Part of the fold "Expansions of Perception"
How do Western ways of thinking shape our social and individual perception of darkness and light? With Into The Dark Jess Curtis and his diverse ensemble give this question a concrete experiential space.
Six blind, visually impaired and sighted performers move through a landscape of darkness and light. Visual certainties are increasingly shaken and the senses challenged in an aesthetic experience that brings the physical and the subconscious into the focus of perception.
A destabilising choreography around supposed truths; a rebellion against established categories of knowledge and action; a tangible performance that critically questions the omnipresent dominance of the eye.
With Into The Dark Jess Curtis/Gravity continues to explore a stage aesthetic inspired by elements of accessibility. Practices from blind culture such as audio description, wayfinding, tactile floor markings and immersive seating become part of a choreographic setting that disempowers/removes conventional strategies for orienting oneself in the world, thus opening performance art to blind and visually impaired audiences.
In the context of the seventh fold "Expansions of perception" Tanzfabrik Berlin shows works that make it possible to experience voids within our perception. How are we unconsciously interwoven with the world and things? And how does our perception expand when everything visual is temporarily absent?
Additional information
Into The Dark is generously supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds, San Francisco Grants for the Arts, the San Francisco Arts Commission, The California Arts Council, The National Endowment for the Arts (US), The MAP Fund, The Rainin Foundation, The Ford Foundation and The Walter and Elise Haas Creative Work Fund Program.
The exhibition of Gerald Pirner's photographs in San Francisco is supported by Goethe Institute, San Francisco.
Conceived and Directed by: Jess Curtis
Created and Performed by: Rachael Dichter, Gerald Pirner, Clarissa Dyas, Gabriel Christian, Ka Rustler, Tiffany Taylor
With the valued contributions of Sherwood Chen
Audiodescription: Swantje Henke
Set and Costume Design: Michiel Keuper
Composition and Sound Design: Sam Hertz
Production Manager Berlin: Magda Garlinska
Production Manager San Francisco: Aiano Nakagawa
Technical Director/Lighting Design: Gretchen Blegen
Technical Direction SF: Jessi Barber
PR/Distribution Europe: Julia Danila
PR San Francisco: Mary Carbonara
Gravity was founded in 2000 by choreographer and director Jess Curtis. His work is influenced by the extremes of warehouse performance in San Francisco's underground scene in the 1980s with iconic ensembles such as Contraband and CORE, as well as the exuberance of French circus ensembles such as Compagnie Cahin-Caha and a sophistication found in state theatres in Berlin, London, Glasgow and other major cultural centres. Gravity creates compelling body-based art. The ensemble’s original, inclusive, experimental works are aimed at anyone with a body. Themes such as gender, sexuality and disability are at the centre of their artistic exploration of a stage practice of bodily diversity.