tension, our bodies learning to adapt and embrace our new movement language for the next two weeks. Feeling discomfort and ease sliding past each other in harmony charges the room. Harnessing the ability to control and let go simultaneously warps phrase work into small manifestos and new inspirations emerge. Obvious aesthetic conquerors from the moment they enter a room, Adidas-clad Mark and Mikey make the perfect team to spot these moments of magic and extract them from the extraneous. They mold seconds of intrigue into complex characteristics and relationships that emerge and grow over the course of their work. They guide each dancer with immense care coupled with cheeky whim, giving space for what is meant to happen within their world, coaxing out the impossible and making it unquestionable.

Another gift Mark and Mikey shared with Dark Circles was the attention to the music in our world. Working to a score by dancers-turned independent music duo slowdanger allowed the audio elements of the piece to grow and shift along with the movement. This nebulous approach to sound culminated in our final days in the studio when we were able to collaborate with slowdanger live in the space. This added another now essential tendril to Dregs; twisting in between phrase work and creating riffs off of movement that was yearning for a highlight. Transitions fold in on themselves and stretch out into empty space, the open studio latching onto new sounds given life through the fingers and voices of Taylor and Anna.

As part of Dark Circle’s LGBTQ centered Winter Series, Mark and Mikey’s world within Dregs invites themes of sexuality without heteronormative pressures. They’ve welcomed the audience into a space without labels, anonymity fully available for anyone to explore and play with. The movement slips through sensual, coarse, driving, performative, internal, and everything else lurking just past the edges of an unsuspecting viewer’s mind. Jarring convulsions follow slick curves, question marks follow hard evidence, and each lucky audience member leaves with an almost voyeuristic peek into this ephemeral yet timeless world; they’ll each take with them the leftover remnants of what we carry with us, the Dregs.

---

Reserve your seats for Dregs as well as guest choreographer Eoghan Dillon’s Boys Are and Joshua L. Peugh’s Bud.

Performances will run January 24 – 27, 2019 at Addison Theatre Centre.

For tickets, CLICK HERE.