expand / align: I want to be, more aw-ware nowww (lift)
Tony Orrico
Friday, January 25, 2019
7:00 - 8:00pm
signs and symbols presents expand / align: I want to be, more aw-ware nowww (lift), a long-distance collaboration between artist Tony Orrico and New York based dance artists, Hannah Gross and Anya Kress. This 10 min duet is the result of a micro-residency in which the performers worked alongside the run of Orrico’s exhibition, a continued gesture towards us, on a choreographic interpretation of Orrico’s transcription of Tristan Perich’s 1-Bit Symphony (Movements 1 and 2). As Perich describes it, 1-Bit Symphony is not a conventional recording, but rather, an object that "performs its music live" when it is turned on. This beautifully dense arrangement is stored on a microchip and housed in a cd jewel case; the dancers will simply plug it into a speaker to manifest the sound. The juxtapositioning of Orrico's visual work, this activation of Perich's 'live' sound, and a demonstration in which embodied knowledge has been transferred through great lengths of time and distance, all seem to echo how the performativity of objects/forms/concepts rely on our engagement to sustain their life-force. As Orrico’s former students, the dancers sourced their material from familiar movement principles that are embedded in the vocabulary that informs Orrico’s drawings and work. This offering will be performed twice during the eve that marks the closing reception of Orrico’s first exhibition at signs and symbols, which will be on view through Sunday, January 27.
Dancers:
Hannah Gross
Anya Kress
tony orrico’s work has reached mass circulation for its ingenuity within the vernacular of performance and conceptual drawing. A Chicago native, Orrico studied Dance Theatre at Illinois State University, and received his MFA in Choreography at the University of Iowa. As a visual artist, he is interested in how physical impulses manifest into visible forms. His performances often enter territories of infinite reflective and rotational symmetry. He uses his own somatic research, Suspension Practice, as point of entry into his visual work. Orrico has performed/exhibited his work across the US and internationally in Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. His visual work is in the permanent collections of The National Academy of Sciences (Washington DC) and Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC, Mexico City) as well as prominent private collections such as Grazyna Kulczyk, Kablanc/Fundación Otazu and Bergmeier/Kunstsaele, among others. He has presented at the CCCB, Centre Pompidou-Metz, The New Museum, and Poptech 2011: The World Rebalancing. As a former member of Trisha Brown Dance Company and Shen Wei Dance Arts, Orrico has graced such staged as the Sydney Opera House, Teatro La Fenice, New York State Theater, and Theatre du Palais-Royal.
hannah gross is a New York based dancer from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She graduated from the University of Iowa with a B.F.A. in Dance and B.A. in Health and Human Physiology. Hannah is currently an apprentice with Elisa Monte Dance.
anya kress is a freelance dancer based in Brooklyn, NY. She recently received her B.F.A. in Dance from the University of Iowa. Currently, she is dancing in projects with Tony Orrico and Josiah Cuneo.
