Big Dance Theater is a

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

-based dance theater company."Smashing Pumpkins with Big Dance Theater"
by Alexis Clements , ''L Magazine'' It is led by Artistic Director Annie-B Parson, who founded Big Dance Theater in 1991 with Molly Hickok and Paul Lazar. Big Dance Theater has created over 20 dance/theater works and won 18 awards over the years. They have been commissioned by the

Brooklyn Academy of Music The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts venue in Brooklyn, New York City, known as a center for progressive and avant-garde performance. It presented its first performance in 1861 and began operations in its present location in ...

, The National Theater of Paris, The Japan Society, and The Walker Art Center, and have performed in venues such as the

Dance Theater Workshop Dance Theater Workshop, colloquially known as DTW, was a New York City performance space and service organization for dance companies that operated from 1965 to 2011. After a merger it became known as New York Live Arts Located as 219 19th Street ...

The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founde ...

Classic Stage Company Classic Stage Company, or CSC, is a classical Off-Broadway theater. Founded in 1967, Classic Stage Company is one of Off-Broadway's oldest theaters. Its 199-seat theatre is the former Abbey Theatre located at 136 East 13th Street between Third a ...

, Japan Society,

Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival Jacob's Pillow is a dance center, school and performance space located in Becket, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires. The organization is known for a Summer dance festival. The facility also includes a professional school and extensive archives a ...

, the Chocolate Factory, the

Museum of Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art (often abbreviated to MCA, MoCA or MOCA) may refer to: Africa * Museum of Contemporary Art (Tangier), Morocco, officially le Galerie d'Art Contemporain Mohamed Drissi Asia East Asia * Museum of Contemporary Art Shangha ...

in Chicago,

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...

Yerba Buena Yerba buena or hierba buena is the Spanish name for a number of aromatic plants, most of which belong to the mint family. ''Yerba buena'' translates as "good herb". The specific plant species regarded as ''yerba buena'' varies from region to regi ...

On the Boards On the Boards (OtB) is a non-profit contemporary performing arts organization in Seattle, Washington, founded in 1978. Originally located at Washington Hall in the Central District, the organization moved in 1998 to their current location in Up ...

New York Live Arts New York Live Arts (Live Arts) is a movement-focused arts organization in New York City that serves as the home of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. The building was formerly the home of Dance Theatre Workshop, with which the Bill T. ...

, UCLA Live, The

Spoleto Festival USA Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of America's major performing arts festivals. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due ...

, and at festivals in Europe and Brazil.

Annie-B Parson

Annie-B Parson is the founder of Big Dance Theater, specializing in choreography, dancing, and directing, and has choreographed and co-created over 20 works for the Big Dance Theater Company. Parson has also created performance pieces outside the Big Dance Theater Company, doing choreography for opera, pop musicians, television, movies, theatre, ballet, marching bands, and symphonies. Since 1993 Parson has been an instructor of choreography at New York University’s Experimental Theater Wing and has also taught at the

Ballet Rambert Rambert (known as Rambert Dance Company before 2014) is a leading British dance company. Formed at the start of the 20th century as a classical ballet company, it exerted a great deal of influence on the development of dance in the United Kingd ...

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

, and

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

. Parson has also written articles for the Ballet Review, Movement Research Journal, and Dance USA. Parson has won many awards throughout her career, including: · Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2014) · Olivier Award nomination in choreography (2015) · Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award (2014) · USA Artists Grant in theater (2012) · Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography (2007) · Two BESSIE awards (2010, 2002) · Three NYFA Choreography Fellowships (2013, 2006, and 2000)

Paul Lazar

Paul Lazar is a founding member of Big Dance Theater along with Annie Parson and is co-Artistic Director. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991. In addition, he has been commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Walker Art Center,

, Classic Stage Company, and Japan Society. Outside of the Big Dance Theater Company, Lazar’s other projects as a director include ''We’re Gonna Die'' and ''Body Cast''. Lazar has also done performances for

The Wooster Group The Wooster Group is a New York City-based experimental theater company known for creating numerous original dramatic works. It gradually emerged from Richard Schechner's The Performance Group (1967–1980) during the period from 1975 to 1980, an ...

, including ''Brace up!'', ''Emperor Jones'', ''North Atlantic'', and ''The Hairy Ape''. Lazar has also been credited with other acting performances, including Tamburlaine at

Theatre For A New Audience The Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) is a non-profit theater in New York City focused on producing Shakespeare and other classic dramas. Its off-Broadway productions have toured in the U.S. and internationally. History Theatre for a New Audienc ...

, Young Jean Lee’s ''Lear'', ''The Three Sisters'' at Classic Stage Company, Richard Maxwell’s ''Cowboys and Indians'' at

Soho Rep The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep,The official website'now use "Soho", with a lowercase h, as do most articles from th''New York Times''/ref> is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for prod ...

, ''Richard III'' at Classic Stage Company, Svejk at Theatre for a New Audience, Irene Fornes’ ''Mud'' at

Signature Theatre Company Signature Theatre Company is an American theatre based in Manhattan, New York. It was founded in 1991 by James Houghton and is now led by Artistic Director Paige Evans. Signature is known for their season-long focus on one artist's work. It has be ...

and

Mabou Mines Mabou Mines is an experimental theatre company founded in 1970 and based in New York City. Founding and history Mabou Mines was founded by David Warrilow, Lee Breuer, Ruth Maleczech, JoAnne Akalaitis, and Philip Glass, at the house of Akalaitis an ...

, and Mac Wellman’s ''1965 UU''. In the fall of 2020, Lazar created a duet version of ''Cage Shuffle'' with Bebe Miller for the

Wexner Center for the Arts The Wexner Center for the Arts is the Ohio State University's "multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art". The Wexner Center opened in November 1989, named in honor of the father of Limite ...

, which toured the Cena Festival in Brazil in December 2020. Lazar teaches at New York University and has previously taught at Yale, Rutgers, The William Esper Studio, and the Michael Howard Studio.

Molly Hickok

Molly Hickok is one of the founding members of Big Dance Theater along with Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar. Hickok’s works include: · ''The Other Here'' · ''Comme Toujours Here I Stand'' · ''Supernatural Wife'' · ''Ich Kurbisgeist'' Hickok has won two awards for her work in Big Dance and as part of the Comme Toujours creative team.

Elizabeth Dement

Elizabeth Dement (Director of Repertory and Creative Workshops) is a New York performer originally from Ukiah, CA. Dement graduated from the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most el ...

and is a dancer and actor. Throughout Dement's career, she has worked with Peridance Ensemble, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Liz Gerring Dance Company, Stephen Petronio, Jodi Melnick, Patrick Corbin, Dance Heginbotham, Christina Masciotti, and Half-Straddle. In addition, she has worked closely with Annie-B Parson as an associate choreographer on multiple projects for the Big Dance Theater.

Process and style

Big Dance Theater has delved into the literary work of such authors as

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

, Tanizaki,

Euripides Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful e ...

and

Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flauber ...

, and dance is used as both frame and metaphor to theatricalize these writings.

Works (1991–present)

''Sacrifice'' (1991)

''Sacrifice'' was the first of Parson's large scale works and her first work at

, curated by David White.

''The Gag'' (1993)

''The Gag'' premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in 1993. This large-scale work was based on the myth of the

Cassandra Cassandra or Kassandra (; Ancient Greek: Κασσάνδρα, , also , and sometimes referred to as Alexandra) in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believe ...

figure in Greek mythology and the piece incorporated the text of radical feminist writer

Andrea Dworkin Andrea Rita Dworkin (September 26, 1946 – April 9, 2005) was an American radical feminist writer and activist best known for her analysis of pornography. Her feminist writings, beginning in 1974, span 30 years. They are found in a dozen solo ...

. Molly Hickok played the central role. The piece was also inspired by the writings

Christa Wolf Christa Wolf (; née Ihlenfeld; 18 March 1929 – 1 December 2011) was a German novelist and essayist.
Barbara Gard ...

f with text by

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; grc-gre, Αἰσχύλος ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek ...

Pinter Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that span ...

and

Marguerite Yourcenar Marguerite Yourcenar (, , ; born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour; 8 June 1903 – 17 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist, who became a US citizen in 1947. Winner of the ''Prix Fem ...

''Bremen Freedom'' (1993)

Presented by the Cucaracha Theater, and originally made for NYU Students, ''Bremen Freedom'', by the west-German playwright

Rainer Fassbinder Rainer Werner Fassbinder (; 31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982), sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures and catalysts of the New German Cinema movement. Fassbinder's main ...

, told the story of Geesche, a woman so sick of being controlled by the men in her life that she methodically poisoned them, and ultimately herself.

''Lucifer Kicking All Night Long'' (1994)

''City of Brides'' (1995)

In 1995, Parson was featured in the Young Choreographers and Composers at the

American Dance Festival The American Dance Festival (ADF) under the direction of Executive Director Jodee Nimerichter hosts its main summer dance courses including Summer Dance Intensive, Pre-Professional Dance Intensive, and the Dance Professional Workshops. It also hos ...

in North Carolina. She was paired with composer

Richard Einhorn Richard Einhorn (born 1952) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. Einhorn graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University in 1975, and studied composition and electronic music with Jack Beeson, Vladimir ...

and the two created “City of Brides,” performed by five barefoot women and accompanied by a complex score for piano, violin and cello based on Stravinsky's Les Noces. The piece also played at the

in NYC (1995),

Fall for Dance Festival Fall for Dance is an annual dance festival presented by New York City Center New York City Center (previously known as the Mecca Temple, City Center of Music and Drama,. The name "City Center for Music and Drama Inc." is the organizational par ...

in NYC (2004), and the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina.

''Hula Girl'' (1995)

''Don Juan Comes Back from the War'' (1996)

''Don Juan Comes Back from the War'' premiered at

NYC in 1996. It was a joint production by the Classic Stage Company and the Cucaracha Theater, with Lazar and Parson as co-directors and her choreographing.

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

lauded their direction, writing that they had constructed a “witty and elegant interpretation” of Odon von Horvath's bittersweet play. The play follows Don Juan as he returns home from the first World War in search of his fiancé, who, unbeknownst to him, has died. Her ghost follows him throughout the play. Horvath, a Hungarian playwright who wrote in Germany until he fled the Nazis, set his play in the immediate aftermath of World War One, but the play is full of “philosophical jibes” at his enemies. Parson and Lazar animated these ideas with “highly stylized choreography and musical arrangements” (by Christopher Berg) that allude to both Don Juan and popular German music of the 1920s. The result might have annoyed Horvath, who was notoriously fussy about staging, but they probably let an American audience grasp his meaning, and certainly his moods, better than any more literal presentation could."

''The Gas Heart'' (1997)

“The Gas Heart” (1921) is a Dada “classic” by Tristan Tzara, one of the founders of that movement. In the Big Dance rendering of the play the fierce comic, lyric text comes vividly to life with a staging that is distinctly choreographic and choreography that is distinctly theatrical. It is as if Tzara wrote the play for the Big Dance Company. From NYTimes review “…The comic triumph Here is The Gas Heart, by Tristan Tzara, a witty Dadaist take on avant-garde sophisticates working, flirting, effortlessly executing impossible dance steps, looking as classy as Cecil Beaton portraits and exchanging superior sounding banter that is utter nonsense. Few Dada plays survive; this one is exquisite and exquisitely performed.”

''A Simple Heart'' (1997)

This dance-theater adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's ''A Simple Heart'' follows the story of Félicité, a servant who watches as every being she is connected to slowly dies or leaves her. Parson cast two dancers (Stacy Dawson and Molly Hickock) as Félicité, who occasionally danced in unison, parallel, and sometimes split entirely while always remaining connected. They separate for the first time when Félicité dies. The piece employed minimal use of language, instead relying on “spare yet rich vignettes” to tell this simple story with a dry tenderness, intended to match the tonality of the Flaubert. ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

'' wrote that Parson and Lazar had created a “cold, compelling world of emotional disintegration.” ''A Simple Heart'' premiered at the GIFT Festival in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1997. It was also performed at the

, NYC,

, Massachusetts, the Hitchcock Center, Dartmouth New Hampshire,

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...

in Vermont,

in Chicago, and the Spoleto Festival in South Carolina.

''Girl Gone'' (1998)

''Girl Gone'', written by

Mac Wellman Mac Wellman, born John McDowell Wellman on March 7, 1945, in Cleveland, Ohio, is an American playwright, author, and poet.Flea Theater in 1998, and ran at the Kitchen NYC in 1999. The play explores the possibility of constructing alternate realities as three teenage girls, Lissa, Lisa, and Elyssa, perform rituals with the goal of “going away” to a fantasy land. They are so successful that they bring much of the rest of their world with them. In an article from the ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...

'', Parson and Lazar's working relationship was described as so close that theaters are often unsure of how to credit their work. For ''Girl Gone'', Parson dreamed up dances inspired by Wellman's fanciful stage directions; “They do the Spinal Fusion,” writes Wellman, “They do the Full Cleveland.” In describing the play, ''Time Out New York'' gave up on theatrical labels and instead turned to psychological terminology, writing that “the work is schizophrenic, manic, occasionally melancholic and, more often, hysteric.” Watching it was “both an alienating and enchanting experience.”

''Another Telepathic Thing'' (2000)

''Another Telepathic Thing'' was inspired by

's morality tale “The Mysterious Stranger,” and is described as “a prismatic and complex dance-theater parable.” It was performed by Tymberly Canale, Stacy Dawson, Molly Hickok, Cynthia Hopkins, Paul Lazar, and David Neumann, and featured original music by Cynthia Hopkins. “At once cynical and spiritual, the work centers on a charismatic stranger whose visit shatters the peace of a mythic hamlet. The medieval setting is echoed by a contemporary Hollywood reality, with a script that braids Twain's sublime writing with ‘found’ text from years of auditions. It culminates in a subtle and startling exploration of the fragility of our human condition.” The piece was performed at Dance Theater Workshop NYC, (2000), STUC Theater, Belgium, (2000),

Performing Garage The Performing Garage is an Off-Off-Broadway theater in SoHo, New York City. Established in 1968, it is the permanent home of the experimental theater company originally named The Performance Group (under Richard Schechner) that morphed in 1980 in ...

NYC (2000), Rotterdam, Ghent and Munster, Germany (2001), and the

, Minneapolis Minnesota (2002), where it was the first in the Walker's 2002 showcase of genre-bending performances aptly titled the “Out There” series. The end of the piece, in which Satan delivers a final address that describes human existence as nothing but “a homeless thought” and then disappears, was described by the

Star Tribune The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...

as a "powerful, unflinching conclusion to this ontological meditation” The show was also extremely well received in Germany. Reviewer Susanne Lang described the stage as “a snow-globe that can be shaken to see the world, at least for a moment, through the dreamlike flurry of artificial snowflakes…everything is moving, everything is carried by the music.” The Münstersche Zeitung lauded the piece as a “highly successful mix of dance- and spoken-theater…acoustic spaces are created through speech and song, which seamlessly create a superstructure for the dance. By bringing this piece, Pumpenhaus has not only brought a premier to Münster, it has brought an exceptional piece of dance theater.” Jonathan Demme filmed a live performance of the piece in 2000 at Dance Theater Workshop in NYC. The film was screened at the

Baryshnikov Arts Center The Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) is a foundation and arts complex opened by Mikhail Baryshnikov in 2005 at 450 West 37th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The top three floor ...

in New York in June 2015. In 2000 Big Dance won an Obie for the music in ''Another Telepathic Thing''. This piece, considered a signature Big Dance work, was made into a book published by 53 State Press, which includes the text of the piece, drawings by Parson of the costumes and props, and interviews with the performers about how the work was generated.

''Shunkin'' (2001)

''Antigone'' (2002)

In 2002 Big Dance Theater created an adaptation of ''Antigone,'' their second collaboration with playwright

Mac Wellman Mac Wellman, born John McDowell Wellman on March 7, 1945, in Cleveland, Ohio, is an American playwright, author, and poet.Dance Theater Workshop Dance Theater Workshop, colloquially known as DTW, was a New York City performance space and service organization for dance companies that operated from 1965 to 2011. After a merger it became known as New York Live Arts Located as 219 19th Street ...

in New York and toured to

in Seattle, Washington, UCLA Live in Los Angeles,

Kampnagel Kampnagel is a theatre in Hamburg, Germany. It is Germany's biggest independent production venue for the performing arts. It is based on the premises of a former mechanical engineering factory in Winterhude, founded in 1865. History Since 198 ...

in Hamburg, Germany, Theater im Pumpenhaus in Muenster, Germany, the

in Chicago, Illinois and

in New York, NY. The New York Times called the show a "curious and mesmerizing if largely impenetrable experience," and said that Parson had created movement "whose sprightly intelligence is itself meaning enough."

''Plan B'' (2004)

''Plan B,'' an original piece with text by Len Jenkin and the company, premiered in 2004 at the

Walker Arts Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...

in Minneapolis. "As in a well-cooked dish," wrote the New York Times, “ingredients blend in works by the Big Dance Theater, creating elusive flavors and textures.” ''Plan B'' combined elements from Nixon's Watergate tapes and the adult diaries of Kaspar Hauser, the 19th century “wild child” who was found at age 16 at the gates of the city of Nuremberg, after living abandoned in a German forest for 12 years. His subsequent socialization proved tragic. Lazar explained that the two texts connected when they discovered a section of the tapes where Nixon and his advisors were trying to find the right person to do certain things on their behalf. “What a perfect foil Kaspar might be,” said Lazar, “because he's so malleable and so innocent.” Add to those elements bits of the Old Testament, Kabuki dance and Taiwanese movie music and you have ‘Plan B,’ “a shimmering strand of evocative storytelling that manages to suggest a great deal about innocence in all its guises.” “Combining all these disparate sources might have been a recipe for disaster in the wrong hands,” writes Susan Reiter for the danceviewtimes, “but Big Dance Theater blends and transforms them with a sureness of vision... creating a work that tells a quirky, ambiguous tale with resonant strangeness and delicate beauty.” ''Plan B'' also played at the Bonn Biennale in Germany (2004), Dance Theater Workshop NYC (2004), Under the Radar Festival in NYC (2005), and the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival in PA (2005).

''he Other Here'' (2007)

''The Other Here'' was an original work based on the writing of

Masuji Ibuse was a Japanese author. His most notable work is the novel '' Black Rain''. Early life and education Ibuse was born in 1898 to a landowning family in the village of , which is now part of Fukuyama, Hiroshima. Ibuse failed his entrance exam to ...

. It was commissioned by the Japan Society, who asked that the piece in some way be engaged with Japanese culture. The director of the Japan society, Yoko Shioya, suggested they consider the works of Masuji Ibuse. Parson and her team began with a selection of source materials- the Chekhovian stories of Ibuse, verbatim text from transcripts of American life insurance conferences, traditional Japanese dances, Japanese pop music, a large table and a zither. Slowly, through collective exploration, the themes between these disparate materials are discovered, and a story begins to emerge. A man trying to give a speech at a conference is interrupted to watch a hand clapping dance, to perform a dance of his own, and to receive the gift of a fish. The fish becomes central. Theatre Forum noted that the piece, exists at that point of collision between form and substance” and that “the intricacy of that subtle emotional palette is one of tsgreat strengths." ''The Other Here'' was developed at the CUNY Festival of New Work in NYC, 2005. It then played at Lincoln Center Out of Doors (2006) and at the University of Maryland (2006). Its official premiere was at The Japan Society in February 2007.

''Orestes'' (2009)

From the pen of “one of the most exciting poets writing in English” (New York Times) comes the world premiere of Anne Carson's vibrant new translations of the ORESTEIA myth. This grand kaleidoscopic compilation gathers together the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides to tell the fall of the mighty house of Atreus. A Classic Stage Company presentation of three plays in three acts. “Agamemnon” and “Elektra” directed by Brian Kulick and Gisela Cardenas. “Orestes” directed by Paul Lazar and Associate directed and choreographed by Annie-B Parson. This piece performed at the Classic Stage Company, New York in March 2009.

''Comme Toujours Here I Stand'' (2009)

This original piece was inspired by Agnès Varda's 1962 French ''

Nouvelle Vague French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...

'' black-and-white film, '' Cleo From 5 to 7,'' and was commissioned by the

French Institute Alliance Française French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) is a 501(c)(3) not–for–profit organization incorporated in the State of New York. Its mission is to enhance the knowledge and appreciation of French and Francophone culture, to increase the knowled ...

. The film follows Cleo, a young pop singer anxiously awaiting the results of a biopsy test for cancer. The film follows her in nearly real time for two hours, as she distracts herself with composers, lovers, friends, a fortune teller, and a soldier. The Big Dance production simultaneously honored, appropriated, reinvented, and departed from the model of the film. In the words of Philip Lopate, writing for the Performance Arts Journal, Parson “zeroes in on the very French (think of La Rochefoucauld) theme of humanity's egotistical cruelty.” When creating the piece, Parson used the screenplay, but didn't watch the film itself until late in the process, so as not to be (in the words of Lazar) “under the claw” of Varda's influence. The New York Times wrote that in the piece, “meaning accrues from a complex yet spare interplay of actions and objects: a French folk song, video by Jeff Larson, luscious costumes and props evoking French couture, even a razzle-dazzle dance routine that refers to choreography from a Godard film.” The piece premiered in Les Subsistance's Ça Tchatche Festival in April in Lyon, France. It also played at Le Quartz in Brest, France, Le Theatre National in Rennes, France, MCA/Chicago,

, NYC October 2009, and

, NYC. It is a signature work of the Company, and the entire company and design team won a Bessie for it in 2010.

''Supernatural Wife'' (2010)

During a residency at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2010, Parson and Lazar began working on ''Supernatural Wife'', an adaptation of Euripides' play ''Alkestis.'' Parson edited the translation by Anne Carson to create a spare skeleton for the piece. The play is based on the myth of King Admetus, who is offered eternal life by Apollo on the condition that he send a surrogate to the underworld in his stead. His wife, Alcestis, volunteers. Parson describes the subject matter as primal: "matters of birth, death, grief, mourning and the gods." ''Supernatural Wife'' had its American premiere at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in 2011. Ella Buff, the festival's executive and artistic director, noted that “by integrating material from far-flung sources, arson and Lazarcreate their own mythology.” The piece pulled from Yiddish silent films, the physical score from Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis routines, video footage of a horse wrangler and a recording of a monologue by Rosalind Russell. Annie-B Parson made her

debut in the Harvey Theater with ''Supernatural Wife'' in 2011. The piece toured to La Filature in Mulhouse, France,

Les Subsistances Les Subsistances is a cultural centre of diffuse artistic production and located in the 1st arrondissement of Lyon. Since 2007, it has housed a creative laboratory (theater, dance and contemporary circus) and the École nationale des beaux-arts de ...

in Lyon, France, Le Quartz in Brest, France,

Théâtre National de Chaillot The Théâtre National de Chaillot (English: Chaillot National Theatre) is a theatre located in the Palais de Chaillot at 1, place du Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. Close by the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadéro Gardens—the Th ...

in Paris, France, and the

in Minneapolis, MN.

''Ich, Kurbisgeist'' (2012)

''Ich, Kurbisgeist'' was co-commissioned by The Chocolate Factory and

Performance Space 122 Performance Space New York, formerly known as Performance Space 122 or P.S. 122, is a non-profitable arts organization founded in 1980 in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in an abandoned public school building. Origin The former eleme ...

. It premiered in October 2012 at the Chocolate Factory in Queens New York, and later played at NYLA in 2013. The show was created in collaboration with Playwright Sibyl Kempson, and was written in a language invented by the playwright, which no one in the world, except those involved in the production, speaks—or has any knowledge of. This “impressively inscrutable” play is, in the words of the playwright, an “olde-tyme agricultural vengeance play for Hallowe’en.” The piece was set in the Middle Ages, in a largely barren land that seems to produce nothing but pumpkins, many of which were to be smashed during the performance. When asked how ''Ich, Kurbisgeist'' fit into the history of what Big Dance does, Parson said she craved doing something where language was abstract as movement, something “tiny and intimate" and felt it should be seen "in some kind of site-specific, really, really intimate venue. I thought it needed to be something that you're very close to, so you're not just thinking of language as meaning, but you're also thinking of language as a kinetic experience, because the language is extremely kinetic.” Writing for ''

L Magazine ''The L Magazine'' was a free bi-weekly magazine in New York City featuring investigative articles, arts and culture commentary, and event listings. It was available through distribution in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Hoboken. History ''Th ...

'', Alexis Clements noted that Parson and Lazar seem to “enjoy feeling like outsiders looking in on a culture or subject that they are not familiar with.” For them, there was a “value in the experience of having to acknowledge one's own ignorance,” it freed them to take in information that contradicted their previous ways of thinking, it allowed them to do something familiar in a wholly new way. ''The New York Times'' wrote that “Much like the words spoken by Shakespeare's wily fools, the messages are scrambled. Yet the world of “Ich, Kürbisgeist” is whole, and surprisingly powerful. Sometimes the gut understands better than the brain.”

''Man in a Case'' (2013)

''Man in a Case'', Parson's collaboration with dancer

Mikhail Baryshnikov Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Барышников, p=mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf; lv, Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Latvian-born R ...

, premiered in 2013 at Hartford Stage and ironically featured Baryshnikov, considered the greatest dancer of his generation, as a man who refuses to dance. Parson choreographed and directed the piece, which used her original adaptations of two lesser known

Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...

short stories, “Man in a Case” and “About Love”, in combination with live music, dance, and surveillance-style video footage. Baryshnikov's performance was widely lauded, and Elizabeth Bruce described the "melancholy crispness" of the performance as "utterly Chekhovian." The piece was performed at

Shakespeare Theatre Company The Shakespeare Theatre Company is a Regional theater in the United States, regional theatre company located in Washington, D.C. The theatre company focuses primarily on plays from the William Shakespeare, Shakespeare canon, but its seasons inc ...

in Washington, D.C.,

Berkeley Repertory Theatre Berkeley Repertory Theatre is a regional theater company located in Berkeley, California. It runs seven productions each season from its two stages in Downtown Berkeley. History The company was founded in 1968, as the East Bay's first resident pr ...

in Berkeley, CA, ArtsEmerson in Boston MA, Broad Stage in Santa Monica, CA, and the

in Chicago, IL.

''Alan Smithee Directed This Play: a Triple Feature'' (2014)

''Alan Smithee Directed This Play: a Triple Feature'' was co-commissioned by

(Lyon) and

. It premiered at Les Subsistances in France in March, 2014 and then played at Jacobs Pillow, Les Subsistances,

Tanz im August Tanz im August (; "Dance in August") is an annual festival for contemporary dance in Berlin. It was founded by Nele Hertling in West Berlin in 1988, and is now presented by the Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) theatre company on various stages in Berlin. ...

Berlin and

. The piece was an adaptation/ mashup of the films ''

Terms of Endearment ''Terms of Endearment'' is a 1983 American family comedy-drama film directed, written, and produced by James L. Brooks, adapted from Larry McMurtry's 1975 novel of the same name. It stars Debra Winger, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Nicholson, Danny De ...

'', ''

Le Cercle Rouge ''Le Cercle Rouge'' (, "The Red Circle") is a 1970 Franco-Italian crime film set mostly in Paris. It was directed by Jean-Pierre Melville and stars Alain Delon, Andre Bourvil, Gian Maria Volonté, François Périer and Yves Montand. It is known ...

'', and ''

Doctor Zhivago ''Doctor Zhivago'' is the title of a novel by Boris Pasternak and its various adaptations. Description The story, in all of its forms, describes the life of the fictional Russian physician and poet Yuri Zhivago and deals with love and loss during ...

''. It began when Les Subsistances suggested Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar work with a short excerpt from the 1970 Franco-Italian crime film, Le Cercle Rouge. Wanting to work with other iconic films from other time periods and countries, they added Doctor Zhivago and Terms of Endearment. In classic Big Dance form, the piece wove together disparate performance styles, and included seven performers speaking text, dancing, and precisely performing the movements of actors from the films, which were, in turn, being projected on a large wall of blinds behind them. A moment of theatrical staging might be accompanied by an entire score of choreography, a dance might be underscored by fully staged theater. Parson says she is most interested in “simultaneous systems putting pressure on each other, and seeing what happens. That's the magic point.” The name in the title,

Alan Smithee Alan Smithee (also Allen Smithee) is an official pseudonym used by film directors who wish to disown a project. Coined in 1968 and used until it was formally discontinued in 2000, it was the sole pseudonym used by members of the Directors Guild o ...

, is the pseudonym used by the Directors Guild of America until 2000, when a director became so dissatisfied with a film that they could satisfactorily prove to the guild they had not been able to exercise creative control and therefore refused to take credit for the final product. He was then credited as Alan Smithee.

''Short Form'' (2015)

''Short form'' had its New York premiere at the Kitchen in January 2015, and was in part a celebration of the company's 25th anniversary. The show included five short works that focused on dance. The intermission was an onstage birthday party complete with games, food, and Lazar as M.C. The show was “Inspired by disciplines of the concise — novellas, folk tales, diary entries, pencil drawings, thumbnail sketches and the single page of a notebook,” and featured five works, that “embrace the brief, granular, close range, anecdotal and microscopic. Downsizing is prized.” The piece had its world premiere at the Solange MacArthur Theater in the American Dance Institute in Rockville, MD in 2015. Its New York premiere was at the Kitchen in New York, NY, and it toured to the Fusebox Festival in Austin, Texas.

''This Page Intentionally Left Blank'' (2016)

''This Page Intentionally Left Blank'' made its world premiere at the

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...

Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts’ CounterCurrent Festival 2016. This performance-based docent tour deconstructed “the role of the docent and museum audio tour via an encounter with theater and dance, subverting and reconsidering how the docent typically leads viewers to observe art in the museum context.” Big Dance sought to democratize the museum space, to “disrupt, awaken, dismantle, confuse and thus revivify the viewer's perception of art.” The audience wore headphones and toured the space in groups in groups of twenty, as the docent (Tymberly Canale) spoke about the art with a (“don't look at that,” she says at one point, “that's not part of the tour.”) The audience traveled from the Menil Collection's main building to Flavin's Untitled, 1996, described by Arts And Culture as “a kind of journey deeper into Tymberly's psyche as she worms her way into our own.” Movement and theater gradually begin to take over the piece, and ultimately, the audience became part of the performance. The piece was also performed at

Mass MoCa The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing ar ...

- the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, in January 2016.

''Cage Shuffle'' (2017)

''Cage Shuffle'' made its world premiere at Abrons Arts Center during the American Realness Festival in 2016. In ''Cage Shuffle'' Paul Lazar speaks a series of one-minute stories by John Cage from his 1963 score ''Indeterminacy'' while simultaneously performing choreography by Annie-B Parson. The stories are spoken in a random order with no predetermined relationship to the dancing. Chance serves up its inevitable blend of strange and uncanny connections between text and movement. With live tape and digital collage scored and performed by composer Lea Bertucci. The piece was also performed at The Poets House in March 2017; David Bryne's: This Is How Music Works in June 2017; The Walker Art Center of Minneapolis in July 2017; A.P.E. Ltd. Gallery of Northampton in August 2017; Links Hall of Chicago in October 2017; DeBartolo Performing Arts Center of the University of Notre Dame, IN in October 2017

''17c'' (2017)

''17c'' is the newest Big Dance Theater ensemble work, built around the problematic 17th-century diaries of Samuel Pepys. Pepys "danced, sang, strummed, shopped, strove, bullied and groped — and he recorded all of it in his diary, completely unfiltered. From his bunions, to his infidelities, to his perversions, to his meetings with the King, he needed to get his daily life down on paper, or he felt lost. A startling precursor to our own social media culture, Pepys possessed a similar compulsion to assign an almost constant real-time meaning to his daily existence, to examine himself, and obsessively report it." In her latest piece, Parson and her team incorporated the copious diaries of Pepys', Margaret Cavendish's 17th-century radical feminist play ''The Convent of Pleasure,'' three centuries of marginalia, and the ongoing annotations of the web-based devotees at www.pepysdiary.com. The piece "dismantles an unchallenged historical figure and embodies the women's voices omitted from Pepys' intimate portrait of his life" 17c was presented as a work in progress excerpt as part of the American Realness Festival at Gibney Dance's Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center in January 2017. It then played at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival September 7–9. In October it was presented at Mass MoCa, co-presented by Jacob's Pillow Dance in North Adams MA. Its world premiere was in November 2017 at the Carolina Performing Arts in Chapel Hill, NC, and its New York Premiere was at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival in Brooklyn New York in November 2017.

''The Road Awaits Us'' (2017)

Based loosely on an absurdist play by Ionesco, in this North American premiere, Annie-B Parson stages a birthday party for a company of esteemed dance elders, including Bebe Miller, Meg Harper, Keith Sabado, Sheryl Sutton, Douglas Dunn, Betsy Gregory, Brian Bertscher, and Black-Eyed Susan. ''This piece was originally created for Sadler's Wells Elixir Co.'' Performance history includes Sadler's Wells, London in June 2017 and NYU Skirball in November 2019.

''Antigonick'' (2018)

Big Dance Theater's ''Antigonick'' is a rough cut of Anne Carson's one-act, radical-feminist, philosophical take on Sophocles’ Antigone. In Carson's theatrical perspective on Antigone's role as a humanist and antagonist, the intellectual excitement of Antigonick lies in how she loses, why her peaceful resistance matters, and the sobering consequences of the Antigone/Kreon face-off. Big Dance Theater first workshopped this play, directed by Paul Lazar, in 2016 at Suzanne Bocanegra and David Lang's Home Theater. In 2017, Antigonick was commissioned and Originally Produced by Williamstown Theatre Festival with the support of Mandy Greenfield. The original group in the cast included Yvonne Rainer, Chris Giarmo, Kirstin Sieh, and Sheena See. Both of those iterations were directed by Paul Lazar and co-directed by Annie-B Parson, with original sound design by Chris Giarmo, and produced by Aaron Mattocks. ''Antigonick'' was first performed at the Williamstown Theater Festival, Summer 2017. It also showed at Abrons Arts Center in November 2018.

''ballet dance'' (2019)

Annie-B Parson takes on ballet with her own choreographic voice. Drawing from her experience of watching and re-watching Balanchine's ''Agon'', she creates a duet from the imagery, the fundamental actions, the objects, and the narratives of ballet traditions. Performance history includes the Spoleto Festival of Two World, Umbria, Italy in July 2019 and NYU Skirball in November 2019.

Awards

* 2018 New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award for Outstanding Performance: Elizabeth DeMent in 17c *2015 Olivier Award nominee (London) for Best Theatre Choreographer: Annie-B Parson (''Here Lies Love'') *2014 Prelude Festival's FRANKY Award: Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar * 2014 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award: Annie-B Parson * 2014 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award: Annie-B Parson * 2013 New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship: Annie-B Parson * 2012 United States Artists Fellowship: Annie-B Parson * 2010 New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award for Outstanding Production: ''Comme Toujours Here I Stand'' * 2007 Inaugural Jacob's Pillow Dance Award: Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar * 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship: Annie-B Parson * 2006 New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship: Annie-B Parson * 2005 New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award for Performance (body of work): Molly Hickok * 2002 New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award for Sustained Achievement: Big Dance Theater * 2001 New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award for Composer, ''Another Telepathic Thing'': Cynthia Hopkins * 2000 OBIE Award: Big Dance Theater * 2000 OBIE Award for Performance, ''Another Telepathic Thing'': Cynthia Hopkins * 2000 New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award for Performance, ''Another Telepathic Thing'': Stacy Dawson * 2000 New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship: Annie-B Parson

References

{{reflist https://fuseboxfestival.com/artist/big-dance-theater-2/

External links

Archive footage of Big Dance Theater performing ''Supernatural Wife'' in 2011 at Jacob's PillowArchive footage of Big Dance Theater performing ''Alan Smithee Directed This Play: Triple Feature'' in 2015 at Jacob's Pillow

Performing groups established in 1991 1991 establishments in New York City Dance companies in New York City