‘Nolan Park’ is a sound and movement piece by choreographer Liz Gerring and composer Michael Schumacher that uses Governors Island’s outdoor spaces to create a dynamic and unpredictable experience for visitors. The dancers will rotate through a series of mapped positions, offering viewers a variety of perspectives on Ms. Gerring’s original movement, while a portable sound system will subtly interact with the environmental ambience. As the dancers and sounds move from place to place there will be repeated interactions with the audience, each within a new context.
• DATES AND TIMES: Sep 25, 2021 TIIME: 1-4pm with breaks NYTime (Rain date: Sep 26)
• LOCATION: Building 10a, Nolan Park, Governors Island and other locations in Nolan Park
Our idea of a dance installation: We are, all of us, individuals who change and adapt to the conditions of our environment. One moment we observe, the next we are observed. Our attention is directed outward, then inward. We feel elated and then, from a chance encouter, elation transforms to doubt and insecurity.
The flux of perception, of emotions, of attention, create a map, a potential form within which to cast an enduring, memorable experience. An installation should open up the potential for creating meaning out of diverse and apparently unrelated events that constitute a given interval of time. An installation gives context, continuity, by making everything that happens within the space of its duration a relational framework, a purpose, an intentionality.
In the 1990s, Gerring and Schumacher performed day-long movement and sound events at a loft downtown. The public would come and go throughout the day. Gerring improvised based on a repertoire of movements developed in the studio, Schumacher improvised on laptop, synths and prepared guitar. This work represents a return to this project, with the benefit of years spent working together, each forging a personal style and a unique approach to the union of dance and music. Gerring and Schumacher have collaborated on a half dozen large scale, proscenium-based works presented at the Kasser Theater, The Joyce, BAC, Roulette, and other venues.The installation format allows for a particular kind of intimacy, full of the potential for discovery, between the artwork and the audience. Our approach is to create a space that is saturated with potential, with the possibility for creating meaningful interconnections between the elements, like a “paint by numbers” drawing with an infinite number of figurations.The elements: specific movements, as subtle as a hand’s gesture or sustained over a complex phrase; bits of sound, combined and interconnected, abstract or practically tangible; the ever-shifting perspective of the viewer/listener – her own “data” in the form of memories…
Funded in part by the New Music USA Project Grant”. https://newmusicusa.org/program/project-grants/
• BIOS
Liz Gerring was born in San Francisco in 1965 and grew up in Los Angeles where she began studying dance at age 13. Ms. Gerring studied at the Cornish Institute in Seattle, and in 1987 she received a BFA from the Juilliard School.
She formed the Liz Gerring Dance Company in 1998 and has been presenting her work in New York City and abroad continuously since that time. Ms. Gerring was awarded the Jacob’s Pillow prize in June 2015 and a Joyce Theater Residency the same year. Between 2013-18, Ms. Gerring was commissioned for three works in collaboration with composer Michael J. Schumacher for Peak Performances at the Kasser Theater in Montclair NJ. In 2017/18 she was awarded a City Center Choreographic Fellowship and in 2019. Ms. Gerring was one of five artists to receive the Cage – Cunningham Fellowship from the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Ms. Gerring is currently working on a project with composer John Luther Adams and the Jack Quartet at the ICA Boston and Summer Stages. Ms Gerring has been on the faculty of Groove With Me, an after school dance program for girls, since 2018.
She lives in New York City and upstate NY with her husband Kirk Radke, her three children, two dogs, and a cat.
• COLLABORATORS
Performers: Mariah Anton, Cemiyon Barber, Brandon Collwes, Mossy ParkeHarrison, Quashierra Mohammad, Claire Westby
Choreographer: Liz Gerring
Composer: Michael J Schumacher
Video: Zorica Colic
• LINKS
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lizgerringdance
Instagram: @lizgerringdance https://instagram.com/lizgerringdance?utm_medium=copy_link