Streaming Live on April 15 at 6PM EST at Live.NationalSawdust.org

Part of the 2021 Digital Discovery Festival: BODY / SPACE

Toulmin Fellow Molly Joyce

and collaborators Jerron Herman, Max Greyson and Austin Regan

In partnership with The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU

Left and Right is a collaboration between composer/performer Molly Joyce, dancer Jerron Herman, writer Max Greyson, and director Austin Regan that examines historical myths of the left versus right side. The work specifically explores the traditionally cursed and dark left side of the body, sourcing stories from ancient Mesopotamians to the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. These societies collectively held strong biases against the left hand, often relegated to curses and inflicting injury while the right hand was considered healing and beneficent. Left and Right intersects, overlaps, diverges, and collaborates through the disparate yet synergic disciplines of dance and music, with a digital film presentation to unite and contrast the two. The work will incorporate accessibility as aesthetic, including open captions, sign language interpretation, and audio and sound descriptions, with contributions from curator Sandy Guttman and more. This presentation is part of Joyce's season-long fellowship with National Sawdust and The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU.

Molly Joyce was recently deemed one of the “most versatile, prolific and intriguing composers working under the vast new-music dome” by The Washington Post. Her music has been described as a vessel of “serene power” (The New York Times), written to “superb effect” (The Wire); “unwavering” and “enveloping” (Vulture). Her work draws on disability as a creative source. After suffering an impaired left hand from a previous car accident, one of her primary mediums became an electric vintage toy organ—an instrument she bought on eBay that engages her disability on a compositional and performative level. Austin Regan is a New York City-based director of opera, theater, and video. Recent works include Out of a Thought with Molly Joyce for PROTOTYPE; Rigoletto at Minnesota Opera; Discount Ghost Stories at Local Theater Company, and more. Max Greyson is a poet, theater writer and spoken word performer from Antwerp, Belgium. He has been touring in Europe since 2011, writing and performing in the music theatre productions of the Un-Label Performing Arts Company, based in Cologne. As of 2019, he holds a position as researcher at the Antwerp Royal Conservatoire. His project ArtInAD is an artistic research project of integrated audio-description for the blind and visually impaired in music theater. Jerron Herman is a disabled artist working in dance and text to facilitate welcoming. From late 2018 to 2019, he produced four world premiere commissions for Gibney, Performance Space New York, The Whitney Museum, and Danspace Project, including excerpts at The Kennedy Center. Herman has served on the Board of Trustees at Dance/USA since 2017, most recently as Vice Chair. The New York Times has called him "the inexhaustible Mr. Herman."