Movement Research, one of the world’s leading laboratories for the investigation of dance and movement-based forms, returns to Danspace Project with its annual Fall Festival.

This year’s Movement Research Fall Festival honors the journey—of creative processes, artists’ trajectories, and the past forty years of Movement Research itself. On the eve of MR’s homecoming to its first-ever long-term home at 122 Community Center, the Fall Festival offers a moment to reflect on the past decades of trusting the integrity of the ride – vitality, change, movement.

The twice-annual Movement Research Festival explores contemporary dance forms through performances, classes, workshops, contact jams, multimedia installations and discursive formats. The Festivals are led by teams of artist-curators. The Fall Festival centers around performances at our long-time festival home, Danspace Project, while the Spring Festival is programmed and produced in various locations that are selected and shaped by the curatorial team. These two approaches allow for a varied investigation and exploration into current artistic concerns and reflect Movement Research’s mission of valuing artists, their creative process and their vital role within society.

Thursday, November 29:
Admission for Thursday night’s performance is $10 suggested donation at the door!

Tonight we celebrate thirty-five years of Movement Research’s Open Performance program with a marathon event organized by artist and past Open Performance coordinator Martita Abril.

7pm: Jenni Hong, Meghan Frederick, Zachary Richardson moderated by mayfield brooks
8pm: Toni Carlson, Justin Faircloth, Chloe Marie moderated by Alexandra Tatarsky
9pm: Sam Hanson, Lai Yi Ohlsen, Hadley Smith moderated by Kristopher K.Q. Pourzal

Open Performance is a non-curated work-in-progress event in which three artists share material, and the audience joins them in discussion moderated by a Movement Research Artist-in-Residence. Over the decades, Open Performance has been a radical forum, fostering experimentation both in performance and in feedback methods that inform artists’ processes. Come see the program in three consecutive iterations–nine artists, three moderators, thirty-five years of innovation.

Friday, November 30, 8pm:
$15/$12 Danspace Project Members
The artists who have served as Movement Research staff over the past four decades have done so in the spirit of practice and process, valuing intention, thoughtful direction, and trusting the integrity of the ride; as artists, for and with artists.

In this 40th anniversary season, we come together as Movement Research staff, present and past, to share our creative identities with you and with each other.

Featuring work by Alice Ashton, Bree Breeden, Laurie Berg & Bessie McDonough-Thayer, Rebecca Brooks, Diana Crum, Greer Dworman, Ursula Eagly, Catherine Galasso, Megan Kendzior, Amanda Loulaki, Njeri Rutherford, Tara Sheena, Kathy Westwater

Saturday, December 1, 8pm:
$15/$12 Danspace Project Members
Jaime Ortega and iele paloumpis have curated an evening of performance around the themes of somatics and social justice. From Ortega and paloumpis:

“We seem to be in a moment of collective consciousness about the need to integrate our somatic practices with our politics, and through this event we hope to continue working through this question of how our bodily practices, social politics and creative work inform one another. As an important part of the evening we have asked participating artists, Jill Sigman and Antonio Ramos, to think about what sort of somatic preparation they might like an audience to share prior to seeing their work. The evening will begin with this sort of collective experiential framing before witnessing the works of Sigman and Ramos.”

There will be a short post performance discussion to follow.