Closed captions are available by clicking the “CC” button on the video.

Ishmael Houston-Jones and Miguel Gutierrez’s Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other works by John Bernd was presented during Platform 2016: Lost & Found, curated by Houston-Jones & Will Rawls. The video above is an excerpt of the full evening length work.

Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other works by John Bernd, which served as a centerpiece performance of Danspace’s historic Platform 2016: Lost & Found, curated by Ishmael Houston-Jones and Will Rawls. Inspired, in part, by choreographer/dancer John Bernd (1953-1988), and the work of other New York dance makers who died during the first 15 years of the AIDS crisis, 1981-1996​, the Platform title was taken from Bernd’s trio of dances entitled Lost and Found, first performed at Danspace Project in 1982.

​Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other works by John Bernd revisits and reconstructs dances and images, and collages themes and excerpts from Bernd’s body of work to interrogate the effects of his loss on work made today. Ishmael ​Houston-Jones and Miguel ​Gutierrez direct a cast of seven dancers including Toni Carlson, Talya Epstein, Alvaro Gonzalez, Charles Gowin, Madison Krekel, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, and Alex Rodabaugh.

In 2017, Houston-Jones, Gutierrez, Nick Hallett, and Jennifer Monson won the Bessie award for “Outstanding Revived Work: For channeling the artistic vision of John Bernd, whose narrative, along with those so many others, was cut short by AIDS. For shepherding a young cast into communion with the spirit of the work. For responding to, reimagining, and restoring a missing chapter of our creative history.”