Part of our Next Move: Festival of Modern Dance

(which includes Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company, SCRAP Performance Group, Bridgman/Packer Dance and Jonah Bokaer Dance)

Jonah Bokaer is an award-winning choreographer and media artist. He has dedicated a short lifetime to expanding possibilities for live performance through choreography, digital media, cross-disciplinary collaborations, and social enterprise, in the United States and internationally.  A former member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, he has since collaborated with some of today's most respected artists including writer Ann Carson and theater director Robert Wilson. 

Recruited for the Merce Cunningham Company at the unprecedented age of 18, Bokaer pursued a parallel degree in Visual & Media Studies at The New School. Additional studies in media and performance occurred at Parsons School of Design, NYU Performance Studies, and through self-taught explorations into digital media and 3D animation. This background has led to the development of a rare, multi-disciplinary approach to choreography, addressing the human body in relation to contemporary technologies.   

Recess
The work is a collaboration between choreographer Jonah Bokaer and artist/architect Daniel Arsham that is a constantly evolving and fluid dialogue between the two, exploring movement, representation, temporality, memory, and space.  While never the same performance from venue to venue, each iteration of RECESS looks at the historical work of art, dance and architecture through the combined solo and collaborated work of Bokaer and Arsham.  Through conversation, vide, and performance, ideas and statements are built upon utilizing still and moving images of both artists’ work, as well as each of them explicitly and implicitly performing for the audience.  With measured movements, intentional ellipses, improvisation performativity, the artists seek to engage the audience into a deeper relationship than of either a strict performance or lecture.

Trophy
This piece is Part One of a three-part work, Three Cases of Amnesia, consisting of technology-influenced solo dance and media works through the use of digital choreographic software and 3D animation.