ARTIST INFORMATION

This project was created in part at the Kaatsbaan International Dance Center as part of a residency in November 2007 & 2008.

Erica Essner Performance Co-Op

Now celebrating its twentieth year, the Erica Essner Performance Co-Op incorporates a physical narrative into its intense and compelling work. The company brings into focus the exquisite language of the human body. High-flying lifts, expressionism, and original music all define this diverse company. The Company seeks broad audiences who have limited exposure to contemporary dance, to this end, we have recently instituted a new outreach program that offers open rehearsals and forums to provide an introduction to dance composition and the relationship of live music to dance.

The Erica Essner Performance Co-Op was founded in 1990 in San Francisco and enjoyed a decade of performing, teaching and touring in the San Francisco Bay Area. During this period, Essner collaborated with award-winning composer Erik Ian Walker www.wackoworldmusic.com. Together, Essner and Walker enjoyed a highly successful partnership that saw the creation of ten works.

In 2000, Erica Essner moved to New York City and re-established the Company. The Company is still going strong in New York, and is proud to mark its 20thh Anniversary this year with significant recent achievements. These include Performances at Central Park SummerStage, Jacob's Pillow Inside/Out, Joyce SoHo, the Rio de Janeiro Choreographic Center, Gooseroute Dance Festival West Virginia, Alaska DanceTheater, Miller Theater Houston TX, The Puffin Room NYC and the Kaatsbaan International Dance Center. Erica Essner's work has been selected for Dance Theater Workshop's Freshtracks, she been awarded a Bessie Schonberg Choreographers residency at The Yard in Chilmark MA, and was commissioned by Alaska Dance Theater in 2008. For more information on the company go to www.eecop.org

Performances at SFIAF

The company returns to the Bay Area for its Twentieth Anniversary presenting excerpts of two recent works: Moon Uprising (2009) and You Go, I Go (2007). This Brooklyn-based company of six grew out of the Essner's original company, which was founded in 1990 in San Francisco and enjoyed a decade of performing, teaching and touring in the Bay Area.

Moon Uprising (2009) premiered as an evening-length work at Jacob's Pillow dance festival last summer on the Inside/out stage. Intricate partnering and expressionism define this new sextet performed to mibira and analog electronics by composer Miguel Frasconi. Featuring the whole company of colloborators/performers, that include: Courtney Drasner, LoMa Familar, Jenni Hong, Hannah Seidel, Josh Palmer and Paul Singh.

Moon Uprising marks the second collaboration between Essner and Frasconi. They first collaborated in 2003, when Essner was drawn to Frasconi's use of unusual instruments. Frasconi employs glass objects, electronics, keyboards, and "de-evolved" instruments to create new exploratory music sounding from a uniquely imagined tradition. His instruments have been called "a beautiful menagerie of pealing contraptions," Time Out New York, and his music has been called "lyrical and stormy" by the New York Times. Miguel Frasconi has worked with many of new music's most respected composers and has studied the music of South India, West Africa, Indonesia, and has explored early 20th century experimental forms, including the work of the Dada and Fluxus movements. He has created over three dozen dance scores and received a 1997 Isadora Duncan Dance Award for his work with Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, and recently performed with modern dance pioneer Anna Halprin at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. In addition, the score features riveting percussion by HANDS ONS'SEMBLE a contemporary percussion ensemble devoted to the art of hand drumming. This project was created in part at the Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in Tivoli New York as part of a residencies in 2007 & 2008. The company's debut of Moon Uprising was described as:

"Erica Essner Performance Co-Op moved with magically soft vibrancy. Essner is known for the evocative power of her gestures and for making old-fashioned angst feel new again, but in this sextet to Miguel Frasconi's percussive score, a wafting peace prevailed. The steps seemed not to end so much as float away - over the deep valley that serves as the stage's backdrop, or into the feathery canopy of trees overhead."
Apollinaire Scherr, Financial Times

The program also features You Go, I Go (2007), where kinetic chains of dancers are tangled up and twisted, in forceful dialogue. This dance explores the domino effect in the context of the anatomical vocabulary. You Go, I Go is performed to music composed by Gustavo Santaolalla whose guitar music features traditional Argentinean music infused with polyrhythm and harmonic overtones.

"You Go, I Go evokes a communal atmosphere and a spiritual tone as its five dancers form a tight-knit clump, touching and dancing together, passing movements that grow increasingly rough and antagonistic as the piece progresses."
Lisa Jo Sagolla, Back Stage Blog

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