Brian Brooks Moving Company Coming to Jacob’s Pillow

Brian Brooks Moving Company; photo Matthew Murphy, courtesy of Jacob's Pillow Dance

Brian Brooks Moving Company; photo Matthew Murphy, courtesy of Jacob’s Pillow Dance

(BECKET, Mass.) – The dynamic contemporary dance ensemble Brian Brooks Moving Company presents a daring program featuring larger-than-life stage design, bold costuming, and full-out movement in the Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow Dance from Wednesday, July 10 to Sunday, July 14, 2013. Led by choreographer and artistic director Brian Brooks, the troupe will perform four different works by Brooks including BIG CITY, I’m Going to Explode, DESCENT, and excerpts from MOTOR.

Brian Brooks uses engaging and rigorous choreography in the ensemble work BIG CITY (2012), exploring the impacts of deconstruction and the human efforts involved in the process of rebuilding. The piece showcases Brooks’ affinity for architecture through a dynamic, large-scale stage installation constructed with hundreds of aluminum pipes. The audience watches as the incredible floor-to-ceiling set is raised, symbolizing the reconstruction that follows loss. The company’s seven dancers, accompanied by an original score from composer Jonathan Pratt, test the limits of physical and emotional endurance as well as the line between balance and imbalance.

I’m Going to Explode (2007), a solo choreographed and performed by Brooks, juxtaposes the tension of working within confined spaces against the relief of breaking out of them. Brooks explores movement within articulated areas, such as his immediate surroundings and the relative space defined by his body. The piece demonstrates the dichotomy of Brooks’ movement, both fluid and rigid at the same time. The choreography intertwines an array of influences ranging from formal dance techniques and street dance to sports and physics.

The entire company comes together in DESCENT (2011), a group work that aims to investigate the relationships between bodies and their tendencies for both dependency and detachment. Through Brooks’ “visually arresting” choreography (Roslyn Sulcas, the New York Times), the dancers are propelled through space in a sequence of graceful falls and collisions. The piece features inventive lighting design, metallic costuming, and an electronic original score by composer Adam Crystal.

Closing the program, the dancers in the duet MOTOR (2010) “subtly, sublimely vary their routine, gradually injecting graceful swoops and other twists, for a complex, transcendent ode to simplicity” (Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune).

Aside from his Guggenheim Fellowship, Brian Brooks boasts a series of accomplishments in 2013 including the NY City Center Fellowship and the Jerome Robbins New Essential Works Grant. Brooks has also been commissioned to create new works this year for the Juilliard School and the Vail International Dance Festival. In addition to the six performances with his company, Brian Brooks will return to the Pillow August 14-18 to perform a duet with Wendy Whelan choreographed for Restless Creature.

Since embarking on its first national tour in 2002, the Brian Brooks Moving Company has produced dance works for live performance and film that “shatter conventional notions of the human capacity for strength and endurance” (Susan Yung, Dance Magazine). Performing annually in its hometown of New York City and throughout the U.S., the group has been presented several times in South Korea, Montreal, and in Dusseldorf, Germany. Additionally, the company has enjoyed two consecutive seasons at the Joyce Theater (2011, 2012) and is preparing its debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) as part of the Next Wave Festival.

Brian Brooks Moving Company first performed on the Pillow’s Inside/Out stage during the 2003 festival season.

 

 

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