S45

Zephyr Dance, an experimental dance company that pushes the art form’s boundaries, presents an unprecedented collaborative choreography project that combines Suite for Five by seminal 20th century American choreographer Merce Cunningham and new choreography that springs from that work created by a diverse group of choreographers. S45 is curated by Michelle Kranicke, Zephyr artistic director and SITE/less co-director; David Sundry, architect and SITE/less co-director; and Paige Cunningham-Caldarella, a former Cunningham company dancer and independent choreographer. The Merce Cunningham Trust has granted permission for Cunningham-Caldarella to restage the iconic 1956 work and, for the first time, for she and other choreographers to respond to that work and create new choreography that draws inspiration from the original. Suite for Five has been performed mostly in traditional proscenium theaters for at least the past 40 years. SITE/less, which aims to rethink the connection between movement and architecture and deepen the relationship between the viewer and the venue beyond the typical model, invites viewers within inches of the dancers—“literally inside the dance,” Kranicke noted. “The experience will be more intimate than a typical performance of this work." Cunningham’s notes about his work suggest that Suite for Five could be presented in a non-proscenium staging: “…the dances, despite the interval of years between the compositions, were all designed to be presented with the audience on four sides and can so be done if circumstances allow it.” Sundry, in keeping with the architectural mission of SITE/less, will reconfigure and add to an existing architecture installation of platforms in the SITE/less space. He explained, “The current stacked platform construction allows the audience to change their proximity and views of the work at will throughout the evening. The immersive, radial nature of the SITE/less space expands upon Cunningham’s idea of there being many points that could be considered the ‘front’ of the dance.” The curators have recruited choreographers with a range of backgrounds and artistic focus. In addition to Kranicke and Cunningham-Caldarella, they include Darrell Jones, Roxane D’Orléans Juste and Kota Yamazaki. “Each choreographer is a seasoned veteran in the dance world representing a breadth of different movement disciplines— Butoh, improvisation, voguing and various modern dance vocabularies.” said Kranicke. Jones, Juste and Yamazaki each perform their own solos, while Cunningham-Caldarella responds to the duet and Kranicke choreographs the trio. All five choreographers perform in the final section, interacting with choreography each has created individually.