Dance it Out 2 features artists who pay attention to the (re)organization of the body. Flash, narrative, concept, self-seriousness, and formalism are embodied in rigorous choreographic works and ongoing research that feature fierce performances and examinations of bodily transformation. Dance It Out is an on-going series at Vox Populi AUX Space curated by choreographer and Vox Populi member Meg Foley.

Through unique pairings of performance, Foley illuminates artists that pose important questions about the body but from radically different perspectives. By positioning artistic dichotomies alongside participatory audience interventions, the series pushes audience members to move between interior and exterior body spaces in acts of watching and dancing.

The night will also feature a video piece titled REFLECTION by Jillian Peña. REFLECTION is a study made through improvisation that explores the dynamics of dancing in unison and the roles of the choreographer and set designer. It was made during a 2 week residency at Archauz in Aarhus, Denmark, where it had its premiere. It has since been shown at the National Dance Center in Bucharest, Movement Research in New York, the Kelly Strayhorn Theater in Pittsburgh and most recently Modern Art Oxford in England.

Gregory Holt will present 750 movements, an increment of his process creating a series of 10,000 unrepeated movements. As a collection, the dance serves as living memorabilia of ordinary moments that have made up the process. This process becomes exalted through an epic feat of performance on an individual scale, raising a monument, which only exists in action.

More Mutable Than Me (in-progress research), created and performed by Jumatatu Poe and Jesse Zaritt.
Mutually interested in ideas of queerness and heroism, Poe and Zaritt work toward the creation of a performance world that explores danger, questioning the contrast between closeness and loneliness, and sincerity versus hyperbole. Initiated by the desire to see what happens when two strangers create work together, their creative process involves personal self-discovery within the framework of a partnership; exploring the meaning of ‘self’ within the context of the duet form. Through movement, Poe and Zaritt approach one another’s moving bodies as unknown entities, questioning the image of the superhero and juxtaposing it with that of its antithesis: the failure, the victim, the fallen.

The creation of this work was supported, in part, through a commission from New York Live Arts’ Studio Series program with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Artist Bios

Gregory Holt is a choreographer, performer, improviser, all of it. Influenced by somatic approaches, his dances combine these with a social view of the body inspired by popular education and critical cultural theory. In process, he uses games, speculative imagination scores, and rigorous self-observation to generate impressionistic movement material. He studied linguistics and dance at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, USA, and movement research and pedagogy at the Institute for Dance Art in Linz, Austria. He was a 2011 LAB Fellow through the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. His work has been shown around the US, in Canada, and Europe.

Philadelphia-based choreographer and performer Jumatatu Poe grew up dancing around the living room and at parties with his siblings and cousins. Spending childhood on college campuses as the child of teaching academics, his early exposure to concert dance was through African dance and capoeira performances on these campuses, but he did not start formal dance training until college with contemporary African dance. His style continues to be influenced by various sources, including his foundational training in those living rooms and parties, his early technical training in contemporary African dance, his rigorous studio practices of modern/contemporary techniques, and his recent sociological research of and technical training in J-setting. Poe frequently produces dance and performance works with idiosynCrazy productions, a company he founded in 2008 and now co-directs with Shannon Murphy. Since 2012, he has been engaged in a shared, multi-tiered performance practice with NYC-based dance artist Jesse Zaritt. Previously, Poe has danced with Marianela Boán, Silvana Cardell, Tania Isaac, Charles. O. Anderson/Dance Theatre X, Leah Stein, Keith Thompson, Kate Watson-Wallace, and Kariamu Welsh (as a member of Kariamu & Company). As a performer, he also collaborates with Merián Soto. Poe is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Swarthmore College.

Jesse Zaritt is currently the inaugural Research Fellow in the School of Dance at the University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA) where he is teaching and making dance works that draw connections between ethics, embodiment and mythology. Jesse has recently taught at Bard College (NY), the American Dance Festival (NC), Hollins University (VA), Pomona College (CA), and the University of the Americas Puebla (Mexico) as well as at festivals in Japan, Korea, and Russia. He has performed his solo work in Russia, Korea, Germany, New York, Japan, Mexico and Israel. His solo ‘Binding’ is the recipient of three 2010 New York Innovative Theater Awards: Outstanding Choreography, Outstanding Solo Performance, and Outstanding Performance Art Production. In 2012, Jesse – in partnership with Jumatatu Poe – was an artist in the Studio Series Residency Program at New York Live Arts. From September 2008 through June 2011, he was an artist in residence at the 14th Street Y in Manhattan as part of LABA, a laboratory for new Jewish culture. Jesse was the recipient of a 2006-2007 Dorot Fellowship in Israel which enabled him to study the relationship between political conflict and choreography. He was a performer with the Shen Wei Dance Arts Company (NYC/2001-2006), and the Inbal Pinto Dance Company (Tel Aviv/2008). He currently dances in the work of Faye Driscoll and Netta Yerushalmy as well as in a collaborative partnership with Philadelphia based choreographer Jumatatu Poe. Jesse received an MFA in Dance from Hollins University/The American Dance Festival (2008).

Jillian Peña is a dance and video artist primarily concerned with confusion and desire between self and other. Her work is in dialogue with psychoanalysis, queer theory, pop media, and spirituality. Jillian was recently awarded the Prix Jardin d’Europe 2014 at ImpulsTanz Dance Festival in Vienna. She has been presented internationally, including at Danspace Project, the American Realness Festival, The Chocolate Factory, Dance Theater Workshop and The Kitchen in New York, and Akademie der Kunste Berlin, Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow, Modern Art Oxford, and the International Festival of Contemporary Art Slovenia. She was a Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Scholar during which she was awarded an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was a fellowship recipient, and a Practice-based MPhil in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Movement Research, the National Dance Center of Bucharest, Romania, Archauz in Århus, Denmark, and a DanceWEB Fellow at ImPulsTanz in Vienna. She is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Dance and in the College of Art, Media, and Design at University of the Arts, Philadelphia. www.jilllianpena.com