American Realness

Big Dance Theater

Cage Shuffle

WORLD PREMIERE

Saturday, January 7, 4:00pm – SOLD OUT* & 7:00pm – SOLD OUT*
Sunday, January 8, 4:00pm – SOLD OUT* & 7:00pm

* A waiting list will begin 30 minutes before each performance.

Run Time: 50 minutes

Abrons Arts Center, Studio G05
466 Grand Street / Tickets $20

Single Tickets Festival Pass

In Cage Shuffle Paul Lazar speaks a series of one-minute stories by John Cage from his 1963 score Indeterminacy while simultaneously performing choreography by Annie-B Parson. The stories are spoken in a random order with no predetermined relationship to the dancing. Chance serves up its startling blend of inevitable and uncanny connections between text and movement. With live tape and digital collage scored and performed by composer Lea Bertucci.

“…Read all ninety stories in order or select a smaller number, using chance procedures or not.”
Indeterminacy performance instructions by John Cage

Cage Shuffle is a production of Big Dance Theater and made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Additionally, the production received funding from the Starry Night Fund; the W Trust; the McGue Millhiser Family Trust; Mertz Gilmore Foundation; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New York Theater Program; and was also funded, in part, by the Big Dance Theater Creation Circle, lead individual contributors committed to the development and support of the company’s newest works.
Video Still by Michael Almereyda

Created and performed – Paul Lazar
Music composed and performed – Lea Bertucci
Choreography – Annie-B Parson
Movement Coach – Elizabeth DeMent


Produced – Aaron Mattocks/Big Dance Theater
Production Manager – Brendan Regimbal

Paul Lazar is a founding member and co-artistic director, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Walker Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop, Classic Stage Company and Japan Society. Outside of Big Dance, Paul directed Howard Fishman’s A Star Has Burnt My Eye at BAM in 2016, Christina Masciotti’s Social Security at the Bushwick Starr in 2015, Elephant Room at St. Ann’s Warehouse for the company Rainpan 43 in 2012, and Young Jean Lee’s Obie Award winning, We’re Gonna Die in 2011. He directed a new version of We’re Gonna Die in 2015, featuring David Byrne, at the Meltdown Festival in London. He also directed Bodycast: An Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra starring Frances McDormand for the 2014 BAM Next Wave Festival; and Major Bang for The Foundry Theatre at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Paul has performed with the Wooster Group in Brace Up!, Emperor Jones, North Atlantic and The Hairy Ape. Other stage acting credits include Tamburlaine at Theatre For A New Audience, Young Jean Lee’s Lear, The Three Sisters at Classic Stage Company, Richard Maxwell’s Cowboys and Indians at Soho Rep, Richard III at Classic Stage Company, Svejk at Theatre for a New Audience, Irene Fornes’ Mud at the Signature Theater, and Mac Wellman’s 1965 UU. He has acted in over 30 feature films, including Snowpiercer, The Host, Mickey Blue Eyes, Silence of the Lambs, Beloved, Lorenzo’s Oil and Philadelphia. His awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award in 2007, and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award in 2014, as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Paul currently teaches at New York University. He has also taught at Yale, Rutgers, The William Esper Studio and The Michael Howard Studio.

Lea Bertucci is an American sound artist, composer and performer whose work describes relationships between acoustic phenomena and biological resonance. Her work often incorporates multi-channel speaker arrays, electroacoustic feedback, extended instrumental/vocal technique, and tape collage. As an instrumentalist, she takes an idiosyncratic approach to the amplification of woodwind instruments, creating organic yet electrified sonic interventions. Her debut solo LP, Resonance Shapes, was released in 2013 on the Obsolete Units label and has been praised by A Closer Listen as “A grand exploration of the possibilities inherent in sound”. She is a 2016 MacDowell Fellow in composition and a 2015 ISSUE Project Room Artist-in-Residence. Her discography includes a number of solo and collaborative releases on various underground independent labels in the US and Europe, most recently, Axis/Atlas, on Clandestine Compositions.

“Brilliantly entertaining.” – The New York Times

“Remarkably few artists who do it half as well.” – The New York Times

“No one can match Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar.” – The Village Voice

“It’s hard to do justice to the freewheeling brilliance of Big Dance Theater.” – The New York Times

“See the work of Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar whenever possible.” – The New York Times