MELT—Watch Me Watch You

with Claire Cunningham and Jess Curtis

January 15 – January 19, 2018

MON TUE WED THU FRI 3:30pm – 6:30pm

Studio G05 at Abrons Arts Center

$125

Drawing on scores, ideas, and themes from their work The Way You Look (at me) Tonight — developed in collaboration with philosopher of perception Alva Noë — Curtis and Cunningham lead an investigation through movement, language, writing, watching, listening and feeling, of how difference — of physicality or lived experience — can shape, and is shaped by, the way we ‘perform’ our perceptions. This workshop is accessible to people of diverse physicalities.

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Claire Cunningham is a performer and creator of multi-disciplinary performance based in Glasgow, Scotland. One of the UK’s most acclaimed and internationally renowned disabled artists, Cunningham’s work is often rooted in the study and use/misuse of her crutches, the exploration of the potential of her own specific physicality with a conscious rejection of traditional dance techniques (developed for non-disabled bodies), or the attempt to move with the pretence of a body or aesthetic other than her own. A self-identifying disabled artist, Cunningham’s work combines multiple art forms and ranges from the intimate solo show ME (Mobile/Evolution) (2009), to the large ensemble work 12 made for Candoco Dance Company. In 2014 she created Give Me a Reason to Live and Guide Gods.  In 2016 she was awarded an Unlimited Commission for The Way You Look (at me) Tonight with choreographer Jess Curtis. She is a current Factory Artist with Tanzhaus NRW (Dusseldorf). 

Jess Curtis is an award-winning choreographer and performance artist committed to an art-making practice informed by experimentation, innovation, critical discourse, and social relevance at the intersections of fine art and popular culture. Curtis created and performed multidisciplinary dance theater throughout the U.S., Europe and the former Soviet Union with the seminal group Contraband under the direction of Sara Shelton Mann in the 80s and 90s.  In 2000, after 15 years of making dance in the Bay Area as an independent choreographer, Curtis founded his own trans-continental performance company, Jess Curtis/Gravity, in Berlin and San Francisco. Since then Gravity has produced 10 full evening works and numerous smaller works, touring to over 60 cities in 14 countries. In 2011 he was presented the prestigious Alpert Award in the Arts for choreography.  Curtis’s other honors include six Isadora Duncan Dance awards, a Homer Avila award for leadership in the field of physically diverse performance, a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, two SF Weekly Black Box Awards, and a Stolichnaya award for performance art. Curtis is active as a writer, advocate, and community organizer in the fields of contemporary dance and performance, and teaches Dance, Contact Improvisation, and Interdisciplinary Performance for individuals of all abilities throughout the US and Europe. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of the Arts in Berlin. He holds an MFA in Choreography and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of California at Davis.