Would I Lie to You?

RealLivePeople Presents

Would I Lie to You?
photo credit:  Jacques-Jean Tiziou

by Sara Nye for The Dance Journal

RealLivePeople, a local dance company whose work explores human experiences through firsthand stories and unspoken gestures, will be celebrating their fifth anniversary by producing, for the first time, a performance series featuring new work of their own as well as the work of colleagues and past collaborators. RealLivePeople Presents comes to the Latvian Society (531 N. 7th Street) on May 8th & 9th at 7pm.

RealLivePeople Presents is a new performance platform for us, something that developed from our desire to further investigate who we are as a company by connecting to the work of our peers. In the past five years we have worked with such a range of talented artists, and we are thrilled to be able to present a few of them. RealLivePeople Artistic Director Gina Hoch-Stall and Managing Director Sara Nye will share some fresh work, as well as past collaborators and supporters like dance artists Marie Brown and Patricia Dominguez, Molly Jackson, Scott McPheeters, and Shannon Murphy – all while visual artist Andrea Caldarise’s complex and stunning work frames the performance space.

“Presenting: You First (with the hope for reciprocation)” is an athletic, yet intimate, duet choreographed and performed by RealLivePeople Artistic Director Gina Hoch-Stall and Scott McPheeters that explores the presentation of self, an intense desire to be accepted and the concept of “winning someone over.” Costumes are by Michelle Yeager and dramaturgical consultation is by RealLivePeople Managing Director Sara Nye.

“Railroad” is a collaborative piece by Molly Jackson and Marlee Weinberg about what it’s like going into a party knowing that you’ll be asked the same series of questions over and over and over again. Starting a new life in a new city is hard. Explaining that new life is even more exhausting.

Created by Gina Hoch-Stall with dramaturgical work by Jenna Stelmok, “Wait, what did you say?” is an early exploration of the differences between listening and hearing, between absorbing information and contextualizing it, between empathy and passivity. Audience members will view a short dance piece and are then given the opportunity to submit their ideas about what the piece is about. The dance is then shown two more times, each with a different audience member’s suggestion shared with the group pre-performance. We are interested in how the audience members’ viewpoints affect how the piece is seen and absorbed. It is performed by Hoch-Stall with Elise Mele, Sara Nye, and Adrian Plascencia.

RealLivePeople Presents is happy to present the Philadelphia premiere of “The Multiplicity of Me.” Directed by Shannon Murphy, the three performers (Murphy with Danielle Currica and Michele Tantoco) interpret the score each night. Their stories and movement, although carefully crafted, are improvised.

Watch dancers fight to pull focus in “Upstage Me,” created by Sara Nye in collaboration with Gina Hoch-Stall. We all want attention. What happens when we don’t want to share?

Marie Brown and Patricia Dominguez attempt to figure out what causes the dancing blues in “Moving Around.” By shaking things up with different movement qualities that they named “itchy scratchy,” “spiral spine,” “bone blades,” and “machine,” they try to combat the effects of winter, boredom, hunger for new physical maneuvers, and desire for something to disrupt the everyday.

Framing the performance space will be visual art by Andrea Caldarise. Caldarise’s artwork is inspired by urban explorations, memories, and conversations. Her drawings focus on mapping a location by re-creating a landscape through line, color, and memory. Working in collage and gouache, she expresses the psychological connection between mapping our familiar routes and unique memories associated with environment. Imagery oscillates from literal to abstract, charting the ephemeral feeling of a place. www.andreacaldarise.com

RealLivePeople strives to balance inventive, athletic movement with poignant and provocative interactions that resonate with an audience. We tackle our subject matter from multiple perspectives, bringing in composers, artists and filmmakers to collaborate and even incorporating our audience’s opinions and stories into the work in real time. For us the work is about being human onstage – part performance, part real-life. For RealLivePeople Presents, we team up with colleagues who complement this mission.

RealLivePeople Presents
May 8th & 9th at 7pm
Latvian Society, 531 N. 7th Street, Philadelphia Tickets are $15 for General Admission, $12 for Students, Seniors and Dance Professionals
Online at https://www.universe.com/events/reallivepeople-presents-tickets-philadelphia-PDXNK or at the door.

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