Performa/Dance celebrates its 10th season with ANTHROPOCENE, an ambitious new dance theater work that interrogates, with equal doses of humor, anxiety, grief, and wonder, how we became comfortable with the end of the world.
With a touch of absurdity and piercing insight, ANTHROPOCENE captures the perspectives of individuals and the global collective navigating a rapidly changing planet. It explores modern society’s disconnection from nature, highlighting the choices and often well-meaning but clumsy actions that leave us exposed to escalating natural disasters and global crises. Through allegorical, surreal vignettes—set on a beach, in a laboratory, during a young woman’s fevered monologue, at a family dinner, and in a hospital room—ANTHROPOCENE examines humanity’s self-centered tendencies at the expense of other life forms.
Performa/Dance has assembled a stellar artistic team that spans Austin’s cultural scene. Alexandra Bassiakou Shaw, playwright, Co-Artistic Director of Rude Mechs and UT assistant professor; Kelsey Oliver, experimental dance and theater maker; and, Performa/Dance’s own Artistic Director, Jennifer Hart, have collaborated to bring this work to life. Composer Henna Chou, lighting designer Stephen Pruitt, and set and design collaborator Tor Reynolds round out the artistic team. Performers also come from all corners of Austin’s rich dance community, including Angel Blanco, Cellise Brown, Alexa Capareda, Jairus Carr, Aida Hernandez Reyes, Arnaldo Hernandez, Taryn Lavery, Clay Moore, Tikiri Shapiro, and Kanami Nakabayashi Timpe.
Since 2014, Performa/Dance has been programming works by local and national choreographers, with the goal of showcasing historically underrepresented artists, including Minneapolis-based LGBTQ+ activist Nic Lincoln, Christian Warner, a rising star based in NYC, as well as local favorites, including BLiPSWiTCH, Magdalena Jarkowiec, Alexa Capareda, and ARCOS. Additionally, Performa/Dance consistently pushes itself in new directions, reevaluating the vocabulary used to communicate modern storytelling.
ANTHROPOCENE will be held at Ballet Austin’s downtown AustinVentures StudioTheater, August 15th at 7:30pm, and August 16th at 4pm and 7:30pm. The performance runs approximately 66 minutes with ASL interpretation on August 16th at 4pm. Spanish translation will also be available. This production is supported in part by the City of Austin’s Elevate Grant Program.
Tickets for ANTHROPOCENE are $25-50 on a sliding scale. For more information, visit performadance.org
Share this:
