“…iconoclastic and iconic, subversive, game changing, elegant,with just a gleam of something slightly depraved…” – Nancy Dalva, The Brooklyn Rail
“What it feels like to perform, to be on the wild intuitive moment of abandon: Letting go into a score of movement that is so deep in your muscles it needs no conscious thought but is like some invisible guide moving you through the dance and moving through your body that HAS surrendered to it.” – Excerpt from Confessions of a Motion Addict
“Petronio takes bold ownership of his demons and presents a raw portrait of the artist as an unapologetic thrill-seeker.” – Brian Schaefer, OUT
A stunning portrait of a life lived on the edge, Confessions of a Motion Addict vividly captures Stephen Petronio’s journey from a rose-colored, small town childhood to his tumultuous awakening to a world of art, sex, and the dangerous compulsions that often haunt artists of every genre.
The son of a modest Italian-American family, raised in a middle-class New Jersey suburb, Petronio is acutely aware of his status as an outsider. His entrance into an elite progressive college, however, opens a doorway of discovery and reinvention through which Petronio plunges headfirst into a world ripe for revolution. It is there that he discovers what will change his life forever: dance.
Landing in New York City, Petronio quickly immerses himself in the dance world by day and the city’s cultural life by night. The first male dancer to work with the seminal postmodern dance innovator Trisha Brown (1979 to 1986), he segues effortlessly from dance classes and high profile performances, to underground nightclubs and an initiation into queer activism. He writes candidly of a host of misadventures in drugs, sex, and dance, and on through an eventual coming to terms with the pleasures of sobriety.
Confessions of a Motion Addict charts the evolution of Petronio as an artist, forming his eponymous dance company in 1984 and the creation of an extraordinary body of work. He has collaborated with some of the most provocative composers, visual artists, and fashion designers of our time, including, the legendary Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Rufus Wainwright, Nico Muhly, Cindy Sherman, Anish Kapoor, Donald Baechler, and Tara Subkoff/Imitation of Christ, among many others.
Petronio’s memoir offers a window into the complex intertwining of life and art. His talents for processing physical information, for experiencing the world through movement and his highly sophisticated kinesthetic sense, distinguish him as an uncannily gifted voice.
In true artist’s fashion, Petronio’s story will astonish, challenge, and ultimately inspire readers to embrace the creativity that lies within.
“Like his choreography, Petronio’s words tumble onto the page with a speed and sensuality that is just this side of illicit. What a rush!” – Wendy Perron, Author of THROUGH THE EYES OF A DANCER
“Confessions is messy — and therefore exciting: the work of an artist making sense of his world… It calls to mind Making Tracks, Debbie Harry’s similarly messy — and similarly impactful — biography of Blondie.” – Metrosource
Petronio “has a gift for articulating the complex experiences of movement and performance…he is equally at ease with introspection as he is with showmanship, proving that camp and spiritual inquiry aren’t mutually exclusive.” – Kirkus
“He has chosen to reveal the pull of gravity and the mechanics of living, to conceal nothing…the book, all 288 pages of it, is Petronio, through and through.” – Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody
February 2014
Memoir, 288 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1492736547
ISBN-10: 1492736546
$20
You can purchase Confessions of a Motion Addict on Amazon.com here.
For large orders or wholesale inquiries, please contact Jourdi Waller at jourdi [@] stephenpetronio.com or 212.473.1660.