Maree ReMalia | merrygogo
The Ubiquitous Mass of Us
in the Performing Arts Series
Friday, March 17 & Saturday, March 18
8:00pm
Mahaney Center for the Performing Arts, Dance Theater
Tickets and more information here.
Writing by David Bernabo on collaborative art-making and post performance experience on Recital.
photo Renee Rosensteel
The Ubiquitous Mass of Us is 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 sound score by David Bernabo. For all ages, seasoned performance goers, and those new to the theater.
OUTREACH CLASSES THAT ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Mahaney Center for the Arts, Dance Theater
No previous experience necessary!
Tuesday, March 14 | 3:00pm-4:15pm
Gaga, Improvisation, and Rep Experiments in Lida Winfield’s Advanced Improv Course Led by Maree ReMalia and Friends
To warm up, participants will be guided through playful improvisational explorations intended to increase self awareness and build group connection. Facilitators will then teach repertory material from The Ubiquitous Mass of Us that includes movement, sound, and text that will be used as source material for experimentation in developing original, small group sequences. No previous experience necessary!
Meet the Cast and Collaborators
Maree ReMalia (Director/Choreographer/Performer) was born in South Korea and raised in the Unites States. Currently, she is the Andrew W. Mellon Interdisciplinary Choreographer through the Movement Matters Residency at Middlebury College (2015-2017). She travels frequently working as a choreographer, performer, and teacher facilitating movement experiences with individuals from a broad range of identities, abilities, and disciplines. merrygogo is her platform for creating project-based performance works with communities of shifting collaborators. In 2014 and 2015 her choreographic work was named by The Examiner as one of “Pittsburgh’s Top 10 Contemporary Dance Performances.” Her choreography has been commissioned by Gibney Dance DoublePlus Festival under the curation of Bebe Miller and has been presented in the U.S. and abroad. Recent performance credits include Katie Martin’s non-events both uniform and singular, Michael J. Morris’s From Here, and Blaine Siegel and Jil Stifel’s Objects for Dance. She has danced in the work of Bebe Miller, Ohad Naharin, and Noa Zuk and previously performed with the Richmond Ballet and Southern Ballet Theatre. As an educator, Maree facilitates classes in Gaga, improvisation, and creative process in academic, conservatory, and community settings. She is a visiting teaching artist with Colorado Conservatory of Dance and Dreams of Hope Queer Youth Arts. In 2011, she earned her MFA at The Ohio State University. Maree is a certified instructor of Ohad Naharin’s Gaga movement language and a practitioner of the Ilan Lev Method, a Feldenkrais-based body work. www.merrygogo.com
David Bernabo (Performer/Sound Designer) is a filmmaker, musician, dancer, visual artist, writer, and eager home cook. David currently performs and composes for the band Host Skull, runs his variable dance company/concept, MODULES, performs in the improvised music trio, How Things Are Made, and is the Arts and Culture Editor of The Glassblock and editor of Recital. He curates and produces work for the Ongoing Box imprint and co-curates the Lightlab Performance Series. David’s recent projects include a four-film documentary series called Food Systems, a new film about composer Mathew Rosenblum, and a travelogue of rural Italy. www.davidbernabo.info
David Cherry (Videographer) is filled with vim, vigor, and vehemence. His heart beats at twenty-four frames per second, which makes him appear to be moving seamlessly. He wears many hats, and has written, performed, sang, produced, and drawn several bottomless conclusions. Lately, he focuses much of his attention upon creating (admittedly subjective) video renditions of compelling, thoughtful, and lovingly delightful experiences such as Wayward Land, Movement Matters – Landing/Shifting: Drop In, and The Ubiquitous Mass of Us.
Michael Giannitti (Lighting Designer) designed lighting at Middlebury for “Tzveta Kassabova and Friends” last year. He designed lighting for the original Broadway production of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and for its pre-Broadway resident theater tour. He has designed extensively for Studio Theatre (Washington, DC), Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Trinity Repertory Theatre, Capital Repertory Theatre, Shakespeare & Company, Weston Playhouse, and the Dorset Theatre Festival, where he is Director of Design and was Producing Director from 2011-2015. Mr. Giannitti has also designed for Barrington Stage, Chautauqua Theatre Company, Virginia Stage, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Portland Stage, George Street Playhouse, Yale Repertory Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, and the Spoleto Festival. New York credits include Dance Theatre Workshop, Danspace Project, The Joyce, The Kitchen, P.S. 122 and Sounding Beckett off-Broadway. He has been on the faculty at Bennington College since 1992. As a Fulbright Specialist, he taught in Romania and New Zealand.
Joseph Hall (Performer) is a black, queer transracial adoptee, facilitator, show off, podcast lover, creator, critic, and youngest of five. At work, he is Deputy Director at BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance as well as a producer, curator, and performer working in NYC and Pittsburgh. He is Company Manager for NYC-based choreographer Marjani Forte, a Bessie Selection Committee member, and co-curator of Pearl Diving Movement Residency at PearlArts Studios in Pittsburgh. Before relocating to New York in 2014, he was Producing Director at Pittsburgh’s Kelly Strayhorn Theater where he created original programs including My People, a film and performance series celebrating the lives of queer people of color, and the residency and showing series Fresh Works. As a performer, Joseph has worked with choreographers Staycee Pearl, Maree ReMalia, and Jasmine Hearn, video artist Suzie Silver, and hosts The Andy Warhol Museum’s annual Trans-Q Live!. IG: pizzatime_usa
Taylor Knight (Performer) is dedicated to broadening the scope of multi-disciplinary performance. Through movement, sound, and visual expressions, he explores and develops ritualistic practices, pushing himself to new frontiers. Taylor attended the Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts and Point Park University. Taylor spent multiple seasons as a company member with The Pillow Project, and was a founding member of Ate9 dANCE cOMPANY. Taylor and his partner, Anna Thompson are co-directors of slowdanger, a multi-disciplinary performance duo based in Pittsburgh. slowdanger’s full length performance works, original music productions, and workshops are rooted in somatic, mind body centering, and improvisational methodologies. slowdanger has presented at the VIA Festival, Honcho, The Kahlon Party, TEDx After Party, the Andy Warhol Museum, The Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, The Wild Project, Triskelion Arts, Creative Mornings, The New Hazlett Theater, Pittsburgh Pride and more.
Zac Lounsbury (Performer) is a theatre maker and body shaker currently living in Brooklyn, NY. He, additionally, graduated from Middlebury LAST YEAR with a degree in theatre. Perhaps you saw him in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Spring Awakening, or In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play). Anyways, he’s ecstatic to be back and can’t thank Maree enough for inviting him to be a part of this awesome piece!
Moriah Ella Mason (Performer) is an interdisciplinary artist, bodyworker, and educator. Mason has performed throughout Pittsburgh with the Pillow Project/the Ellipses Condition, Maree Remalia/merry-gogo, and Mark C. Thompson. Her original performance works have been presented at a variety of venues in Pittsburgh, Tucson, and NYC. Ella is a professional massage therapist with a private practice specializing in treating chronic pain, injury recovery, and trauma. You can follow her work at www.moriahellamason.com
Jennifer Ponder (Technical Director) has been the Lighting Designer and Technical Director for the Middlebury College dance program since 1997. She has designed lighting (both pre-meditated and improvised) for theatre and dance in the US and abroad including Flynnspace, Shadowland Theatre, SUNY New Paltz, Bennington College, the Yard on Martha’s Vineyard, the Kennedy Center, the Dallas Theatre Center, Glimmerglass Opera, the American Dance Festival, Cuba, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, most recently at the Angela Peralta Theatre in Mazatlan, Mexico. She holds an MFA from Southern Methodist University.
Blaine Siegel (Set Design) is a multi-disciplinary sculptor working across diverse mediums and disciplines in his studio practice, set design, and socially engaged projects. He received a BFA in Art Photography from Syracuse University and an MFA in Sculpture from The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Blaine has exhibited throughout the United States and in Arles, France. He is the Education and Outreach Director for Conflict Kitchen, a public art project/restuarant and the Studio Director for Radiant Hall Susquehanna. Blainesiegel.com
Jil Stifel (Performer) is a mover, maker, teacher, learner, activist, mother, environmentalist, feminist, cancer survivor, bee lover, prairie obsessed person. She has spent the last five years cultivating an acre of wildlife habitat which is now home to native grasses and flowers, blue birds, owls, monarch butterflies, some really interesting bugs and it’s own colony of feral honey bees. Jil is inspired by neuroscience, time and sensation. She has a wild love for diversity and is super pumped to be back at Middlebury to share UMOU! www.jilstifel.com
Anna Thompson (Performer) is co-founder of the multi-disciplinary sound/movement duo, slowdanger. Alongside Taylor Knight,slowdanger uses collected field recordings, the voice, and contemporary/postmodern dance frameworks to create their episodic body of work, ‘the memory series’. Anna is a graduate of Point Park University Conservatory of Performing Arts (’12), and has performed nationally and internationally with Maree Remalia, Jasmine Hearn, Shantelle Courvoisier Jackson, Beth Corning,and the Pillow Project/Pearlann Porter. Her work with slowdanger has been performed in venues including The Wild Project (NYC), Silent Barn (BK), 368 PONCE (ATL), the New Hazlett Theater (PGH), the Warhol Museum (PGH) and the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater (PGH) and in festivals such as VIA New Music and Media festival (PGH), NewMoves Contemporary Dance Festival (PGH), theCURRENTSESSIONS (NYC) Honcho (PGH), Pride(PGH), and Kahlon (BALTO). slowdanger debuted their full-length work memory 4 as a part of the New Hazlett 2015-2016 CSA season, supported in part by the Heinz Small Arts Initiative.
www.slowdangerslowdanger.com
Rachel Vallozzi (Performer/Costume Stylist) is a costume designer, wardrobe stylist, closet consultant, and personal shopper. She first became interested in a career with clothes when she opened vintage boutique Kharisma Vintage Fashions in 2002. Rachel then moved into dressing actors for camera on over a hundred commercials. She has done costume consulting for Attack Theatre, designed the costumes for “…on being…”, a Staycee Pearl dance project, and films “ Progression” and “Inside Passage” (currently in production). Rachel loves working with her private styling clients, guiding them in visual personal presentation and problem solving. Currently, Rachel is in pre-production for the pilot episode of “Intrusion.” Rachel never tires of thrift store treasure hunts and believes that the self expression involved in getting dressed in the morning is an opportunity to celebrate each day. You can find out more about Rachel at rachelvallozzi.com.
Acknowledgements
The presentation of The Ubiquitous Mass of Us at Mahaney Center for the Arts was made possible through generous support from the Performing Arts Series, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/Movement Matters Residency, Middlebury Dance Program, Rothrock Family Fund for Experiential Learning in the Performing Arts, Hannaford Career Center, and New Hazlett Theater.
The Ubiquitous Mass of Us premiered in 2014 in New Hazlett Theater’s CSA Performance Series in Pittsburgh, PA. It was created over three intensive rehearsal periods throughout 2013-2014 through the Kelly Strayhorn Theater Fresh Works Residency, PearlArts Studios Salon Series, and donation of in-kind rehearsal space at New Hazlett Theater and received support from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and The Heinz Endowments Small Arts Initiative.
Special Thank You
Claire Adams, Doug Adams, Heather Baur, Shannon Bohler, Colin C.Boyd, Megan Brakeley,
Chicago Posse Group 5, Christal Brown, Christa Clifford, René Conrad, Allison Coyne, Michaela Davico, Midd Safe, Gabriel Forestieri, Peter Hamlin, Scotty Hardwig, Isaac Kriley, Krista Miranda, Erica Morrell, Michael J. Morris, Jennifer Ponder, Lynn, James, and William ReMalia, Bill Rodgers,
Liza Sacheli, Diego Thompson, Mira Veikley, Lida Winfield, and the
AWESOME cast members & collaborators of The Ubiquitous Mass of Us.