Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener: RETROFIT: a new age – Danspace Project
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Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener: RETROFIT: a new age

​Rashaun and Silas are seen from behind vertical wooden beams for a wall that is not yet sheetrocked. The room they are in looks like it is mid-construction. Lots of exposed beams and pipes. They both wear colorful, patterned jumpsuits.
Silas Riener and Rashaun Mitchell. Photo: Hannah Nielsen-Jones.

Part of Platform 2022: The Dream of the Audience (Part II)

Thursday, April 28, 4-8pm
Friday, April 29, 4-8pm
Saturday, April 30, 2-6pm

*Proof of vaccination with 1st booster and mask required for entry.*

Please note: This is a four-hour performance installation.
Timed-entry tickets will be sold in advance, and walk-up tickets will be sold at the door.
Once admitted, you may come and go, or stay as long as you like.

Accessibility: Audio Description (AD) will be provided by Tess Dworman on Saturday, April 30, from 2pm-3:20pm and additional AD tickets are available for blind or visually impaired audience members. Please email Seta@danspaceproject.org to reserve AD tickets.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE PERFORMANCE PROGRAM

Building a site for dance and working on a house in upstate NY for the last five years has shifted Mitchell and Riener’s approach to time and choreography. The collaborative duo have developed an improvisation-based practice they call desire lines, which teases apart the experiential and spiritual cores of both dancing and watching dance. In their newest work, RETROFIT: a new age, they consider when and how dance slips into ‘something else’.

This site-specific immersive work, created for St. Mark’s Church’s architecture and surrounds, imagines dance as “an everyday ritual, the body as a prism and the audience as a dream,” in their words. Through an adaptive system of choices, relational structures, and material constructions, a group of long-standing and new collaborators (Morgan Amirah Burns, Savannah Gaillard, Jennifer Gonzalez, Eleanor Hullihan, Cori Kresge, Rashaun Mitchell, Mina Nishimura, and Silas Riener) build a world for collective action and transformation.

Audience members are invited to bring clothing items to be decorated + adorned with images of dancers performing, and there will also be unique pre-made upcycled pieces for sale. Designs provided by Otherwild, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Housing Works. Housing Works provides lifesaving healthcare, job-training, and housing to those living with affected by AIDS and those without access to quality housing, in our community. 


Accessibility & Covid Safety at Danspace:
*Proof of vaccination with 1st booster and mask required for entry.*
Visit our Accessibility Info page & Covid Safety page for more information and guidelines for attending performances and events our venue.

 

Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener are New York-based dance artists. Their ongoing work involves the building of collaborative worlds through improvisational techniques, digital technologies, and material construction. Together they have been artists-in-residence at LMCC, Mt Tremper Arts, pieter, Jacob’s Pillow, New York City Center, The Watermill Center, MANCC, Headlands Center for the Arts, BOFFO, New York City Center, The Center for Ballet and the Arts, and Baryshnikov Arts Center. Their work has been commissioned by Danspace Project, Madison Square Park, The Joyce Theater, BAM/Next Wave, The Barbican, EMPAC, The Walker Art Center, MCA Chicago, REDCAT, The Wexner, On The Boards, The LAB, Marfa Sounding, Culture Summit Abu Dhabi, SFMOMA, and MoMA PS1.

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