Dances for Non/Fictional Bodies

Jess Curtis/Gravity is in the midst of developing a new interdisciplinary performance work, Dances for Non/Fictional Bodies, commissioned by a consortium of international presenters including Yerba Buena Center for Arts where it’s set to premiere in 2011. Dances for Non/Fictional Bodies is a performance-based project examining the role(s) of imagined societal ideals as a kind of “fictional body” that disables individuals in terms of our ability to see others and to be seen as beautiful, empowered, and autonomous.

For this new work Curtis has gathered an all-star collaborative team from 6 countries including Dramatruge/Provocateur Guillermo Gomez-Peña (SF/Mexico) and Performers Maria Francesca Scaroni (Berlin/Italy), Claire Cunningham (Glasgow), David Toole (UK), and Jörg Müller (France).

Physically and conceptually deconstructs movement vocabulary and ideals of beauty based in socially imagined perfections of form that rarely exist in actual bodies. The work will examine difference as a virtue in and of itself, finding the unique beauty in the idiosyncrasy of each individual performer. The synergistic and esthetic necessity of difference will be highlighted, and thus implicitly propose that the audience re-consider their own definitions and limitations of beauty and empowerment.

Conceived and Directed by: Jess Curtis
Created and Performed by: Claire Cunningham, Jörg Müller, Maria Francesca Scaroni, David Toole and Jess Curtis.
Original Score by: Matthias Herman
Video by: Yoann Trellu
Dramaturge/Provocateur: Guillermo Gomez-Peña