Sydney Schiff Dance Project presented by The Tank at Standard ToyKraft
Company:
Sydney Schiff Dance Project
The Tank at Standard Toykraft presents It Won't Buy You Lunch, a collaboration between Sydney Schiff Dance Project, members of Open Music Ensemble and visual artists. It Won’t Buy You Lunch questions why the performers pursue art as their careers and why in New York City.
Choreographed by Sydney Schiff in collaboration with dancers Stephanie Chun, Elisabeth Martin, Leigh Schanfein and Anna Schön, it features an original score composed and performed by Open Music Ensemble members Nicole DeVault, Kaveh Haghtalab, John Murchison and Jonathan Saraga. It also incorporates set design by Robert Olsen, costumes by Samantha Gebb, visual art by Gregg Emery and film by Jaffe DeVault.
When asked what inspired Schiff to embark on this project she remarked “I wanted to understand why these partcular artists chose to pursue art professionally when we could very well be doctors and investment bankers and why we choose to do it in New York City, a psychotically expensive place to call home. Our primary goal is to share with you a unique way of perceiving our city, our passion, and the community we build onstage.”
It Won’t Buy You Lunch is playing at the Standard Toykraft (722 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211) from Thursday - Saturday November 19-21, 2015 at 8pm. The running time is approximately 1 hour. Tickets are $15 online and can be purchased at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2413563 or $18 at the door.
MORE ABOUT SYDNEY SCHIFF DANCE PROJECT
Schiff founded Sydney Schiff Dance Project after graduating from Princeton University with an A.B. in History of Science and a Certificate in Dance. After producing numerous short works and collaborating on evening length projects as a guest artist at Princeton University and the NY Fringe Festival, she was awarded a 2012-2013 Arts Fellowship at Drisha: Institute for Jewish Education (NewYork, NY) and there began developing her company's first evening length work, Dry Bones: Resurrection of the Living. She presented excerpts at over a dozen venues and following a performance of the complete version at Judson Church (2015), Susan Reimer-Torn of The Jewish Week described the movement as “alternatively lyrical, celebratory and staccato”. Her work as a summer 2014 resident artist at Dance Omi International Dance Collective (Ghent, NY) inspired Imagined Architecture (ITE, CPR 2015), which evolved into It Won’t Buy You Lunch.
MORE ABOUT OPEN MUSIC ENSEMBLE
Open Music Ensemble, organized by Philip Foster, is an evolving multi-cultural cooperative of versatile, professional musicians pioneering the development and performance of fully improvised acoustic music. They offer several distinct musical programs that include collaborations with choreographers and dance companies.
facebook.com/openmusicensemble
MORE ABOUT THE TANK
The Tank is a Manhattan-based non-profit arts presenter. We serve emerging and established artists engaged in the pursuit of new ideas and forms of expression. Our goal is to foster an environment of inclusiveness and remove the burden of cost from the creation of new work for artists launching their careers and experimenting within their art forms. We present performances across a range of disciplines: theater, music, dance, comedy, film, storytelling, and public affairs. We keep ticket prices affordable and view our work as democratic, opening up both the creation and attendance of the arts to all and positioning the arts within civic and socio-political discourse. Tank Alumni include Alex Timbers (Tony-nominated theater director), Amy Herzog (Pulitzer Prize- nominated playwright), Lucy Alibar (whose one-act play Juicy and Delicious premiered at The Tank and was adapted to be the Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild), Hattie Mae Williams (founder of The Tattooed Ballerina, Knight Arts Challenge Grantee), Andrew Bujalski (film director, Computer Chess), and We Are Scientists (rock band).
MORE ABOUT STANDARD TOYKRAFT
Standard ToyKraft is an artist run theater that offers low-cost performance and rehearsal space as well as a puppet shop and private studios for visual artists. The founders of STK discovered a derelict factory floor located in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. With lots of blood, sweat and more tears than any of us care to admit we transformed this old sweatshop into a community organization. At the core Standard Toykraft is a community endeavor. Our community of artists continues to grow in this tough city because, we provide a supportive refuge for the development of work. We also produce many of our own shows and events including puppet slams, variety shows, vaudevillian weirdness and various spectacles for the amusement of our patrons.
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