Stephen Petronio Company at Arthur Zankel Music Center

The program will feature Petronio’s Untitled Touch, premiering March 28–April 2, 2017 at The Joyce Theater in NYC, focused on how we make contact and connection—to one another and to our surrounding space and environment. The heart of this work is something so fundamental to our lives, skin to skin interaction. Touch is real and warmly reassuring. And, though we live in a culture currently driven by isolation and a digital remove, we thrive in a state of connectedness. Untitled Touch, features an original score by composer Son Lux, costumes by H. Petal, and longtime lighting designer Ken Tabachnick. Merce Cunningham’s RainForest is a spare and bracing foray into animal abstract motion and sound, set loose amidst a world of floating silver pillows. RainForest features an electronic score composed by David Tudor and performed live by John Driscoll and Phil Edelstein, and visual design by Andy Warhol. The program will also feature solos by dance improvisation legends Steve Paxton and Anna Halprin.

This performance is part of Stephen Petronio Company’s third season of its Bloodlines project, a project to honor and curate a lineage of American postmodern dance masters. Through this initiative, the Company is bringing works by Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, Anna Halprin, Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, and others into its repertory. These artists are distinguished for creating original languages that embody the highest level of artistic excellence displayed through extreme physical and conceptual rigor, and have had a profound impact on Petronio’s own artistic path.

Photo by Sarah Silver