American Realness

Yvonne Meier

Durch Nacht und Nebel

U.S. Premiere

Monday, January 11, 7:00pm
Tuesday, January 12, 7:00pm
Friday, January 15, 7:00pm
Saturday, January 16, 7:00pm

Run Time: 45 minutes

Abrons Arts Center, Experimental Theater
466 Grand Street / Tickets $20

Single Tickets Festival Pass

Hair raising and naked inside and out, Durch Nacht und Nebel is a winding journey through wondrous scenes where props interact in mysterious, elegant and frightening ways. Half public enemy, half baby-devouring witch, Yvonne Meier present body politics in an extreme fashion and does not shy away from showing her age. Through numerous scenes Meier transforms herself with provocative costumes. Huge paintings will be made with a giant paintbrush. #Art

Durch Nacht und Nebel is presented with additional support from Abrons Arts Center.

Photo by Eric McNatt


Created and Performed by Yvonne Meier
Costumes, Props and Installation by Yvonne Meier
Lighting by Michael Stiller
Production Assistance by Lorene Bouboushian

Originally from Zurich, Switzerland, Yvonne Meier has lived and worked in New York City since 1979, where she became a member of the original group around Performance Space 122, regularly collaborating with Ishmael Houston-Jones and many others in the US and Europe. Her work, spanning anywhere from big spectacles to quiet solos, has been supported by three Fellowships in Choreography from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, NEA Inter Arts, Franklin Furnace and Pro Helvetia. The American Master Piece program of the NEA has supported the reconstruction of her performance-instillation work, The Shining. She has received three “Bessie” Awards for her works The Shining (1993 and 2011) and Stolen (2009). She has twice been supported through the Movement Research Artist-in-Residence program. Meier has been teaching Releasing Technique and Authentic Movement nationally and internationally for the last 30 years. After a life-long commitment to improvisation she has developed her own improvisation technique known as Scores. Meier also teaches children’s dance classes in NY Public Schools through Movement Research’s Dance Makers program.

Michael Stiller’s
introduction to improvisational dance and performance came in 1984, when Yvonne Meier asked him to design her new piece and then promptly taped him to the floor. Ever since, Michael has been lighting shows by performing artists here and abroad, including Neil Greenberg, Dancenoise, and Ishmael Houston-Jones. In recent decades Michael’s lighting practice has expanded to encompass just about anything that moves, as well as buildings and architecture, which he particularly likes to light because they do not.

Lorene Bouboushian is a performance artist and educator. She has shown work in Zagreb, Berlin, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and has taught in Beirut, Puebla, and Athens. Recent works have involved hysterical sink baths, skewering diversity narratives, asking the audience to run errands, and attempting to reach sensory thresholds in complete blindness. Influential collaborators include punk singer Whitney Allen, performance artist Kaia Gilje, and musicians Valerie Kuehne and Matthew Gantt. She is grateful to know Yvonne, and to have the opportunity to help make this work happen. It’s been a wild time, y’all. www.lorenebouboushian.wordpress.com