RTG Dance- Once Removed: Peripetia October 12, 2007

Once Removed: Peripeteia is part of Germond's current research into ways that we make sense of loss and disaster. Among it's strategies, Once Removed: Peripeteia collides the principles of classic tragic drama as set out by Aristotle with the formal, emotionally-detached aesthetics of postmodern dance. Once Removed:Peripeteia is arranged as a collection of fragments: Dressed in formalwear and sculptural costumes by Pate Conaway, the dancers move through a series of tableaux that evolve into thoughtfully choreographed sequences. A Musical Score by Michael Zerang incorporates fragments of popular songs and classical music. An environment of related imagery will be projected by video artist by Kim Alpert. This dance debuted as a work in progress as Tragic Dance at Links Hall in June 2006 and has been developed over the past year and a half. Once Removed: Peripeteia, the new title, refers to the turning point in a drama after which the plot moves steadily to its denouement. It is discussed by Aristotle in the Poetics as the shift of the tragic protagonist's fortune from good to bad, which is essential to the plot of a tragedy.

Dancers/Performers: Rachel Thorne Germond, Lucy Riner, Johannah Wininsky, Jeannine Salemi, Julie Haller, Ambryn Delius, and Jennifer Guglielmi (see www.rtgdance.com for more info)

BIOGRAPHIES:

Rachel Thorne Germond - Choreographer/Dancer/Artistic Director
Heralded by the Globe and Mail as a choreographer who creates "highly ironic works that address issues of freedom, control, sexuality, and identity" and whose "maverick feminist critiques...have a madness about them that is probably just right for our times," Rachel Thorne Germond has presented her work in New York City at such venues as the Joyce Soho, Movement Research at Judson Church, Chashama, The Merce Cunningham Studio, Dixon Place, amongst others and participates in festivals throughout the country and in Canada such as Philadelphia's LadyFest 2002, and Toronto's annual fFIDA festival ('97,'98 and 2000). Ms. Germond achieved an MFA in dance and choreography at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana where she was a Fellow and taught modern, jazz, and contact improvisation. Her training includes intensive study of Klein/Mahler technique with Barbara Mahler (since 1994) and with such notable teachers as Mary Anthony, Anna Sokolow, Merce Cunningham, and Nancy Topf. She has shown work in Chicago at an assortment of venues, including in performances with the Chicago Kings, JT Newman's Girlie- Q Variety Hour, the Feast of Fools Cabaret, the Full Circle Danztheatre Festival, the Spare Room, the Stockyards Theater Performance Art Festival, the Bailiwick Theater, and the Around the Coyote Festival, as well as three full length shows at Links Hall during 2004-5. In 2003,2005, & 2006 she was the recipient of the city of Chicago's CAAP grants. She is also an artist-in- residence through C.A.P.E. at Roberto Clemente High School. In 2004 she formed her Chicago-based pick up company, RTG Dance. She currently lives and works in both New York and Chicago.

Pate Conaway- Costume Designer
Pate Conaway is a graduate of Chicago's Second City Training Center and received his MFA from Columbia College, Chicago. His work explores the connection between visual art and performance. After learning to knit, Pate spent five weeks at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago knitting a pair of mittens large enough for him to sleep in. His work explores the fusion of sculpture, installation, and interactive performance. For Tragic III, Pate worked with the dancers to create shrink-wrap costumes that are a combination of knitting, crochet, and knot work. Some of Pate's work can be seen at www.margingallery.org/pate.html.

Michael Zerang- Composer
Michael Zerang was born in Chicago, Illinois and is a first generation American of Assyrian decent. He has been a professional musician, composer, and producer since 1976, focusing extensively on improvised music, free jazz, contemporary composition, puppet theater, experimental theater, and international musical forms. He has collaborated extensively with contemporary theater, dance, and other multidisciplinary forms and has received three Joseph Jefferson Awards for Original Music Composition in Theater, in 1996, 1998, and 2000. He has over sixty titles in his discography and has toured nationally and internationally since 1981 with and ever-widening pool of collaborators. He was the artistic director of the Link's Hall Performance Series from 1985-1989 where he produced over 300 concerts of jazz, traditional ethnic folk music, electronic music, and other forms of forward thinking music. He continued to produce concerts at Cafe Urbus Orbis from 1994-1996, and at his own space, The Candlestick Maker in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood, from 2001 - 2005. He has taught as a guest artist at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in performance technique, sound design, and sound/music as it relates to puppetry; rhythmic analysis for dancers at The Dance Center of Columbia College, Northwestern University, and MoMing Dance and Arts Center; courses in Composer - Choreographer Collaborations at Northwestern University; music to children at The Jane Adams Hull House. He has held workshops in improvisational music and percussion technique and teaches private lessons in rhythmic analysis, music composition, and percussion technique.
www.michaelzerang.com

Kim Alpert- Video Artist
Kim Alpert's live video work captures audiences with its vivid color and modern graphics combined with classic found footage elements. She's been the video and film curator for the Around the Coyote for the past four years. She's currently the Creative Director and Senior Motion Designer at Sparkfactor, a local design boutique.
www.aestheticENGINEER.com www.sparkfactor.com

Post Performance Discussion & Reception to follow Friday and Saturday night performances on the 12th & 13th and 19th & 20th of October. Guest discussion moderators TBA.

Official Website: http://www.rtgdance.com