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Wally Cardona & Jennifer Lacey with Jonathan Bepler: TOOL IS LOOT

“We would like to believe that our bodies and our brains are fantastically flexible and responsive to change, containing—at any moment—both the abstract and the specific. Well… what we’ve learned is that this is both gloriously true and frustratingly untrue. But that’s okay, really, and this dance proves it. There will be a swan, a prince, a robot, sexual behavior, and two chairs. Sometimes all at once.” —Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey

Choreographers/dancers Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey come together in TOOL IS LOOT with their identities simultaneously undone and strengthened. They ask the question: What comes after you don’t know anymore?

For one year, Cardona and Lacey worked apart, in the US and France, respectively. Each solicited weeklong encounters with non-dance experts, allowing the opinions and desires of an “outsider” to shift what they knew about creating short solos. These experts included a sommelier, an architect, a film editor, a medical supply salesman, a kinetic sculptor, a baroque opera singer, an art critic, an acoustician, and a social activist. An encounter with one expert, Dr. Heidi Newberg, Rensselaer professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy, resulted in a solo dance that was performed as part of our biennial Filament festival. Cardona and Lacey worked together this past summer while in residence to build their disparate experiences into this duet.

Curator: Hélène Lesterlin

Bio:

Jennifer Lacey is an American choreographer based in Paris. She has founded a number of projects and has produced several solo works that emphasize ambiguous borders.

Wally Cardona is an award winning Brooklyn-based choreographer and dancer who creates projects that range widely in scale and use of setting and materials.

Jonathan Bepler is a composer, musician, singer, and teacher who has worked on a wide range of dramatic/cinematic scores, soundtrack material, and other performance pieces.

Thomas Dunn designs lighting for architecture, dance, music, theater, and visual art venues in the US and abroad.

Credits

Created and performed by Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey; original music and vocals by Jonathan Bepler; musicians: Julia Alsarraf, viola + others; Ian Antonio, percussion; David Bebb, clarinet; Bryan Brundige, trombone; Jeremy Gold, saxophone; Russell Greenberg, percussion; lighting design, Thomas Dunn; production and creative assistant, Francis A. Stansky; production manager, Jeff Englander; managing producer, Ben Pryor / tbspMGMT

A production of WCV, Inc., TOOL IS LOOT is co-commissioned by The Kitchen and EMPAC / Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. Creation of the work was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust; a 2010-2011 Joyce SoHo Creative Residency, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Baryshnikov Arts Center; CNDC Angers and FUSED (French-US Exchange in Dance program); Dance Place (D.C.); Atlantic Center for the Arts; the National Endowment for the Arts; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; and Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation. TOOL IS LOOT was commissioned through the Meet The Composer’s Commissioning Music/USA program, which is made possible by generous support from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Ford Foundation, the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Helen F. Whitaker Fund.