The Ubiquitous Mass of Us
Maree ReMalia | merrygogo
March 17–18, Friday–Saturday
8:00 PM, Mahaney Center for the Arts, Dance Theatre
Join Maree ReMalia | merrygogo for The Ubiquitous Mass of Us, an evening-length, escalating journey where nine performers from across artistic disciplines question the bounds of their identities. Moving in and around the set designed by visual artist Blaine Siegel, they explore the way they take up space. Watch them bare a broad range of physicality and newly discovered expressions to an original soundscore by David Bernabo. For all ages, seasoned performance goers, and those new to the theater. Sponsored by the Performing Arts Series, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/Movement Matters Program, and the Dance Program. Buy tickets: $20 Public/$15 Middlebury ID holders/$6 Middlebury students.
Associated events:
March 14, Tuesday CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER
Gaga, Improvisation, and Repertory Experiments
3:00 PM-4:15 PM, Mahaney Center for the Arts, Dance Theatre
Participants will be guided through playful improvisational explorations intended to increase self-awareness and build group connection. Maree ReMalia and friends will then teach repertory material from The Ubiquitous Mass of Us, including movement, sound, and text that will be used as source material for experimentation in developing original, small group sequences. No previous experience necessary. Free and open to the public.
March 18, Saturday
Pre-show Warm Up with the Ubiquitous Cast
6:45 PM-7:15 PM, Mahaney Center for the Arts, Dance Theatre
Join Maree ReMalia and friends as they warm up for their performance. Free and open to the public.
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About the program:
Maree ReMalia | merrygogo
The Ubiquitous Mass of Us
Created by: Maree ReMalia in collaboration with the artists and performers
Performers: David Bernabo, Joseph Hall, Taylor Knight, Zac Lounsbury ’16, Moriah Ella Mason, Maree ReMalia, Jil Stifel
Anna Thompson, Rachel Vallozzi
Sound Design: David Bernabo
Set Design: Blaine Siegel
Costume Stylist: Rachel Vallozzi
Lighting Design: Michael Giancitti, Katie Jordan
Text: Gaston Bachelard, Corydan Ireland, Deborah Jowitt, Nicole Krauss, Starhawk, Elizabeth Streb
Videography: David Bernabo, Louis Cappa, Jeremy Fleischman, Paul Kruse
Premiere: June 14, 2014, New Hazlett Theater’s inaugural CSA Performance Series
The Ubiquitous Mass of Us is an interdisciplinary performance work created over three intensive rehearsal periods throughout 2013-2014. In this escalating journey, with a hint of other worldliness, we question the bounds of our identities and the way we take up space – Who are we as individuals? Who are we together? How far beyond what we conceive of ourselves can we go? What are the myriad ways in which we inhabit space? What are the visible and invisible boundaries we create? How are these questions impacted by and connected to contemporary issues in a larger context? Here, we bare the complexity of our individual and collective identities through a broad range of physicality and newly discovered expressions that explore the liminal zones and hard lines between.
Running time: 50 minutes
Artist Biographies:
Maree Remalla
Born in South Korea and raised in Medina, OH, Maree currently lives between Washington, DC and Middlebury, Vermont. She travels frequently throughout the U.S. working as a choreographer, performer, and teacher facilitating movement experiences with individuals from a broad range of backgrounds.
merrygogo is her platform for creating project-based performance works with communities of shifting collaborators. In 2014, her interdisciplinary work, The Ubiquitous Mass of Us, was named by The Examiner as one of “Pittsburgh’s Top 10 Contemporary Dance Performances.” Her work has been commissioned by Gibney Dance DoublePlus Festival under the curation of Bebe Miller and has been presented in Cleveland Public Theatre’s Big Box and DanceWorks Series (OH), CKM&A Dance & Dessert (MD), Daegu International Dance Festival (South Korea), Dance Place New Releases Choreographers Showcase (DC), Kelly Strayhorn Theater Hear/Now Series and newMoves Contemporary Dance Festival (PA), LightLab Performance Series (PA), Movement Research at the Judson Church (NY), New Hazlett Theater Community Supported Art Series (PA), Summer Portraits (Israel), the Current Sessions (NY), and Three Rivers Arts Festival (PA). She is grateful to have received support through Dance Exchange Local Artist-in-Residence Series (MD), Kelly Strayhorn Theater’s Fresh Works Residency (PA), PearlArts Studios Artists-in-Residence Series (PA), and Cleveland Arts Prize Kathryn Karipides Scholarship, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, Greater Pittsburgh Artist Opportunity Grant, Heinz Endowments Small Arts Initiative, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency, and The Ohio State University Alumni Grants for Graduate Research.
Recent performance credits include Blaine Siegel and Jil Stifel’s Objects for Dance, Staycee Pearl dance project Playground, and appearances in the work of interdisciplinary artist, David Bernabo. She has performed the work of Bebe Miller, Ohad Naharin, and Noa Zuk. From 2003-2008, she was a member of Cleveland-based companies MegLouise Dance and MorrisonDance and previously the Richmond Ballet (1996-1997) and Southern Ballet Theatre (1995-1996). In 2013, she joined the cast of Chickens, a new play by Paul Kruse produced by Hatch Arts Collective.
As an educator, Maree facilitates classes in Gaga, improvisation, and creative process in academic, community, and conservatory settings. She co-facilitates Soma/Gaga workshops with Mark Taylor and is a visiting teaching artist with Colorado Conservatory of Dance and Dreams of Hope Queer Youth Arts. She has been invited as a guest teacher at Baldwin Wallace University (OH), Between the Bones Studio Collective (CO), Company E (DC), Evolve the Intensive (PA), Feverhead (OH), Inventing Earth (CO), Keimyung University (South Korea), Light Switch Dance Theater (MD), Ohio Wesleyan University, Point Park University (PA), Peabody Institute/Society of Dance History Scholars Special Topics Conference (MD), Prescott College (AZ), Towson University Community Program (MD), The Alloy Studios (PA), The Movement Factory (OH), Slippery Rock University (PA), University of Maryland Baltimore County and College Park, and Virginia Commonwealth University.
In 2011, she completed her MFA in Choreography and Performance at The Ohio State University and went on to earn her certification to teach the Gaga movement language through the first official Gaga teacher training program in Tel Aviv, Israel (2011-2012). She received her BA in Education for Social Change and Cultural Studies at Prescott College (AZ) and studied somatic and improvisational practices at Moving on Center School for Participatory Arts (CA). From 2015-2017, Maree is thrilled to join Middlebury College for the Movement Matters Residency as the Mellon Interdisciplinary Choreographer.
Maree is also a practitioner of the Ilan Lev Method, a Feldenkrais-based bodywork.