BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance returns to the Hamptons after 2012’s success for an impressive dance residency full of summer fun for everyone. The dance company will be in residence at the Ross School this summer until August 15 in East Hampton, running its summer dance program. In addition to daily classes, the company will be performing and holding special lecture-demonstrations and public workshops for adults as well as children throughout the summer at the Ross School. There will also be evening performances at the school’s theater July 31 and August 2 at 7 p.m. The performances will be repertory highlights of four of the company’s most thrilling and diverse pieces, The Mantises Are Flipping (P.S. I’ll Have Whatever They’re Having), Control Dominion, Fault Line and No One Gets Out of Here Alive.
BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance is a contemporary dance company that strives to capture and communicate universal human encounters through dynamic, purposeful movement. It is a multifaceted, highly physical company laced with provocative, emotional, political and humorous edges. Its mission is to examine depths of society in their darkest and brightest moments and to inspire audiences to physically sense emotional and psychological aspects of the human condition on stage. The company’s work is intellectual and highly choreographed in every moment. It is intricately technical and controlled in every nuance, with a look that is not controlled. Live music is an important factor in many of the company’s works. The company also consistently works via in-depth collaborations in lighting, costume, video and set design. In addition to creating and performing innovative works, the company is committed to reaching diverse populations through outreach and education and maintaining a stable business model to sustain its work. The company values international exchange; members collectively speak nine languages, and research, perform and collaborate with artists from five continents. Teresa Fellion formed BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance in late 2011 after working as an independent choreographer since 2004.
Two Performance Descriptions
No One Gets Out of Here Alive: A comedic dance-theater piece about awkward junior high and plastic regressions of adulthood explores differences between mature and immature behavior via adult commentary with a Brechtian slant. The clothes thing, boyfriend thing, gossipy, destructive behavior and much more. All illuminated through excitingly quirky and deconstructed dance vocabulary, including a temperamental dance vocabulary, quick physical mood shifts, provocative tableaux, slow motion fight scenes, lip-syncing, athletic partnering, exaggerated facial expressions, situational comedy, dream sequences and “inventive,” committed social dancing.
“Alive is loosely based off my astute observations as a nerdy, shy ‘outsider’ in sixth grade,” says Fellion. “Through boy-short hair (when it wasn’t fashionable), coke-bottle glasses, argyle sweater vests and 104 point GPA, I saw that cliques and power dynamics were unhealthy—and hilarious.”
Control Dominion: Dancers in cyborg society, Control Dominion, struggle between individual will and governing control. Opposing forces of surrender and domination reveal harrowing pitfalls of the proselytizing hive mind. Frenetic, alert movement and intricate, distorted phrases are programmed rather than organic. Dynamic progressions become chock full of manic activity as dancers fling, throw, jerk, jump, stiffen, fall, roll, lift and engage sometimes beyond their capacity to control. Complex rhythmic sequences create gradations of synchronicity versus presumed anarchy. Inward rotations, tensile contractions and reverberations pierce and manipulate bodies and space. Electronic soundscape composed by John Yannelli includes mechanical sound effects, robotic beats and a driving pulse.
Source: Teresa Fellion, artistic director of BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance. For more information, visit BodyStoriesFellion.org or call 646-662-5128.
