CIC- Composition w/ Jill Sigman
Solidifying Presence
Fridays 12:00-3:00pm
February 12, 19, 26, March 5,12,19,26, April 2
Drop-in Rate: $20
Preregistration Available
IMPROVISATION as a CHOREOGRAPHIC TOOL- How improv can be used to mine movement and solidify presence
CHOREOGRAPHY: Solidifying Presence
This workshop will investigate how improvisational structures can be used as tools for choreography and how they can lead to increased theatrical presence in choreographed movement. How does improvisation allow us to find moments of movement innovation and heightened presence? How can we capture those in fixed choreographic work? We will explore a wide range of improv tools that span different physical scales-from micro improvisations that realign the skeleton to create theatrical characters to macro improvisations that compose large spaces through the movement of bodies and objects. We will use cinematic devices to create movement, capture source material from Youtube, and experiment with gesture. We will also explore various strategies to increase focus and awareness, lead to a more present state of performing, and retain that state when repeating choreographed work.
BIO
Jill Sigman is a choreographer, performer, improviser, and teacher. Trained in classical ballet, modern dance, analytic philosophy, and the visual arts, Sigman has been making dances and performance installations since the early 90s. In 1998 she founded her company jill sigman/thinkdance as a vehicle for these artistic experiments.
jill sigman/thinkdance presents performance that asks questions through the medium of the body. Melding the traditions of European dance theater and American postmodernism, choreographer Jill Sigman creates work rich in bold images and multi-media elements. She transforms simple actions like walking on eggshells, sliding down the stairs, and eating hot pink roses into complex statements about self, society, and human experience. To engage audiences as intellectual partners, she has gravitated to alternative spaces, socially conscious topics, and work that plays with the boundaries of dance.
Based in New York City, jill sigman/thinkdance exists at the intersection of dance, theater and visual installations, often using non-traditional environments, formats, and ways of involving the viewer. Audience members might be asked to use their cell phones, write secret messages, or go on a treasure hunt. Performances have taken place in a dilapidated Belgian printing house, a former munitions storage building, a Croatian hill village, a fence over a toxic canal, a drained out swimming pool, and the roof of a Mexican hacienda.
The work of jill sigman/thinkdance has been produced by such New York venues as Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop, Dancing in the Streets (Dances for Wave Hill), BAX, Dixon Place, PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, and the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center. Internationally, Sigman’s work has been shown in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, and India. As a teacher, Sigman has been a member of the dance faculty at Princeton University, a movement tutor at the Imaginary Academy in Groznjan, Croatia, a frequent guest teacher in Belgium, and a professor at Brooklyn College and The New School. In 2003, Sigman left 200 texts about why she makes art around NYC- in buses, phone booths, public bathrooms, and supermarket freezers.
QUOTES
“Jill Sigman has a prodigious imagination and intelligence. She is also a fearless performer who does not hesitate to expose the painful truths within us all.” — Jennifer Dunning, The NY Times
“Jill Sigman is a postmodern choreographer with a talent for building lucent and edgy site-specific works.”–Gia Kourlas, Time Out New York
LINKS
