"while I was homegrowing" Dance Performance (Barn)

June 2rd tickets:  www.eventbrite.com/e/while-i-was-homegrowing-tickets-593571186397

June 3rd tickets: www.eventbrite.com/e/while-i-was-homegrowing-tickets-593582951587

Description: 

"while I was homegrowing" uses movement to explore a process of memory excavation as I have conversations with my father about his mother, who I never met, and seeks to unpack how her memory has become embodied in fabric and bones. I am enthralled with the process of recreating her in memories that I do not tangibly possess. The memory work unravels into a deep pool of ancestors, both living and past, that my body carries around; I ache to know these ancestors inside me, and honor them. while I was homegrowing is not narrative in a traditional sense; I am interested in watching the overlay of movement, history, and textile unfold into a living dance piece. Choreographed, produced, and performed by Lucia Gagliardone. 

Made with collaborators Uilani Marx, Rush Johnston, and Alexandria Francois, and dramaturgy support from Lou Sydel, Noah LaPook, and Lydia Roe. Lou Sydel created the graphic design for this piece. MOtiVE Brooklyn contributed to the creation of this piece through their space grant. Ty Gagliardone managed tech. Julia Sloane also made artistic contributions to this piece.

 

Lucia Gagliardone (she/her) is a Vermont-born choreographer and dance artist whose movement origins are found in intergenerational, community-centered dance making amongst the trees, on the land, and in the waters. Her work explores themes of memory excavation, healing, relationships with the earth and water, and various iterations of the self. Her choreographic work and performance are grounded in modern and post-modern dance, with a fascination for quotidian life as a foundation for choreography. Lucia has premiered eleven original live and film dance works, which have been presented by The Living Room, Bowdoin College, Taffety Punk, The Hopkins Center for the Arts, Atlas Performing Arts Center, and more. She has performed in works by Reggie Wilson with the Fist and Heel Performance Group, Katy Pyle with Ballez, Aretha Aoki, Gwyneth Jones, Olga Aru, and as a principal dancer for Flock Dance Troupe under the artistic direction of Carol Langstaff. Lucia is interested in storytelling and sees creating dance as a process of empathy.  

Alexandria Francois (She/They) is a fourth year student at Rutgers University pursuing their Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Dance under Mason Gross School of the Arts. They’re originally from Queens, New York but currently residing in New Brunswick, New Jersey for their studies. During their time at university, she’s been under the tutelage of and performed works by choreographers Blair Ritchie, Ani Javian, John Evans, Evelyn Wang, Jordan D. Lloyd, Kyle Marshall, and the late Kim Elliott. In addition to collaborating with their peers to create various works, Alexandria hopes to continue their career as a performing artist and creator. 

Uila Marx (they/she) is a white nonbinary dancer, choreographer, and educator from O’ahu, Hawai’i. Their movement work is informed by their lifelong learning in hula with Ka Pā Hula O Ka Lei Lehua and practices of land and body care. Uila attended Mid-Pacific School of the Arts, where she studied Graham, Horton, and classical ballet with Sylvia Yamada, Jose Silva, and Paul Maley. Uila later received BAs in Dance and Psychology from Barnard College of Columbia University in Harlem, New York, where she performed works by David Thomson, Okwui Okpokwasili, Mark Morris, David Dorfman, Colleen Thomas, Davalois Fearon, and Neta Pulvermacher, among others.Uila currently works as a Community Actionist in Gibney’s Hands are for Holding program, which uses dance to start conversations with youth attending NYC public schools about healthy relationships, consent, boundaries, and choice-making. As an educator, Uila also researches queer-focused sex/consent education through contact improvisation and related movement genres. As a dance maker, their work centers tenderness, community care, and comedy through collaborative physical theater and improvisational scores. 

Rush Johnston (they/them) is a Bronx-based multimedia choreographer, performer, poet, filmmaker, and movement researcher. Rush creates at the intersection of visual and performing art, often exploring modes of artistic expression beyond the binary. As a queer, Indigenous, neurodiverse artist, their work often plays with perception and identity, inviting viewers to question proposed truths of self and social misunderstanding. Social justice work is a key element of Rush’s creative vision, often encompassing themes of political turmoil, queerness, and mental health. Rush's work focuses on process over product, and experimentation over perfection. They play with a variety of scores, texts, settings, and subject matters to massage each work allowing it to continue to evolve with every performance. While Rush is classically trained in modern and ballet, they are more so interested in continuing their practices of improvisation and authentic movement, Gaga, jazz, contemporary partnering, and West African dance. Rush finds home within collaboration, creating possibilities for new life in movement and concept in every partnership. They have had works selected to perform at venues nationwide and internationally. Rush holds a BFA in Dance at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University.