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From Our Fellow Dance Enthusiasts at Martha Graham Dance Company
November 23, 2011
Online video competitors interpret the psychological meaning of dance
Winning video will premiere during Martha Graham Dance Company's
New York season in March 2012
On the Couch: An Inner Monologue Competition
As part of its "Inner Landscape" season theme, the Graham Company is calling for contestants to create a monologue for a Graham solo dance that suggests a patient in a therapy session.
Details of On the Couch: An Inner Monologue Competition including instructions and rules of the competition can be found HERE .
The Female On The Couch Solo:
This contest is a light-hearted component of the Martha Graham Dance Company's Inner Landscape season, which focuses on Graham's revolutionary innovations in psychological dance. Graham famously said, "I wanted to find a way to reveal the inner landscape - to chart a graph of the heart." The company will present a range of performances, special events and educational activities all as part of the Inner Landscape theme. Highlights include premieres of new works for the Graham Company by eminent choreographers Lar Lubovitch and Yvonne Rainer.
Participants can enter the On the Couch Competition by downloading a video of a three-minute Graham dance. The dancer begins and ends the solo on a couch and dances through a series of emotions. The contest challenges competitors to add a voice-over or text to the solo that reveals the character's thoughts beginning with the sentence, "Doctor, it's happening again." Graham's legendary quote, "Movement never lies," must also be used somewhere within the monologue.
The Male On The Couch Solo:
Details of On the Couch: An Inner Monologue Competition including instructions and rules of the competition can be found HERE . The competition opens on November 22, 2011 and the submission deadline is 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time on February 1, 2012. Winners will be announced on March 12, 2012.
The winner will receive 00, and the winning video will be premiered during Martha Graham Dance Company's New York Season performances in March 2012. The second and third place winners will receive 00 and 00 respectively. All three winners will be promoted widely -- particularly in connection with performances of the Inner Landscape theme.
A panel of experts in psychology, dance, music, creative writing and media will select winners based on creativity and overall enhancement of the original video clips. Judges will include Mark St. Germain, award winning playwright and author of Freud's Last Session and Julie Jaffe Nagel, psychoanalyst, musician and chair of Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Music for the American Psychoanalytic Association among others.
"The Graham Company is leading the world of modern dance in experimenting with innovative ways to connect with new audiences," says Janet Eilber, Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Center and creator of On The Couch. "This project is a follow up to our 2009 video contest, the Clytemnestra ReMash Challenge - which was a first for the field and had international impact. Releasing historic masterpieces to be reinterpreted using the latest in technology leverages our legacy of innovation by adding new points of access for audiences worldwide."
