American Realness

James & Jen | McGinn & Again

Over the River | Through the Woods

World Premiere

Saturday, January 16, 5:30pm
Sunday, January 17, 7:00pm

Run Time: 55 minutes

Abrons Arts Center, Playhouse
466 Grand Street / tickets $20

Single Tickets Festival Pass

Over the River | Through the Woods, the diptych debut by the family collective: McGinn & Again, follows the passage of a hero. Constantly shifting self and time, we embark on a journey of antiquities inspired by a cyclical history. Juxtaposed sound and image paint mosaics of humoral composition and development. Sonnets, shanties, and charades are shared by allies along the way. We carve out a home… a Scottish den… for feast and frolic.

Over the River | Through the Woods was funded in part by Chez Bushwick, Inc. and the Mertz Gilmore Foundation Late-Stage Production Stipend. Additional support provided by the Movement Research Artist-in-Residence Program, funded, in part, by the Jerome Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Davis/Dauray Family Fund. Rehearsal support was also provided through a boo-koo Residency at Gibney Dance.

photo by Ian Douglas


Design & Performance by James & Jen McGinn

McGinn & Again is a multidisciplinary family art collective initiated by James and Jen McGinn. While maintaining professional autonomy, their working practices often converge on collaborative projects, including but not limited to, generative artistic research, pseudo conceptual theory, and the development of post-contemporary pedagogical platforms. Collaborating with family and friends alike, their work explores the depth of these seasoned relationships in objective respect to hyper-formalist composition with a makeshift grander. Their efforts have mainly taken shape in the northeast United States / northwest Europe and hope to be coming soon to a theater near you.

James McGinn was born and raised in Sarasota, FL by a Scottish figure painter and an American Cecchetti ballerina. Initially trained as a classicist-turned romanticist, his relationship to contemporary art and performance continued to transform throughout his extensive professional training at The American Dance Festival, The New School – Eugene Lang College, and as a 2013 danceWEB scholar at Impulstanz – Vienna. While finishing Graduate research at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, James became heavily invested in trans/post-humanist theory & composition and started a database of referential form & gestural symbolism. He has been greatly influenced by performing in the work of Jonah Bokaer, Wally Cardona, Miguel Gutierrez, Ishmael Houston-Jones, John Jasperse, Daniel Linehan, Jen McGinn, Ryan McNamara, Marten Spangberg, and Robert Steijn, among others. His choreographic work has been shown throughout the US/EU, was presented at American Realness 2011, and selected as a finalist at the Danse Élargie Competition @ Theatre de la Ville. James currently works between Brooklyn and Brussels as a contemporary performer and choreographer exploring the territory between dance, theater, & performance for the stage and moving image. www.jamesmcginn.info

Jen McGinn received her B.A. and M.F.A in Dance from Hollins University in partnership with the ADF. She currently teaches at the University of the Arts and co-directs their Summer Institute in Dance; is a Dance Specialist for “Life Lines” Community Arts Project; and is the Studio Manager at the Center for Performance Research. She is currently making work as a 2014-2016 Artist in Residence through Movement Research and a 2015 Gibney boo-koo Grantee. Her work has been presented throughout the East Coast and abroad at various spaces including Brooklyn Arts Exchange (2013 Space Grantee); Dance Theater Workshop (Fresh Tracks); nEW Festival (2009 AIR); Movement Research at the Judson Church (’09-’15); Danspace Project (DraftWork and Academy Dances); Philadelphia Live Arts Festival (The A.W.A.R.D Show); Franklin Street Works (Showing the Work); Dixon Place (BRINK); Performance Mix Festival (’08, ’11, ’14); CPR (New Voices in Live Performance and Performance Studio Open House); AUNTS; Community Education Center (New Edge Mix); and the National Theater of Luxembourg (Bruler Pour Briller). Her interests include Cecchetti ballet, magical thinking, and logic problems. www.jenmcginndance.com