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WORLD PREMIERE
“Adroitly put together, [Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener’s] choreography is studded with real beauty and invention” – The New York Times
ABOUT THE WORK
A co-commission from NYU Skirball and The Walker Art Center, Open Machine is the newest work from acclaimed choreographers Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener. This World Premiere extends experiments with dance for cameras and screens in earlier works like TESSERACT (2017) and combines recent group practices of uncertainty.
Audiovisual description, projected images, and virtual renderings amplify and react to the unfolding dance. Technological and human paths converge into a dynamic choreography for the stage that imagines an Artificial Intelligence lovingly programmed by experimental dance.
The cast of 9 move with precision and abandon, and grapple with responsive choice-making systems. As they synthesize disparate modes of working, they reflect the social and spatial structures that shape our daily lives.
Blurring the lines between brain, body, and machine, the work builds an ever-evolving experience, amplified by a sweeping, mechanical sound score by electronic musician Mas Ysa and vocal artist Charmaine Lee, media design by Jesse Stiles, and lighting design by Davison Scandrett.
Open Machine features dancers and collaborators Morgan Amirah Burns, Savannah Gaillard, Jennifer Gonzalez, Michael Greenberg, Claude CJ Johnson, Catherine Kirk, Cori Kresge, Chaery Moon, and Kalliope Piersol.
PRODUCTION GUIDANCE
This production contains flickering lights and disorienting video.
RUN TIME
This performance is approximately 65 minutes.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener are New York-based dance artists. Their work involves the building of collaborative worlds through improvisational techniques, digital technologies, and material construction. They met as dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance company and since 2010 they have created over 25 multidisciplinary dance works including site-responsive installations, concert dances, gallery performances and dances for film in venues such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barbican Centre, REDCAT, The Walker Art Center, and MoMA/PS1. Throughout they have maintained a commitment to queer culture and aesthetics. Their partnership intentionally blurs authorship and maintains a deep commitment to collaboration with a diverse community of dancers, performers, artists and cultural institutions. rashaunsilasdance.com
Rashaun Mitchell is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the 2012 NY Dance and Performance Award (Bessies) for “Outstanding Emerging Choreographer.” His work has been presented by New York Live Arts, Danspace Project, Baryshnikov Arts Center, REDCAT, ICA Boston and Summer Stages Dance, La Mama Moves Festival, Mount Tremper Arts, Skirball Center at NYU, the Museum of Arts and Design, The Lab, ODC, and at various site-specific locations. Other awards include a 2007 Princess Grace Award: Dance Fellowship, a 2013 Foundation for Contemporary Art “Grant to Artist,” and a 2011 New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) for “Sustained achievement in the work of Merce Cunningham 2004-2012.” Mitchell is a Cunningham Trustee and licensed stager of the repertory. Since graduating with a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, he has collaborated with many artists, including Anne Carson, Stephin Merrit, Carla Fernandez, Charles Atlas, Xavier Cha, Davison Scandrett, Mas Ysa/ Thomas Arsenault, Jodi Melnick, Sara Mearns, Moriah Evans, Phillip Greenlief and Claudia LaRocco. Mitchell teaches workshops and classes throughout the country. He has staged work at CalArts and Connecticut College and has been on faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, Princeton University, and NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
Silas Riener is a graduate of Princeton University and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 2007-2012. He has performed with Chantal Yzermans, Takehiro Ueyama, Christopher Williams, Joanna Kotze, Jonah Bokaer, Rebecca Lazier, Tere O’Connor, Wally Cardona, and Kota Yamazaki. His own work has been curated at EMPAC, The Chocolate Factory, LMCC’s River to River Festival, The Serpentine Pavillion, and Danspace Project. His ongoing collaboration with artist Martha Friedman has resulted in works at Andrea Rosen Gallery 2, The Henry Museum, Locust Projects Miami, and Jessica Silverman Gallery.
READ THE DIGITAL PROGRAM
SUPPORT
This project is made possible in part with support from the New England Foundation for the Arts, The Samuel Scripps Foundation, The Princess Grace Foundation, The New York State Council for the Arts, Creative Capital, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, and the University of Michigan’s Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) and Stamps School of Art & Design. Open Machine received residency and creation support at Headlands Center for the Arts, The Barnard Movement Lab, and The Bogliasco Foundation underwritten by Van Cleef & Arpels.
NYU Skirball’s programs are made possible in part with support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the Howard Gilman Foundation; Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels; Culture Ireland; The Shubert Foundation; Collins Building Services; General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA; Goethe Institut New York; Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; New England Foundation for the Arts; Harkness Foundation for Dance; and Marta Heflin Foundation; as well as our valued donors through memberships, commissioning, and Allies for Arts Access Fund support.
