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Part-tribute, part live-archive, part new work, GET DANCING is an evening of downtown dance history re-imagined. Presented in partnership with The Watermill Center, the program includes dances from the 1970s by the late choreographer Andy de Groat re-staged by Catherine Galasso, as well as Galasso’s notes on de groat featuring original choreography and a contextualization of de Groat’s legacy, revealing “an aesthetic of task lifted by beautiful music, of circles of the mind, of patience and poetry” (Wendy Perron, 2016).
Andy de Groat emerged as a choreographer in the 1970s. His early choreography places spinning and pedestrian movement within a complex framework, presented with a keen sense of timing, phrasing, and rhythm. He is known for numerous collaborations with Robert Wilson, including the choreography for the original Einstein on the Beach in 1976. de Groat and his company, red notes, were based in France for 30 years where he was nominated twice to the National Order of Arts and Letters. This collaboration with Galasso, created while de Groat was still living, was commissioned by Danspace Project, developed at The Watermill Center, and nominated for a New York “Bessie.”
Galasso will once again re-stage de Groatʼs Fan Dance and Get Wreck, this time with local community performers from the East End, alongside Galasso’s company dancers. The program also includes a film by Jon Meaney and Andrew Horn of de Groatʼs Rope Dance Translations (1979), as well as music by Catherine Galassoʼs father and frequent de Groat collaborator, the César Award-winning composer Michael Galasso, who is best known for his soundtrack for Wong Kar Waiʼs In The Mood For Love.
On Thursday night, July 29 at 7pm, Guild Hall and The Watermill Center are proud to present Viewpoints, a conversation engaging the community through intriguing dialogue and creative collaboration by leading voices in the arts and humanities. Moderated by Dr. Lauren DiGiulio, Viewpoints with Sheryl Sutton and Robert Wilson explores the legacy of collaboration in the early work of The Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, Wilson’s early performance collective. Sutton and Wilson will use GET DANCING and its foundation in the work of the late Andy de Groat, a Byrd himself, as an entry point into a discussion about generational exchange, the role of archives in contemporary performance practice, and the function of performance training in the Byrds’ work. The conversation will be followed by a live performance of GET DANCING, in which Catherine Galasso reimagines historic downtown works that de Groat developed in the late 1970s alongside fellow Byrd, composer Michael Galasso.
Run time: Approx. 70 minutes
FUNDING ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The creation and premiere of GET DANCING was made possible, in part, by the Danspace Project 2015-16 Commissioning Initiative, with support from the Jerome Foundation. Additional support provided by the Bossak/Heilbron Foundation, individual donors, and the 92nd Street Y. The project was developed through residencies at Robert Wilsonʼs Watermill Center, the Centre Nationale de la Danse Pantin, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in Tivoli, New York, East Village Dance Project, and through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Councilʼs Extended Life Dance Development program made possible in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
