Dishman + Co. Choreography Presents Belly

Wednesday + Thursday, March 29-30, 7:30pm.

at Greenpoint’s Church of the Ascension, 127 Kent St., Brooklyn NY, 11222

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Friday, March 31, 7:30pm.

at Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St., New York, NY 10002

Belly, collaboratively choreographed by Artistic Director Elizabeth Dishman and 6 dance artists: Larissa Asebedo, Tony Gonzales, Mary Lyn Graves, Nadia Halim, Owen Prum, and Julie Seal, is a 60-minute contemporary dance work presented in 2 parts, titled after the intimate space that draws together different individual elements to move the whole body through a complicated world. Aligning with this bodily truth, Dishman + Co.’s rigorous practices of “embodied listening” cultivate intimate spaces where different artistic voices are welcomed as varied elements needed to nourish a responsive communal whole. As the individual collaborators listen closely to each others’ bodies and respond through their bodies, a rich movement dialogue grows in which distinct voices are both amplified and connected.

Part 1 of Belly choreographically engages Bach’s “Solo Violin Sonata No. 2 in A minor,” performed live by Adrian Ong. With present, embodied attentiveness, the artists frame and embody the music’s turbulent, poignant lines and fleeting resolutions as a relationally-charged contemporary dialogue between distinct voices.

For Part 2, cellist-composer Okorie Johnson revitalizes the conversation with a new sound score developed in response to Part 1’s choreography, offered to him in silence with no knowledge of its first musical partner. His artistic voice cultivates a new sonic space in which to digest the existing dance. This cumulative listening process nourishes a complex, communalized dialogue that grows and energizes the creative community and performed dance.

Audience dialogues after each performance offer opportunity to unpack Belly’s practice of embodied listening in an intimate, receptive environment echoing the connective listening just modeled from the stage. As audience members share their unique perspectives and inquiries, the artists become listeners seeking to understand their own work from many more angles and transforming the traditional artist-audience relationship from power based, or us/them, to that of mutual learning.

About the company:

Dishman + Co. Choreography is a professional collaborative dance company working to foster dialogue between different voices. Our connective practices of “embodied listening” build intimate, vigorous dance conversations that generate and exude from the stage a vibrant communal presence among the company’s distinct collaborators. Performances, audience conversations, and movement workshops with diverse communities share embodied listening as a powerful connector in a fractured culture.