The Body in Space, a talk by Annie-B Parson
When and Where
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Description
Annie-B Parson is an award-winning choreographer and the artistic director of Obie award-winning Big Dance Theater. In this upcoming lecture, The Body in Space, Parson will discuss her work in dance, theatre, and live music, as well as her forthcoming book, The Choreography of Everyday Life (Verso, 2022).
The Body in Space expands the definition of choreography to think not only of steps, but of the arrangement of the body in space over time. Parson will discuss how we can use the tools of choreographic composition to re-imagine how to make performance work with bodies and space, and what it means to understand daily life as a choreographic score.
Annie-B Parson is a choreographer. She is the artistic director of the Obie award-winning Big Dance Theater. Big Dance Theater has created over twenty large-scale works for such venues as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Japan Society, the Old Vic/London, Saddler’s Wells/London, The Walker, The National Theatre in Paris, Japan Society and The Kitchen. Parson has also made choreography for rock shows, marching bands, movies, museums, objects, television, augmented reality, opera, ballet, theatre, symphony orchestras, string quartets, and a chorus of 1,000 amateur singers.
She has worked with David Byrne, David Bowie, Lorde, St. Vincent, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Wendy Whelan, Anne Carson, Suzan-Lori Parks, Laurie Anderson, Salt n Pepa, Jonathan Demme, and Spike Lee. Parson has two large scale works in the repertory of the Martha Graham Dance Company. Her work with David Byrne has spanned over ten years and includes dance making for his tours with Brian Eno and St. Vincent. Their most recent work, American Utopia, toured the world and was a smash hit on Broadway, and subsequently became a film by Spike Lee.
Parson is currently working on two operas: Candide directed by Daniel Fish at the Lyon Opera, and The Hours at The Met.
Her books include Dance by Letter (53rd State Press, 2016) and Drawing the Surface of Dance (Wesleyan UP, 2019). Her latest book, The Choreography of Everyday Life, published by Verso, will be released in October 2022. She is currently co-editing, with Thomas F. DeFrantz, Dance History(s): Imagination as a Form of Study.