Bryn Mawr Series Welcomes John Jasperse Company for a Week’s Residency, Culminating in the World Premiere of Fort Blossom revisited (2000/2012)

The Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series is welcoming renowned choreographer John Jasperse for a one-week residency that will culminate in a three-day run of the “remount” of his exquisite but provocative  Fort Blossom. Made possible with support from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through Dance Advance, the residency begins February 18, with a Symposium on The Contemporary Performance of Sex, Gender and Embodiment. Events continue through the week. The World Premiere Performances of Fort Blossom revisited(2000/2012) will run Friday, February 24-Sunday, February 26 in the Hepburn Teaching Theater in Goodhart Hall. The Company will present this work at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and in matinee performances on Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Bryn Mawr’s Campus is located at 101 N. Merion Ave. Residency events are free of charge; performances require tickets. Tickets to individual events in the Bryn Mawr Performing Arts Series are $20, $18 for seniors, $10 for students with ID, and $5 for children under 12. Tickets are $10 for Dance Pass holders. Season subscriptions are $75 for seniors, $90 general. Tickets and more information are available online at http://www.brynmawr.edu/arts/series.html or by calling 610-526-5210.

Fort Blossom choreographed and designed by Jasperse, is a 40-minute work that premiered in 2000. The work is being revisited and expanded with lead support from Bryn Mawr College into a 60-minute piece for four performers: Ben Asriel, Lindsay Clark, Erika Hand, and Burr Johnson. Fort Blossom revisited (2000/2012) is a personal look at the body (alternately medical, eroticized and/or aestheticized). The audience is invited to examine contemporary notions of how we experience the body as both owners and spectators. The work contains nudity and sexual content.

Until now, Fort Blossom, a gorgeous and challenging work, has only been performed four times. Deborah Jowitt wrote in the Village Voice,“The contrasts in Fort Blossom are dazzling: black and white, color and neutral tones, men and women, nakedness and body coverings, intimacy in bloom and tough, blocky structures. Fort Blossom is more austere than Excessories [Jasperse’s 1995 breakout work], but no less brave, no less exquisite.” The work carries forward central themes of earlier works by Jasperse, who is considered one of the leading voices in contemporary dance today. The New York Times noted: “When John Jasperse makes a new work, it should be seen: end of story.”
John Jasperse Company will be in residence at Bryn Mawr in the week prior to the performances, creating opportunities for the public to engage with Jasperse’s ideas and practices through a Symposium with visiting scholars, in two master classes, a Visual Culture Colloquium, and an Open Rehearsal.

 

John Jasperse Company Residency Schedule:

Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2:15-3:45pm
Open Rehearsal with Q&A

Bryn Mawr College, Hepburn Teaching Theater, Goodhart Hall

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Visual Culture Colloquium, Jasperse on “Transformations of the Audience/Performer Relationship”
Bryn Mawr College, Thomas Hall 224

Thursday, Feb. 23, 4-5:30 p.m.
Master Class

Bryn Mawr College, Pembroke Studio
Reservations required. Email: [email protected]

 

John Jasperse Company aims to challenge and engage audiences in rich, innovative aesthetic and intellectual experiences, thereby expanding the form of contemporary dance. John Jasperse graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1985, and then moved to New York City to live and work. In 1996, he created Thin Man Dance, Inc., a New York-based not-for-profit organization which supports the work of John Jasperse Company. For the Company, Jasperse has created fourteen evening-length works including Canyon which premiered during the 2011 Philadelphia Live Arts Festival.  Jasperse’s work has been featured in festivals and by presenting organizations across the United States, including the Walker Art Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music,  and REDcat; in Brazil, Chile, Israel and Japan; and throughout Europe including the Venice Bienniale, TanzQuartier Vienna and Dance Umbrella in London.

Jasperse’s has been honored with prestigious awards in the United States and abroad including a New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”)  Award in 2001 in recognition of his body of choreographic work, the 1999 Scripps/ADF Primus-Tamaris Fellowship, the Doris Duke Award (1998), the 1997 Mouson Award by Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt, Germany; three prizes in the 1996 Rencontres Internationales Chorégraphiques de Bagnolet; and the Choreography Prize at the 3rd Suzanne Dellal International Dance Competition (1996) in Tel Aviv, Israel for Excessories.

Under the umbrella of the Company, Jasperse has created several works for other companies: See Through Knot, commissioned by the Baryshnikov Dance Foundation for White Oak’s Dance Project (2000); The Rest, commissioned by the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv, Israel (2000); à double face for the Lyon Opéra Ballet, France (March 2002); missed FIT for The Irish Modern Dance Theater, Dublin, Ireland (October 2002), Highline, as part of the Montana Suite Project for Headwaters Dance Company, Missoula, MT, and most recently Spurts of Activity Before the Emptiness of Late Afternoon for Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Salt Lake City, UT (2010).

About the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series

Since 1984 the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series has presented great artists and performances to audiences in the Philadelphia area, creating an environment in which the value of the arts is recognized and celebrated. Talks and workshops provided free to the public help develop arts awareness and literacy. The Series works to lower barriers to arts access through its partnership with Art-Reach, a nonprofit dedicated to improving arts accessibility for people of all ages and circumstances, and through its low ticket prices.

Follow Me

0 replies on “Bryn Mawr Series Welcomes John Jasperse Company for a Week’s Residency, Culminating in the World Premiere of Fort Blossom revisited (2000/2012)”

Get The Latest Updates

Subscribe To Our Weekly Newsletter

JOIN OVER 19,500+ SUBSCRIBERS
Sent out each Sunday with all the latest dance news and updates for the Philadelphia region.

Related Posts