August 24, 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AND LISTING

Contact: Brendan Connelly, Tel. 917 991 6424 / 
Email: brendanjamesgregory@gmail.com

a??ABRONS ART CENTER presents:

Scotty Heron and Brendan Connelly

Appalachian Spring Break

September 16 - 25, shows at 8pm

 

“…classic and anarchic and enlivening at once, 
the perfect expression of vernal riot.”  

— Helen Shaw’s ‘Best Shows of 2015: The ones that should come back’

“Heron’s centerpiece work as Graham is a thing of mystery and scrupulously contained drama, gorgeous in its own way.”

— Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

 

ABRONS ART CENTER presents the return engagement of Appalachian Spring Break, the first collaboration of composer/musician Brendan Connelly (Obie-winning Theater of a Two-headed Calf) and Bessie-winning choreographer/ performance artist Scotty Heron – a staple of the downtown scene in the 80’s and 90’s.  Developed at the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans and premiered last year at JACK, Appalachian Spring Break plays with the iconic, confused and clichéd relationship of choreographer and composer, glancing sideways at Martha Graham and Aaron Copland’s only collaboration and its sepia-toned Americana. The lines of collaboration are gleefully blurred in this duet, where all movement, sound and light are generated and manipulated by the onstage duo. Contact microphones fill the stage and movements are often sound-generating: toe-shoes on an amplified piano bench; a reverbed water pail dragged across the stage; two dismantled clarinets; an adult diaper and a pair of toe-shoes; a bucket of water and a pile of guitar pedals. Ken Burns’ Civil War. A pop. A click. A slow entrance from the hanamichi. A flourish of eyelashes and then, the Finale.

 

PERFORMANCES
Friday - Sunday, September 16-18 at 8pm and

Friday - Sunday, September 23-25 at 8pm

TICKETS: $20, in advance at www.abronsartscenter.org or cash only at the door

 

LOCATION: 

ABRONS ART CENTER

466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street)

New York, NY 10002

 

www.abronsartscenter.org

 

ARTIST INFO 

BRENDAN CONNELLY is a composer, sound designer and co-founder of the OBIE-winning Theater of a Two-headed Calf. Recent and noted projects include I’m Bleeding All Over The Place (with Brooke O’Harra, LaMaMa E.T.C.); 
Wolf in the River (Flea Theater, dir. Adam Rapp); Walking, Sometimes Standing Still (6-channel installation, Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans); Oxblood (New Noise, City Park/New Orleans); How to Build a Forest (with PearlDamour, The Kitchen); Topdog/Underdog (Two River Theater; dir. Suzan-Lori Parks); 
You, My Mother (Two-headed Calf, La MaMa, E.T.C/River-To-River Festival); Trifles (Two-headed Calf, Ontological-Hysteric); Drum of the Waves of Horikawa (Two-headed Calf, HERE Arts Center). Brendan is currently collaborating with Jim Findlay on Electric Lucifer and with Karinne Keithley-Syers on Wild Land. He is a recipient of numerous Meet-The-Composer, NYSCA and NYFA grants and an NYIT award for Best Original Score. Brendan’s concert music has been performed by Wet Ink, S.E.M. Ensemble, Yarn-Wire, TimeTable Percussion, Hunter-Gatherer and others. Brendan is an alum of theTCG/NEA Career Development Program. 

 

SCOTTY HERON is a movement-based performance artist living in New Orleans. His solo and group theater works have been commissioned and produced in downtown venues including Movement Research, The Kitchen, La Mama E.T.C, Dance Theater Workshop, Franklin Furnace and Performance Space 122 which commissioned 4 evening length works. As a performer he has appeared in works by Sally Silvers, Jennifer Monson, DD Dorvillier, Karen Finley, Linda Austin, Cathy Weis and countless others. He is a juggler, stiltwalker, rope walker, acrobat and founding member of Jennifer Miller's Circus Amok, bringing free queer circus to New York City parks for a dozen years. In 2003 he was received a New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) award. He recently finished a two-year project in collaboration with Brusselsbased Thomas Hauert/Zoo which toured extensively in Europe, Canada and the U.S. He also maintains a longterm collaboration with HIJACK dance of Minneapolis. Most recently he made “Twink Spree Melee” in collaboration with Layard Thompson.

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