Developed in a residency with Steve Paxton and Lisa Nelson at Mad Brook Farm in summer 2017 and performed by Megan Bridge and Beau Hancock, this improvised dance proposes a hyper-conscious inhabiting of time, space, and relationship—a radical invitation for intimacy and embodiment. With music by Robert Ashley.
$15 / 45 minutes
The Backyard
“Art is a game between all people of all periods.” —Marcel Duchamp
The Backyard
is a performance that proposes a hyper-conscious inhabiting of time, space, and relationship, a radical invitation for intimacy and embodiment. The improvised movement score for this 45-minute duet was created during a residency at Mad Brook Farm with Lisa Nelson and Steve Paxton, placing their work PA RT (1978-2002) at the center of our research. Robert Ashley’s music Private Parts provides a scaffolding for our exploration, cultivating a landscape of deep listening and rigorous attention. The Backyard is thus a palimpsest of Paxton/Nelson’s PA RT—an effaced manuscript, written over, but still bearing traces of its original form.
Creation/Performance: Megan Bridge and Beau Hancock
Music: Private Parts (1978), by Robert Ashley. Used by permission from Lovely Music and Visibility Music Publishers.
The Backyard is a project of <fidget>, an experimental performance company in Philadelphia, PA, and was partially developed in residence during “Camp Fringe” at FringeArts, Philadelphia, and with support from the Net/TEN Foundation’s Travel Grant. <fidget> also receives support from the Philadelphia Cultural Fund.
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