PRW discussion session with choreographer Netta Yerushalmy, an award winning Guggenheim fellow, in residence at UB with her interdisciplinary project Paramodernities, thanks to funding Rob Falgiano (Theatre & Dance) was awarded through the National Endowment for the Arts

Limited seating – contact Christian Flaugh (cflaugh@buffalo.edu) by Tuesday, November 13

About: Netta Yerushalmy is an Israeli-born choreographer and dancer, based in New York City since 2000. Paramodernities is a unique multidisciplinary project that engages with the canon of modern dance in radical, reverent, & subversive ways. The program is a series of lecture-performances, or dance-experiments, generated through deconstructions of landmark modern choreographies by Martha Graham, Nijinsky, Cunningham, Bob Fosse, and other 20th century dance pioneers, performed alongside contributions by scholars and writers who situate these iconic works within the larger project of Modernism. Consult the video explanation at this link: https://vimeo.com/215856754

Exploring foundational tenants of modern discourse— such as sovereignty, race, feminism, and ableism —Paramodernities includes public discussions as inseparable parts of each installment. The project has six parts, two of which will be performed at CFA on NOV 17th (see recent reviews of the program at NYTimes and Arts Journal).

PARAMODERNITIES #1: Vaslav Nijinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (1913)
Scholar: David Kishik / Philosophy / Emerson College
Performance by Marc Crousillat and David Kishik
Essay: The Work of Dance in the Age of Sacred Lives
Essay abstract:
The Work of Dance in the Age of Sacred Lives explores the link between classical ballet and modern politics. Weaving together René Descartes and Rudolf Von Laban, Thomas Hobbes and Vaslav Nijinsky, this text constructs an alternative history of dance informed by the work of the contemporary philosopher Giorgio Agamben. Starting with Court Ballet and Renaissance discourse on dance, the essay concludes by positioning The Rite of Spring as a turning point in our understanding of art and power.

PARAMODERNITIES #2: Martha Graham’s Night Journey (1947)
Scholar: Carol Ockman / Art History / Williams College
Performance by Taryn Griggs, Carol Ockman, and Netta Yerushalmy
Essay: Female Trauma, Interdiction, and Agency in “The House of Pelvic Truth”
Essay abstract:
My exploration of Night Journey highlights the physical and emotional trauma in Martha Graham’s woman-centered world, her subversion of traditional male narratives, and the ways she anticipates Second Wave Feminism by twenty years. Graham’s bloodthirsty repertory, her bad girls who defy expectations much as she did, make Night Journey especially resonant today. I claim that Netta’s dismantling and reassembling of Graham’s iconic work exposes and gives shape to psychic trauma through the wordless language of the body. The rigorous distillation of form that these two choreographers share opens veins of deep emotion and shocks us into thought.