Research Topics: cognition – communication – understanding
Work in Development: Choreography, a Prologue for the Apocalypse of Understanding, Get Ready!
Dorvillier’s new work seeks to address notions of communication and implied politics of understanding. Imagined as a triptych, a suite of related but formally distinct parts, she describes the work as “a discursive dance in-between, not based on the sensuality of embodiment but on the manifestation of a severe, unusual, and playful choreographic protocol which fuses sound, form, movement, and color.”
Collaborators: Zeena Parkins [composer], Thomas Dunn [lighting design + animation], Heather Kravas, Amanda Pina andElizabeth Ward [dancers]
Biographies
DD Dorvillier is a New York based choreographer, performer, and teacher. In 2003 she and composer David Kean were awarded two Bessies for Choreography and Soundscore of Dressed for Floating (Danspace Project, 2002). Her No Change or “freedom is a psycho-kinetic skill” (Danspace Project/Context Studios, 2005), has been shown in Festivals and theaters in places such as ImpPulsTanz (Vienna, Austria), Tseh Festival/Springdance Dialogues (Moscow, Russia), La Caldera (Barcelona, Spain), Lignes de Corps (Valenciennes, France), The Performance Space (Sydney, Australia), Dance Week Festival (Zagreb, Croatia), and The Melkweg (Amsterdam, Holland).
Dorvillier has been in the works of or collaborated with Jennifer Monson, Jennifer Lacey, Boaz Barkan, Heather Kravas,Yvonne Meier, Karen Finley, Jan Ritsema, and Sarah Michelson, among others. She has been a guest vocalist for Elliot Sharp’s Carbon, and for composers Jonathan Bepler and Zeena Parkins, with stage acting credits in the works of Carmelita Tropicana, Salley May, Circus Amok, and Pavol Lishka, and the films of Torey Vasquez and Iki Nakagawa. In 2000 she inititated human future dance corps supporting her individual work as well as collaborations with director/playwright, Peter Jacobs. Their works together include Die flasche ist ganz leer (PS 122, 1999), Wind (The Eternal Return of the Same) (The Kitchen, 2001), and Coming Out of the Night With Names (PS 122, 2004). In 2007 she created Half A Train, a collaborative photo installation with Flemish photographer David Berge. In 2008/09 she will be part of Parades & Changes, replays, a re-enactment of Anna Halprin’s seminal Parades & Changes (1965), initiated by French choreographer Anne Collod in collaboration with Anna Halprin. This year as well she will also perform in Jennifer Lacey and Nadia Lauro’s Les Asistantes.
Dorvillier has an established reputation as a teacher of Skinner Releasing Technique as well as her particular approach to performance making and physical training, teaching worldwide. She has been a Movement Research Artist in Residence (‘95/’96, ’07/’08). In 1999 & 2000 she was guest co-editor of Movement Research’s Performance Journal, the “Release” double issue, and was curator of the Movement Research Festival in 2004 and 2005. From 1996 to 2004 she curated HOTHOUSE, an infamous improvisational performance series at Performance Space 122 in New York. She is a 2007 recipient of the prestigious Foundation for Contemporary Arts Fellowship.
Zeena Parkins, multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser, sound artist, well-known as a pioneer of the electric harp, has also extended the language of the acoustic harp with the inventive use of unusual playing techniques, preparations, and layers of digital and analog processing. She achieves an engagement of contrasts using instrument blending and morphing, the recombination of acoustic instruments, found and synthesized sounds and by using scoring and formal constructions derived from extra-musical sources including: graphics, Nature, instructions, scripts, films, pictures. Zeena also creates multi-speaker environments to reconfigure sonic spaces and a sense of place.
Zeena has received commissions to provide scores for film, video, chamber orchestras, theater and dance. She has a particularly strong commitment to provide sound for dance and has created over 40 scores for American and European choreographers. She has had long term creative relationships with Neil Greenberg, John Jasperse, Jennifer Monson, Jennifer Lacey, DD Dorvillier, and Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh. Most recently, Zeena appeared with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. MCDC commissioned a new work from Ms. Parkins for “Experiments in the Studio” and she performed with the Company in their ongoing EVENTS series at DIA Beacon. Zeena has appeared in festivals worldwide and on numerous recordings. Some recent collaborators include: John Zorn, Bjork, Nels Cline, Yoko Ono, Christian Marclay, Matmos, So Percussion, Eclipse Quartet, Fred Frith, Elliott Sharp, Marina Rosenfeld, Thurston Moore and filmmakers Cynthia Madansky and Daria Martin. Zeena just released a second CD, “Orra” with Phantom Orchard, her duo project with laptop artist Ikue Mori. In Fall ’08, Zeena is releasing a new solo record on Table of the Elements, Between the Whiles, featuring her one-of-a kind, electric harp.
Awards include: Recent winner of her 2nd Bessie for sustained achievement: Composer for Dance, New York Foundation for the Arts 2008 Fellowship for Music Composition, Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Mention for Phantom Orchard, Bessie for Sender by choreographer Jennifer Monson, Bafta Award for Weightless Animals, with Kaffe Matthews and Mandy MacIntosh, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, Residencies at: Harvestworks, Steim, and RPI/iEAR.
Thomas Dunn is a Lighting Designer who develops work in architecture, dance, theater, and visual art venues. In 2007 he received a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) in lighting design for Nottthing Is Importanttt. He has designed lighting for several works by DD Dorvillier/human future dance corps, including Coming Out of the Night With Names (2004), No Change or “freedom is a psycho-kinetic skill” (2005), and Nottthing Is Importanttt (2007). Other recent credits include: Notes On Less Than Zero (2005), Before Intermission (2006), Showpony (2007) and Quartet for the End of Time (premiering in 2008) by Trajal Harrell, Noir (2004), Agora (2005), Melt (2008), Rapture (premiering in 2008) by Noemie LaFrance, and Awakening (2008) by Ong Keng Sen. Thomas was trained by Jennifer Tipton at the Yale School of Drama.
Photos taken during residency by Kathryn Noletto, M.F.A candidate in Dance, Florida State University as well as by Albert Hall.
