Join Donofrio Dance Company on Oct. 18 and 19 for the premiere of its first ever evening-length work at the Center for Performance Research. The Brooklyn-based modern dance company was founded in 2009 by dancer and choreographer Taylor Donofrio. Now, following a recent creative residency at the Dragon’s Egg (Mystic, CT), the company is set to present its newest creation entitled RAM.
The introspective work explores how we can understand ourselves more fully by referencing our memories and thoughts. Through the use of mobile projectors, film collaboration, and original music, RAM reveals to audiences the most precious and mysterious roots of our identities.
In creating this piece the five-dancer company went through an eight-month process of physical and mental research using what Donofrio calls “memory experiments” - where memory recall was used to inform the dancers’ improvisational movement and engender organic physical experiences. Along with full company discussion on the experiments, the dancers kept personal journals to log what memories and movements surfaced in each exercise.
Donofrio explains,“The piece has become a manifestation of physical responses to memory and the exploration on how attached or detached we are to our own memory.”
RAM will also incorporate a media component with short films throughout displayed by small mobile projectors attached to the dancer's heads. These films were created by filmmaker Ace Salisbury and were also inspired by the dancer's memories. In addition, composer and sound designer Ryan Campos marks his first collaboration with a dance company in RAM by creating an original score for the work.
Speaking to the truly creative journey that has led to the upcoming premiere of RAM, dancer Jenna Purcell comments that Donofrio Dance Company “...has a very unique creative process that bridges physicality, impulse, and intellect, which produces exciting challenges and unexpected results." Purcell goes on to note, "I don't think I've ever worked in an environment where dancers' thoughts and personal experiences were given as much weight as the choreography itself.”
To learn more about Donofrio Dance Company please visit their website and facebook.
PERFORMANCE INFORMATION
- WHEN: Friday Oct. 18 & Saturday Oct. 19 | 7:30 p.m.
- WHERE: Center for Performance Research (361 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211)
- TICKETS: $12 in advance | $15 cash only at the door
