New York, NY – Valerie Green/Dance Entropy will perform at the 2020 KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival, Tuesday, Sept. 15 – Saturday, Sept. 26 via rochesterfringe.com.
Tickets can be purchased for $10, at rochesterfringe.com, where more information is also available.
More about this performance:
What does Utopia mean to you? Is it a physical, external place—or, might it reside internally?
Choreographed by Valerie Green and in collaboration with visual artist Keren Anavy with original music by Mark Katsaounis, VG/DE’s newest evening length work, Utopia, explores the idea of a perfect place through dance and visual art. The work questions whether Utopia might be an internal place, investigated through personal and intimate moments and alongside the community.
Anavy has turned her large-scale paintings into 10-foot cylindrical pillars to be used throughout the piece. The pillars act as an extension of the internal world, constantly forming barriers, spaces, and other environments for the dancers to both react to and orchestrate. The notion of what it means to be safe persists inside a dynamic art installation is in perpetual motion, being constantly built and dismantled. Acting as both props and set, Anavy’s painted pillars contribute to Utopia’s striking energy and challenge the viewer’s conception of how art, dance, and design interact with and influence one another. An original sound score created by Mark Katsaounis combines electronic sounds with acoustic percussion to make textures and moods that are as varied as the human experience.
“Meticulously Crafted, Contemplative, Mesmerizing.”
- Catherine Grau, Queens Museum
“A Mesmerizing Collaboration.”
-Pat King, METRO NY
Utopia will be performed by Emily Elizabeth Aiken, Daan Bootsma, Caitlyn Casson, Hana Ginsburg Tirosh, Erin Giordano, Kristin Licata and Richard Scandola. In addition to choreography by Valerie Green and visual art by Keren Anavy, the piece features music by Mark Katsaounis, lighting design by Kathy Kaufmann, and costumes by Deborah Erenburg.
Utopia is created, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
More about Fringe: Since its debut in 2012, the KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival has become one of the most successful fringe festivals in the U.S., as well as the largest multi-arts festival in New York State. The 2019 Fringe attracted more than 100,000 attendees to over 665 performances and events – of which 219 were free of charge – in 25+ downtown venues. Due to COVID-19-related health and safety regulations, 2020’s 12-day festival will be a virtual, online one. It will feature an open-access portion submitted by artists, as well as some safely-enjoyed headline shows curated by the Fringe. The non-profit organization’s overarching mission is to provide a platform for artists to share their ideas and develop their skills, as well as to make arts readily accessible to audiences, while stimulating downtown Rochester both culturally and economically.