The Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) and The Watermill Center are pleased to present On The Beach April 5-7, 2012 at 8PM in the Jerome Robbins Theater. Inspired by the seminal opera Einstein on the Beach by Robert Wilson and Philip Glass, and in celebration of its 35th anniversary, Mr. Wilson has selected five teams of emerging artists to re-interpret sections of this 20th century masterpiece. The artists, all of whom have been in residence at Wilson’s Watermill Center on Long Island, NY, are from around the world, work in a variety of disciplines, and some have not collaborated previously.
They are: Jonah Bokaer (choreographer, dancer, NYC) and Davide Balliano (visual and performance artist, Italy); Degenerate Art Ensemble (performance company, Seattle); Manuela Infante (theater director, Chile) and Santiago Taccetti (visual artist, Argentina); Steven Reker & People Get Ready (choreographer, dancer, and musician, NYC); and Egil Saebjornsson (visual artist, Iceland) and Marcia Moraes (theater director, choreographer and performer, Brazil).
These artists have created new works inspired by five different sections of the seminal opera Einstein on the Beach, which was originally created in 1976 by Robert Wilson and Philip Glass and is currently being reprised worldwide—including a Brooklyn Academy of Music engagement in September. Four scenes and the Knee Plays are the sources of inspiration for this work. On The Beach celebrates a new generation of artists and their reactions to an opera that is widely recognized as one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 20th century.
TICKETS: $20
Tickets can only be purchased in advance online or by phone.
Click HERE or call 866 811 4111.
The on-site box office opens one-hour prior to curtain for Will Call and day-of-show sales.
On The Beach is made possible in part by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Jerome Robbins Foundation.
About The Artists
Jonah Bokaer is an international choreographer, media artist, and artist space developer. His work integrates choreography with digital media, resulting from cross-disciplinary collaborations with artists and architects. Bokaer’s choreography has been produced in Belgium, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The development of his choreography in France has included major productions in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, and Avignon (FUSED, 2011), for which he was recently awarded the Prix Jeune Talent Chorégraphique by the SACD in Paris. Also in 2011, Bokaer received the Jerome Robbins special fellowship in Choreography of the Bogliasco Foundation, and was named one of “40 Under 40” by Crain’s NY Business. In 2008-2009, Bokaer became the first dance artist to be appointed a Young Leader of the French American Foundation. He led a group of choreographers in the formation of Chez Bushwick (2002). He later founded CPR – Center for Performance Research, a 4,000-square foot arts facility in Williamsburg, with John Jasperse (2008). Bokaer is a current choreographer for the operas of Robert Wilson. Such works include Faust (Poland), Aida (Italy), Kool (USA/Japan), and Fronteras (Spain). www.jonahbokaer.net.
Davide Balliano was born in Turin, Italy in 1983. In this city he began his studies and earned a Bachelor in Graphic Arts. In 2002 he moved to Milan where he earned a second degree in Photography at the c.f.p Riccardo Bauer, and worked as artist. From June 2004 to June 2005, Balliano was a resident in Fabrica, the artist’s residence of Benetton group. Through an unemotional and minimal use of different media (performance, drawing, installation, video, and photography), his artistic research allows him to delve deeply into the most hidden aspects of the human mind, revealing their fragile structures and contradictions. Balliano’s works and performances were shown at Location One, The Artists Space, and PS1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, The Watermill Center in Southampton, Plymouth Art Center in Great Britain, as well as in New Zeland, Japan, and across Europe. His portfolio has been recently exhibited in the Archive of Via Farini in the context of the event “NO SOULS FOR SALE” at the Tate Modern Gallery in London. He is one of the winners of the AOL 25 for 25 Award 2010. Balliano lives and works in New York.
Degenerate Art Ensemble (DAE) is a Seattle-based performance company that creates original and adventurous productions using live music, physical theater, and dance. Audio elements include live foley art, orchestras and chamber ensembles, bands, newly-invented instruments, and electronics. DAE performs fully staged dance works, music concerts, interdisciplinary works, and recently was the subject of a large-scale museum retrospective at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle. DAE has created more than a dozen theatrical works presented by such venues as On The Boards (Seattle), REDCAT (Los Angeles), New Museum (New York City), The Watermill Center (Southampton, Long Island), Center for Performance Research (Brooklyn), and many others including venues and festivals in ten European countries. In August of 2012 they will headline the Eurotrialog Festival (Czech Republic), collaborating with Czech Rock legends Uz Jsme Doma. Their next large-scale project is “Underbelly,” a site-specific performance utilizing subterranean spaces at the site of the 1962 World’s Fair as part of the celebration commemorating the fair’s 50th anniversary. The work is a collaboration with Seattle’s cutting edge architecture firm Olson Kundig Architects.
Manuela Infante is a Chilean theater director and MA in Cultural Analysis. She is well known for her radical revisions of famous historical figures at the mercy of a cunning mis-en-scene that confronts the viewer with the veiled guises of theater, and offer scenic articulations of complex theoretical issues. With her group Teatro de Chile (www.teatrodechile.cl) she has written and directed work since 2001 with the permanent support of the Chilean Funds for the Arts. Three of her plays have been published and translated into English and Italian. Her work has toured Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Holland, and the U.S. Infante also works as a teacher in several theatre departments in Santiago.
Santiago Taccetti (Buenos Aires, 1974) lives and works in Berlin. He has exhibited work in contemporary art centers and galleries such as Centre d’art Santa Monica, CCCB Centre de Cultura Contemporanea Barcelona, Kultur Buro Barcelona, Istituto Italo Latinomericano in Rome, La Panaderia in Mexico City, and Centro Cultural San Martin and Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires. He has recently participated in the Fabra i Coats Residency 2010, the 2010 Proyectos Ultravioleta Residency in Guatemala, the CIA Centro de Investigaciones Artisticas Residency 2010 in Buenos Aires, and, most recently, the 2011 Watermill Center Summer Residency in New York. In 2009. Santiago Taccetti has received the Generaciones 2011 Art Prize by Caja Madrid with his collaborative project TWAIN.
People Get Ready is a band with Steven Reker, Luke Fasano, James Rickman, and Jen Goma. Reker moved to New York in 2006 from Arizona, working mainly as a dancer or musician for folks such as Yasuko Yokoshi, David Byrne, Miguel Gutierrez, Miranda July, John Jesurun, Jodi Melnick, Robert Wilson, Yoshiko Chuma, Jeff McMahon, Fred Thomas, and other artists he loves dearly. Reker and Fasano’s first construction of the band was a performance at The Kitchen’s Dance and Process series in 2009. Soon after, Rickman and Goma swooped in and completed the ensemble. They have presented their performance work and music in places such as The Watermill Center, The Kitchen, New York Live Arts, Glasslands Gallery, Death By Audio, and Le Poisson Rouge. Upcoming projects include a show at BAM in May as part of the Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Music Festival, curated by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National. Their album is coming out in June on Brassland records. thesepeoplegetready.com
Egill Sæbjörnsson has a background both as a musician and visual artist and has dealt with performance for most of his career. His installations are signified through use of video projections onto objects or found locations. The music side of Sæbjörnsson’s work ranges from his “songwriting” to working with sound, music and exploration of musical scores in his installations and performances. Sæbjörnsson has had shows and events in institutions such as Frankfurter Kunstverein, Hamburger Bahnhof – museum für Gegenwart Berlin, KIASMA Helsinki, Künstlerhaus Bremen, i8 Gallery Reykjavik, Hopstreet Brussels, Johann König Berlin and Kölnischer Kunstverein. Last year he was a fellow at Villa Concordia in Bamberg South Germany and was invited to make a piece during a summer recidency by Robert Wilson and Lisa de Kooning. In the year 2010 Sæbjörnsson was nominated for the Carnegy Art Price in Sweden for painting.
Marcia Moraes has an extended professional background as a theater director, actress, choreographer, and master physical theater professor. As well as her own productions, she has worked as a director and performer with opera composer Jocy de Oliveira in Brazil and Germany. Based for the past five years between Berlin, Rio, NYC, and Reykjavik, Moraes has started a collective of artists THE WHITE RABBIT in collaboration with Egill Saebjornsson, working in the interface between theater and visual art and performing around the world. She has performed recently at institutions such as The Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin, NBK Berlin, Frankfurter Kunstverein in Frankfurt, Museum of Contemporary Art Odense/Denmark, Reykjavik Art Museum/Iceland, Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, Festival Escritas na Paisagem /Portugal, The Clock Tower gallery and The Watermill Center, amongst others. THE WHITE RABBIT is currently producing new performances during residency at Internationalen Kunstlerhauses Villa Concordia in Bamberg, Germany. Moraes teaches workshops for the performance studies department at NYU and works with Richard Schechner in NYC.
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