90 min.

photo by Eric McNatt

Age & Beauty Part 2: Asian Beauty @ the Werq Meeting or The Choreographer & Her Muse or &:@& is the second installment in a suite of queer pieces that addresses the representation of the dancer, the physical and emotional labor of performance, tropes about the aging gay choreographer, the interaction of art making with administration, “queer time,” futurity, and mid-life anxieties about relevance, sustainability and artistic burnout. Part 2 deals with Gutierrez’s long-term creative/work relationships and features performer/choreographer Michelle Boulé, arts manager Ben Pryor, and lighting designer Lenore Doxsee. The piece uses retrospection and archive to demonstrate how relationships, money, and flights of fancy are at the center of all art making.

“The performance is not locked or fixed or out of time. You are watching a person who has history, story, context, future. Time is embedded into the way that person moves, into what they know or have learned. None of us escapes that, whether or not we are dancing bodies.” Miguel Gutierrez, choreographer

“Gutierrez is like the Louie of performance art; he’s absolutely self-deprecating, sometimes tediously so, but sometimes that depression resolves itself in a well-played joke. And though self-doubt constantly features throughout the performance, he keeps his head above water because of his longtime collaborators.”  Corinna Kirsch Art F City 

Created by Miguel Gutierrez
Performed by Miguel Gutierrez, Michelle Boulé, Ben Pryor and Jaime Maseda
Lights by Lenore Doxsee
Music by MG, Jaime Fenelly, Pee in My Face with Surgery (Jaime Fenelly & Fritz Welch), Chris Forsyth, Neal Medlyn, Ryoji Ikeda, KC and the Sunshine Band
Sound Production/Assistance by Leo Martin
Projection design by MG & Leo Martin
Production Management by Sarah Lurie
Costume Consulting by Ásta Hostetter
Costume Construction by Dusty Childers and Connor Voss
Management by Ben Pryor/tbspMGMT

“Their talk is both mind-numbing and edifying. How will they procure the funding needed to finance the project that may then bring in money? How, when, and where can rehearsals begin on Part 3 of Age & Beauty? What conflicts with what? They continue hammering away, even when Boulé climbs on the table between them, places a foot on either side of Pryor’s laptop, and undulates vigorously. ” Deborah Jowitt,  arts journal

Age & Beauty Part 2: Asian Beauty @ the Werq Meeting or The Choreographer & Her Muse or &:@& is made possible with support from the MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. General Operating support was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional support provided by Maggie Allesse National Choreographic Center at Florida State University, Hollins University, Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, and Mount Tremper Arts.
Photos by Ian Douglas