Jennifer Monson/iLAND: in tow (Pre-attacks)
Part of Jennifer Monson/iLAND: in tow September 23-October 1!
Initiated in 2013 by award-winning choreographer Jennifer Monson, in tow is an ongoing performance research project bringing together 10 artists from 4 different decades. in tow straddles location, discipline, and aesthetic to create an evolving working process driven by what each artist brings to it.
in tow will hold a priming event each evening during its second week of performances. These events give the audience an opportunity to experience some of the underlying infrastructure of the work. All Pre-attack events are free and audiences are welcome to come and go as they please.
September 29, 6-7PM: horizon line/fragment – a perceptual installation that works against the receding nature of a horizon line and brings the public into a new sense of dimensionality and continuity.
September 30, 6-7PM: tide/groove – a sound experiment developed from the horizon line set-up and the rhythmic patterns developed through the in tow process. The score activates the particularities of the acoustic architecture of the church.
October 1, 6-7PM: solo/collective: tone/relation – a series of solos and duets that pull away what we bring in tow.
Note: Tickets for 8pm performances of in tow September 29-30 and October 1 must be purchased separately. More information and tickets here.
Featuring artists Susan Becker, DD Dorvillier, Niall Jones, Alice MacDonald, Jennifer Monson, Valerie Oliveiro, Zeena Parkins, Angie Pittman, Nibia Pastrana Santiago, David Zambrano (not performing), and Rose Kaczmarowski (not performing)
Other performances
Jennifer Monson is a choreographer, performer, and teacher. Since 1983, she has explored strategies in choreography, improvisation, and collaboration in experimental dance. In 2000, her work took a new turn to investigate the relationship between movement and environment. This ongoing research has led her into inquiries of cultural and scientific understandings of large-scale phenomenon such as animal navigation and migration, geological formations such as aquifers, and re-functioned sites such as the abandoned Ridgewood Reservoir. These studies provide the means to unearth and inquire into choreographic and embodied ways of knowing and re-imagining our relationship to the environments and spaces humans/all beings inhabit. Her projects BIRD BRAIN (2000-2005), iMAP/Ridgewood Reservoir (2007), and the Mahomet Aquifer Project (2008-2010), SIP (sustained immersive process)/watershed are investigations that have radically reframed the role dance plays in our cultural understandings of nature and wilderness. Her current work Live Dancing Archive proposes that choreography itself is an archival practice for environmental phenomena. Her early choreography has been performed in New York City venues including: The Kitchen, Performance Space 122, and Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church; as well as other recognized national and international venues. She has collaborated with Zeena Parkins, DD Dorvillier, Yvonne Meier, David Zambrano, and many other artists. She has received fellowships from the NEA, New York Foundation for the Arts, The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, The Lambent Foundation, and the Foundation for Contemporary Art. She has received two Bessie awards- one for sustained achievement in the field and one for BIRD BRAIN. She is an inaugural Doris Duke Impact Artist.
In 2004, Jennifer Monson incorporated under the name iLAND- Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature, and Dance. She is currently a Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and a Marsh Professor at Large at the University of Vermont, (2010-2016).