Sarah Michelson

Residency at ImPulsTanz 2010

Project:

Sarah Michelson/Richard Maxwell

Narrative Ballet on the Subject of Martyrdom

“When Sarah Michelson is on, her work brooks no resistance. There is an inevitability to it, and a relentlessness, from which you do not, cannot, look away.” —New York Times

“[Maxwell is] one of the few uncompromisingly original new voices in American theater, with short, monotonal plays that found the poetry in everyday banality and the numbness in sensational violence.” —New York Times

Choreographer Sarah Michelson and playwright/director Richard Maxwell are both acclaimed for fiercely uncompromising, strangely transfixing productions that can’t happen anywhere except live onstage. While Michelson is acclaimed for her visually striking, over-the-top spectacles such as Daylight (For Minneapolis) the aesthetic and language in Maxwell’s plays range from profound to deceptively simple. Collaborating for the first time, the pair brings their seemingly divergent visions to a commissioned work based on a narrative story ballet written by Maxwell and interpreted by a company of Michelson dancers and Maxwell veteran actor/performers, including the inimitable Jim Fletcher (Jay Gatsby in Elevator Repair Service’s 6-hour GATZ, seen at the Walker in 2006). When two idiosyncratic master artists shift their gaze to an art form rooted in the confines of tradition, the results are sure to be surprising, controversial, and inspiring.

Jardin d’Europe: Sarah Michelson is Mentor of the danceWEB Scholarship Programme 2010 together with Yasuko Yokoshi