"The New Ecstatic 2.0" by Sarah Skaggs Dance
Company:
Sarah Skaggs Dance
Abrons Arts Center presents Sarah Skaggs’ The New Ecstatic 2.0 as part of its Travelogues dance series, curated by Laurie Uprichard.
The New Ecstatic 2.0, a duet created by Sarah Skaggs in collaboration with dancer Cori Kresge, is an examination of the changing nature of ecstatic dance forms, as affected by cultural shifts in the meaning of “out-of-body” states within the everyday. Originally presented at Danspace Project in October 2013, Skaggs and Kresge have expanded the work, further delving into the layers of trauma and its effects.
After a ten-year exploration of meditative dance in a post-9/11 world, Skaggs emerged with a new work, The New Ecstatic, which signaled a return to her earlier investigations of precision and abandonment in the body, but within a new frame — the post-disaster landscape. Inspired in part by the rage and abstraction found in Martha Graham’s Steps in the Street and other anti-war dances by Graham, Skaggs sought a way to channel her energy into her own choreography. The New Ecstatic 2.0 is at once stark and supple, strident and nuanced. Incorporating new sections that play physically extreme movements against simpler vocabulary, The New Ecstatic 2.0 looks at how the body navigates everyday experiences of grief, joy, boredom, rage, and freedom in a world defined by extremes.
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