Part of LUMBERYARD's inaugural season of performances in the Hudson Valley:

Jodi Melnick brings two works to Hudson Hall for LUMBERYARD’s summer 2018 season. The solo One of Sixty-Five Thousand Gestures is a deep exploration of movement, slipping from casual to formal and back again, and uses costume as a sculptural moving object in the dance. The work is the result of Melnick’s unique relationship, in and out of the studio, with Trisha Brown, an experience Melnick considers one of her most profound and transformative collaborations. New York Live Arts presented the world premiere in 2012.

NEW BODIES (2016) is Melnick’s celebrated collaboration with New York City Ballet dancers Sara Mearns, Jared Angle and Gretchen Smith. Melnick transmits her creative process and performative instincts onto these extraordinary ballet dancers. The work pushes the space the performers occupy and then pushes the body itself, using the full range of their unique personalities and skills, playing with the juxtaposition of music and silence. NEW BODIES weaves dance, spoken text and live music for harpsichord by composer György Ligeti, violin by composer Heinrich Biber, and newly commissioned music by Robert Boston. The world premiere was presented at Works & Process on November 13-14, 2016.

Jodi Melnick is a New York City-based choreographer, dancer and teacher. She graduated from SUNY Purchase with a BFA in Dance. Melnick is part of the first group of Doris Duke Impact Award recipients, a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow, and the recipient of the Jerome Robbins New Essential Works Grant (2010-2011) and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant (2011). She has garnered two Bessie Awards for sustained achievement in dance (2001 and 2008).