Dance Listings > Performances & Events

[DANCEROULETTE] A lec/dem (Lecture Demonstration) by Mariana Valencia, Tess Dworman, Joey Kipp

Company:
Mariana Valencia, Tess Dworman, Joey Kipp

Mariana Valencia: lec
Joey Kipp: dem
Tess Dworman: dem

The term “Lec-Dem” is shorthand for Lecture Demonstration, a type of performance put on, most often, by dance teachers and their students in places like hospitals, schools and retirement homes that involves demonstrating dance repertoire interspersed with brief explanation. Lecture Demonstrations are sometimes thematic, but more often include whatever various repertoire students have been rehearsing for larger shows.

Likewise, Roulette’s lec/dem acts as a general framework for viewing live art, whether it be spoken research or movement-based performance. Each evening consists of one lec and two dems presented by artists working in and around the realm of contemporary dance. There is no binding conceptual content connecting spoken or danced work, and no causal or dependent relationship between the two. lec/dem is an open opportunity for dancemakers’ words to exist beyond talk backs and artist statements. It is a simple proposal that allows words and actions to coexist literally and texturally.

Mariana Valencia: Desert Water
25 Minutes
Solo performed by Mariana Valencia

Desert Water was invented near Joshua Tree, California by Elsa Brown, Lydia Okrent and Mariana Valencia on a hot summer’s eve. Desert Water is a place, an idea, an event, a theory, a telling of… exactly…  In recent performances, this work has been called Dance Savings, So Far So Much and One Toke Vape. In future mash ups this work is a small portion of a long dance research that is called ORIGINATORS which will be performed in January 2016 by Kate Brandt, Lydia Okrent, Elsa Brown and Mariana Valencia. Desert Water, Dance Savings, So Far So Much and One Toke Vape are based on experiences Mariana has written about and many of the writings get folded into Mariana’s dance works.

Mariana Valencia is a dance artist, she has held residencies at Chez Bushwick, NYLA, Show Box L.A., Pieter Pasd, and is a current ISSUE Project Room AIR. Valencia’s work has been supported by the Yellow House Fund of the Tides Foundation and she is a 2014-2015 Jerome Travel and Study Grant Fellow. Valencia has costumed for Lauren Bakst, Jen Rosenblit, Vanessa Anspaugh, and Geo Wyeth and her performance collaborations include musician Jules Gimbrone, dance artists Kim Brandt and robbinschilds and video artists Elizabeth Orr and Kate Brandt.

Tess Dworman: Damn Tree
15 Minutes
Tess Dworman, choreographer & performer
David Smith, collaborator
Greer Dworman, performer
Linus & Mica Rajakumar, performers

This multimedia work is an amalgamation of collaborative projects that choreographer, Tess Dworman has initiated with visual artist, David B. Smith, comedienne, Greer Dworman, and sibling philosophers, Linus & Mica Rajakumar. These once separate projects have been placed into a pile that simultaneously highlights and obfuscates their larger context as a whole.

Tess Dworman is a Brooklyn-based choreographer and performer originally from Oak Park, IL. She studied at the Laban Centre in London and graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BFA in Dance. In New York, her work has been presented by AUNTS, Center for Performance Research, Catch, Dixon Place, Danspace Project, Movement Research at the Judson Church, and New York Live Arts. Dworman has also had the pleasure of performing in the work of niv Acosta, Laurel Atwell, Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, Kim Brandt, Yanira Castro, Moriah Evans, Julie Mayo, Tere O’Connor, Marissa Perel, and Mariana Valencia. 

David B. Smith makes photo-sculptures and images from fragments of a collective past of American Culture.  His works are representations of an idiosyncratic unconscious dragged into the open to be played with and moved around.  He has recently shown at venues such as ICP, NADA Miami, Halsey McKay Gallery, Cabinet, David Zwirner Gallery, and Asia Song Society.

Greer Dworman is a Chicago-born now Brooklyn-based performer. Her work has been presented in venues across Chicago (she only just got here) and now casually emerging around the tri-state area. She has had the pleasure of working with artists such as Taisha Paggett, Kim Brandt, Emily Johnson/Catalyst, Joshua Kent, Tess Dworman and Lisa Gonzalez among others. She has been seriously attempting stand up comedy since early 2014. You can find her at youtube.com/TheGweew

​Mica Rajakumar loves to draw and she loves animals. She also loves hanging out with her brother and she lives in Brooklyn, New York​

Linus Rajakumar lives in Brooklyn, New York, he likes sports and hanging out with his sister. He also likes to draw.

Our ongoing [DANCEROULETTE] series reflects the commitment to presenting experimental dance that we’ve held since our founding in 1978, particularly the collaborative efforts of composers and choreographers exploring the relationship between sound and movement, choreography and composition. Roulette’s move to Brooklyn in September 2011 has enabled us to initiate a regular season of [DANCEROULETTE] presentations, which now hosts nearly 40 performances yearly.

[DANCEROULETTE] is supported, in part, by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation.