Meg Stuart
An evening of solo works
Co-Presented with Goethe-Institut
and the Federal Foreign Office of Germany
US PREMIERE
Thursday, January 5, 8:30pm
Friday, January 6, 10:00pm
Saturday, January 7, 7:00pm
Run Time: 60 minutes
Abrons Arts Center, Playhouse
466 Grand Street / tickets $20
“How to translate sensations and inner monologues into movement? Is it possible to track the hesitation before speaking, the movements not chosen, the spaces we travel to when we are daydreaming, the memories and projections that cloud our awareness of the present?” – Meg Stuart
In her solo works, Meg Stuart ventures into the monologue of movement, exploring everyday gestures, physical conditions and emotional states through improvisation. An evening of solo works presents a selection of Stuart’s body of solo works including XXX for Arlene and Colleagues (1995) and Signs of Affection (2010), as well as excerpts from evening-length performances. The evening offers an intimate and telling exposure to an American ex-pat, critically acclaimed overseas and rarely seen in the US.
An evening of solo works is produced by Damaged Goods (Brussels). Meg Stuart & Damaged Goods are supported by the Flemish Government and the Flemish Community Commission. Performances of An evening of solo works for American Realness 2017 are presented in collaboration with, and generously supported by the Goethe-Institut and the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.
Photo by Giannina Urmeneta Ottiker
Choreography and performance – Meg Stuart
Technical direction – Oliver Houttekiet
Light – Gilles Roosen
Sound – Vincent Malstaf
Tour manager – Annabel Heyse
Production – Damaged Goods (Brussels)
Meg Stuart, Born in New Orleans, is an American choreographer and dancer who lives and works in Berlin and Brussels. As a daughter of theatre directors, she began dancing and acting at an early age in California and regularly performed in her parents’ productions and those made by family friends. She made her first dance studies as a teenager focusing on simple movement actions. Stuart decided to move to New York in 1983 and studied dance at New York University. She continued her training at Movement Research where she explored numerous release techniques and was actively involved in the downtown New York dance scene.
Invited to perform at the Klapstuk festival in Leuven (1991), she created her first evening-length piece, Disfigure Study, which launched her artistic career in Europe. In this choreography, Stuart approaches the body as a vulnerable physical entity that can be deconstructed, distorted or displaced but still resonates and has meaning. Interested in devising her own structure through which to develop artistic projects, Stuart founded Damaged Goods in Brussels in 1994. Damaged Goods is a flexible, open structure that facilitates the production of highly diverse projects and interdisciplinary collaborations. Meg Stuart and Damaged Goods have created a wide range of productions, from solos to large-scale choreographies, site-specific creations, installations and improvisation projects.
Stuart strives to develop a new language for every piece in collaboration with artists from different creative disciplines and navigates the tension between dance and theatre. The use of theatrical devices, in addition to the dialogue between movement and narrative, are recurrent themes in her choreographies. Stuart’s choreographic work revolves around the idea of an uncertain body, one that is vulnerable and self-reflexive. Through improvisation, she explores physical and emotional states or the memories of them. Her artistic work is analogous to a constantly shifting identity. It constantly redefines itself while searching for new presentation contexts and territories for dance. Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods has an on-going collaboration with Kaaitheater (Brussels) and HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin). Invited by intendant Johan Simons, Meg Stuart and Damaged Goods collaborate with the Ruhrtriennale from 2015 until 2017. In 2016- 2017, Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods is touring BLESSED (2007), VIOLET (2011), An evening of solo works (2013), Hunter (2014), UNTIL OUR HEARTS STOP (2015) and Shown and Told (2016), a collaboration with Tim Etchells.
“No one can accuse her of being faint-hearted. Meg Stuart has always been a risk taker, and will always be aesthetically unpredictable.” – Dorion Weickmann, tip Berlin