TBX [ summer ] Ed. with Joy Davis

SCHEDULE:

Friday-Tuesday, June 8-12

4-6pm | CounterTechnique®

6-8pm | Choreo Lab

LOCATION:

University of Texas at Austin

San Jacinto & E20th

UT Rec Sports, studio 1.104a

TUITION:

// Early Bird before May 1: $225

// General Tuition: $300

// CounterTechnique Drop-in: $25

*by donation for current UT staff/students!

COUNTERTECHNIQUE®:

Countertechnique provides tools for body and mind to deal with the deman­ding dance practice of the 21st century. It is a movement system to help the dancer think about the dancing body, focusing on the process of incorporating information into action. Within a clear structure of exercises, the Countertechnique class thoroughly prepares the body for rehearsal and performance, enabling dancers to move bigger, more fluidly and more spatially, while becoming stronger and more flexible.

CHOREOGRAPHY:

Participants are invited into a choreographic practice with Joy Davis. The residency also serves as an audition opportunity to be personally invited to premiere a new work choreographed by Davis commissioned by Theorist Fest amongst international guest artists October 2018 at the Zilker Hillside Theater. Participation in the performance is not mandatory for artists--you are still welcome to be a part of the creation process!

ARTISTIC STATEMENT:

I am infatuated with the phenomenon of flux: that life is in a continual process of changing and staying the same. In my work, I grapple with this mystery in order to understand the self, relationship, and our place in the universe. What happens if we accept ourselves as inevitably - beautifully and strangely - fluctuating? I earnestly and audaciously attempt this curiosity by creating new mythological narratives that are interrupted, fall apart, and piece themselves back together with varying degrees of success. At the cross-section of dance and theater, I play with archetypes and current events through absurdity and juxtaposition - humor with grief, mania with calm, beauty with ferocity, science with poetry. A liminal space is created so thresholds of insight and wonder can be encountered. In these reflective worlds, dancers morph between counseling the audience “just let it all wash over you,” to crying alone, to barking while performing pilates exercises. Dancers in fur coats attempt rapid cataloguing of naturalistic gestures; women poised in ballgowns are reduced to slithering underneath curtains. The dream logic that unfolds through imaginative and spacious rehearsal processes make way for many possibilities. I create improvisational tasks; ask questions for answers in movement, gesture, or poetry; and develop choreography that is lusciously sequential, articulate in its starts/stops, and with momentum continually falling and redirecting. I work with durational repetition that subtly changes so the idea of flux is not simply represented, it is experienced by the performer and audience together.

BIO:

Joy Davis is a dance artist, educator, and scholar. Her initiative joyproject produces collaborative and location-based dance performance since beginning in 2006. She was a Chicago Dancemakers Forum(CDF) Greenhouse Artist, a Choreographic Resident at the Workspace for Choreographers in Virginia, a Choregrapher’s Lab Artist with New Dialect; and is currently a NEXT Artist with Urbanity Dance Company in Boston. She has premiered solo work through various presenters in Boston, Chicago, Nashville, Seattle, Philadelphia, and San Diego; and creates work for collegiate dance departments around the US. Joy had the honor of dancing in works by Erica Mott, Chris Aiken, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Jen Polins, Barbie Diewald and Shaina Cantino; she currently collaborates with Mountain Empire Dance Collective, School for Contemporary Dance and Thought, and Alexander Davis. Joy began studying Countertechnique with founder Anouk van Dijk in 2005 and completed CTTT teacher’s certifications in 2012 and 2016. She teaches Countertechnique workshops at Gibney Dance (NYC), Moving Target (Boston), Fact/SF (CA), New Dialect (TN), Mocean Dance (Halifax), and the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation, amongst others. She is honored to join the faculty at the American Dance Festival and the second annual Lion's Jaw Festival in Boston in 2017. Joy received an MFA in Choreography and Performance from Smith College under the mentorship of Angie Hauser; has since taught as visiting faculty at Smith College, Wesleyan University, and Harvard University. Joy is an Associate Professor at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.