Returning Choreographic Fellow | December 1 - 14, 2014
Age & Beauty Part 2: Asian Beauty @ the Werq Meeting or The Choreographer & Her Muse or &:@&
Returning Choreographic Fellow Miguel Gutierrez came to MANCC to develop Age & Beauty Part 2: Asian Beauty @ the Werq Meeting or The Choreographer & Her Muse or &:@&. The work is the second installment in a suite of queer pieces that addresses the representation of the dancer, the physical and emotional labor of performance, tropes about the aging gay choreographer, the interaction of art making with administration, the idea of "queer time," futurity, and mid-life anxieties about relevance, sustainability and artistic burnout. The piece uses retrospection and archive to trouble what Walter Benjamin calls “the hellish return of the same,” to demonstrate how relationships, money and flights of fancy are at the center of all art making, and to create a blueprint for the future. Gutierrez was previously in residence in January 2014 to develop Age & Beauty Part 1: Mid-Career Artist/Suicide Note or &:-/, a work in which dancer Mickey Mahar was nominated for a New York Dance and Performance Award, aka a Bessie.
While at MANCC, Gutierrez met with Modern Languages and Linguistics Professor, Dr. Enrique Alvarez, who had attended a showing and provided feedback for Age & Beauty Part 1 during Gutierrez’s previous residency. The Scholarly Entrypoint allowed the two to delve further into the themes and context of these first two works in the artist’s planned trilogy.
Gutierrez also taught a workshop for School of Dance and Theatre students, faculty and community members. The workshop, Queer Choreographies: Whatever the Fuck That Means. A decomposition workshop, provided an opportunity for participants to examine the meaning of performance that identifies as "queer,” through their own movement explorations.
During the residency, the role of understudy Sean Donovan was developed to include him as a full member of the cast, assuming the character previously played by Gutierrez. Along with the expansion of Donovan’s part, time at MANCC allowed for further experimentation and refinement of the text, movement and production elements.
At the end of the residency, Gutierrez and collaborators shared work-in-progress material in an informal showing. The post-showing discussion allowed audience members representing a diverse FSU faculty landscape (Dance, Theatre, Art History, Religion, Fine Arts) to provide feedback on the in-progress material that they had just seen. A discussion also ensued around the opportunities and challenges of building creative work in the current performing arts landscape.
This residency was made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Collaborators in residence: Michelle Boulé [performer], Lenore Doxsee [lighting designer], Ben Pryor [manager/performer], Sean Donovan [understudy/performer], Leo Martin [sound/video tech], Sarah Lurie [production manager]