New England Premiere of "Big City" by Brian Brooks Moving Company at Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts on July 12 and 13
Brian Brooks Moving Company
Thursday, July 12 & Friday, July 13 performances to feature New England premiere of the work "Big City" (2012)
Middletown, Conn., June 25, 2012—Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts presents two performances by the New York-based dance company Brian Brooks Moving Company, featuring the New England premiere of the work "Big City" (2012), on Thursday, July 12 and Friday, July 13, 2012 at 8pm in the CFA Theater, located at 271 Washington Terrace on the Wesleyan campus in Middletown.
Dance Magazine has said that the dance works for live performance and film that have been produced by the Brian Brooks Moving Company “shatter conventional notions of the human capacity for strength and endurance”. The Dance Enthusiast writes that Brian Brooks "shows us that what is simple can be miraculous. I think that is choreographic genius, really—making the next movement seem inevitable, revealing the virtuosity of the basics, and uncovering interesting stories in repetition." Serving as the main vehicle for Mr. Brooks' choreography, the Brian Brooks Moving Company has been presented by world-renowned venues throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and South Korea, including Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Central Park Summerstage, the 92nd Street Y Harkness Festival, the American Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, Vanderbilt University, and Davidson College.
Mr. Brooks' signature solo work, "I'm Going to Explode" (2007), which is set to music by LCD Soundsystem, will open the performances at Wesleyan, providing the audience with a clear point of entry into who Mr. Brooks is as a choreographer and performer. The first half of the evening will also feature performances of the full company work "Descent" (2011), which premiered at the Joyce Theater; and the duet from "Motor" (2010), which premiered at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival. "Descent" is a four-part work, studying the state of a perpetual fall, as partnered company members take opposing supportive and passive roles, their bodies exhibiting both dependency and detachment as they perform against a liquid black backdrop. "Motor" was inspired by Mr. Brooks' experience as a runner and a racer, and will be performed at Wesleyan by Mr. Brooks and David Scarantino. The other members of the dance company that will perform at Wesleyan include Meghan Frederick, Jo-anne Lee, Danielle McIntosh, Bryan Strimpel, and Evan Teitelbaum.
The second half of the evening will feature the new piece "Big City", which includes a large scale, geometric, kaleidoscoping aluminum set designed by Mr. Brooks and Philip Treviño, which is a contrast to the rich, soft costumes designed by Roxana Ramseur. Mr. Trevino has worked with Camille A. Brown & Dancers, José Limón Dance Company, and Wally Cardona Quartet, among others. Ms. Ramseur has worked with Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York Philharmonic, among others. Although Mr. Brooks typically avoids story-based narratives in his works, the journey of "Big City" stems from the hope found in efforts of construction, rebuilding and organizing in the aftermath of both physical and emotional destruction and devastation.
Brian Brooks Moving Company received their first dance engagement outside of New York City as a part of the Breaking Ground Dance Series at Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts in November 2002. Mr. Brooks returned for solo performances in the Patricelli '92 Theater in October 2007. The company was also featured during the Showcase Performance at the 10th annual DanceMasters Weekend at Wesleyan in March 2009. Mr. Brooks has taught master classes during DanceMasters Weekend in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.
Brian Brooks Moving Company received a 2012 National Dance Project Touring Award from the New England Foundation for the Arts in support of the creation and touring of "Big City". Developed and premiered during a month-long residency with DANCEworks at the Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara, California, "Big City" tours this year to ten cities, including performances earlier this spring at the Joyce Theater's Gotham Dance Festival. Following their engagement at Wesleyan, the company will be performing at the American Dance Festival in North Carolina, the American Dance Institute in Maryland, Temecula Presents in California, The Egg in Albany, and S.U.N.Y. Oswego, among other locations.
Click here to watch a video about the creation of Brian Brooks Moving Company's "Big City" in Santa Barbara on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-ICHEGOafo&feature=player_embedded
Admission for the performance by Brian Brooks Moving Company is $22 for the general public; $19 for senior citizens and Wesleyan faculty/staff; and $10 for students. Tickets are available online at http://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa, by phone at (860) 685-3355, or in person at the Wesleyan University Box Office, located in the Usdan University Center, 45 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown. Tickets may also be purchased at the door beginning one hour prior to the performance, subject to availability. The Center for the Arts accepts cash, checks written to “Wesleyan University”, and all major credit cards. Groups of ten or more may receive a discount – please call (860) 685-3355 for details. No refunds, cancellations, or exchanges. All programs, artists and dates are subject to change. All Center for the Arts facilities are air-conditioned.
Brian Brooks is a 2012 Danspace / Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance Artist in Residence. Summer at the Center for the Arts is co-sponsored by the Capital Regional Education Council’s Center for Creative Youth, which is partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Surdna Foundation. Artist residencies are made possible by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development’s Office of the Arts, and Wesleyan University’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance.
About Brian Brooks
Artistic Director and choreographer Brian Brooks has been living and working in New York City since 1994. His interest in choreography emerged at a young age while growing up in Hingham, Massachusetts. At eighteen, he attended the American Dance Festival, where he was exposed to the scope of contemporary dance with guidance from dean and mentor Martha Myers. He later dedicated three years to performing with daredevil choreographer Elizabeth Streb, allowing him to profoundly test the limits of the body and its positioning in space.
Since 1999, Mr. Brooks has been a Teaching Artist at Lincoln Center Institute, where he spent five years as the elected Chapter Leader of the Teaching Assistant's Union represented by the United Federation of Teachers. Mr. Brooks has dedicated much of the past decade to dance education, most recently serving on the faculty at Princeton University. He has previously worked as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Dance at Barnard College of Columbia University, and as a guest artist at schools including the University of Maryland at College Park and Illinois State University.
Two commissions from Dance Theater Workshop provided Mr. Brooks with early and elevated exposure, garnering his first of several funding awards from The Greenwall Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts. Summerdance Santa Barbara and Alfred University have offered multi-year creative residencies and presentations, enabling Mr. Brooks to further develop his choreographic process and produce major works for his company. Additional support has come in the form of residencies awarded by 3-Legged Race in Minneapolis, the University of Maryland, Colorado’s Green Box Festival and the Mt. Tremper Arts Festival.
Mr. Brooks has been on the faculty of Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts since 2010, and later this year will create new dances as an invited guest artist at Skidmore College and Alfred University. In August 2012, he will premiere his duet with New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Wendy Whelan, commissioned for the Vail International Dance Festival by Damian Woetzel.
For more information about Brian Brooks Moving Company, please visit www.brianbrooksmovingcompany.com.