REDCAT, Calarts’ downtown center for contemporary arts, will present the Los Angeles premiere of Steve Paxton’s signature work Bound, Wednesday May 11 to Friday May 13, 2016, 8:30 pm.
Choreographed by pioneering and multi-award-winning American choreographer Steve Paxton in 1982, and performed by exquisite Slovenian dancer Jurij Konjar, Bound is re-staged and re-imagined by Paxton for 2016.
A stellar example of Paxton’s 40 years of research into the fiction of cultured dance and the ‘truth’ of improvisation, Bound is a performance composed of isolated vignettes, combined with eclectic music and images that are not immediately logical. But like numbers in a column that begin to add up to something larger as they accumulate, these seemingly un-choreographed dance “remarks” soon resonate poetic thoughts.
Paxton describes it as “like a chance meeting with a slightly drunken man in a quiet bar, where a conversation begins and gradually a disjointed story emerges, of a life lived, one moment after another, but now remembered as fragments of a journey.”
Bound was created in 1982 for Spaziozero in Rome. It was seen in Great Britain, Belgium, and at the Kitchen in NYC in 1983, which made a videotape on which this reconstruction is based. Slovenian dancer and choreographer Jurji Konjar formed a unique collaboration with Paxton following an accident in which Konjar suffered a traumatic brain injury. He used improvisation and investigations into Paxton’s work in his subsequent recovery. Bound continues both artists’ interest in improvisational dance and finding the potential of the present moment.
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Steve Paxton has influenced the nature of Western Dance since 1961, as a founder of the Judson Dance Theater, NYC. Paxton has researched the fiction of cultured dance and the ‘truth’ of improvisation for 40 years. He has received grants from Change, Inc., the Foundation for Performance Arts, John D. Rockefeller Fund, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has been awarded two NY Bessie Awards, and is a contributing editor to Contact Quarterly Dance Journal. He was one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater, Grand Union, Contact Improvisation, Touchdown Dance for the visually disabled (UK), and began his career studying modern dance techniques, ballet, Aikido, Tai Chi Chuan, and Vipassana meditation. He performed with the Merce Cunningham Dance Co. from 1961-65. He lectures, performs, choreographs and teaches primarily in the USA and Europe. Yvonne Rainer likes to joke that she invented running and Paxton invented walking, and indeed many of Paxton’s early works – including “Proxy”, 1961, “Transit”, 1962, “English”, 1963, and “Satisfyin Lover”, 1967 – made salient the act of walking. Paxton is also known as a founder of the movement technique known as contact improvisation.
Jurij Konjar was born in Ljubljana, where he received his first technical dance training. He then studied musicals in London and contemporary dance at PARTS in Brussels. He’s worked with Les Ballets C de la B, before starting to create his own work. In 2007 he suffered a head injury that shifted his focus towards the potential of the present moment. In 2009 an in-depth observation of Steve Paxton’s Goldberg Variations video, with conversations that sprouted from it, triggered the development of a personal improvisation practice. In recent years, he’s mostly created and performed solo performances, such as Ulysses (2007), Goldberg Variations (2010) and For Juliano Mer-Khamis (2013), while also working with Maja Delak, Janez Janša, Boris Charmatz, Martin Kilvady. He’s worked with the Tuning Ensemble, with Lisa Nelson on the Goldberg Observations publication, and with Steve Paxton on the reconstruction of Paxton’s solo Bound (1982). Jurij Konjar lives by moving around, with his working practice serving as his base.
Credits:
Bound (1982)
(55 minutes)
Performed by Jurij Konjar
Choreographed by Steve Paxton
Music:
Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, The Canadian Brass,
various soundscapes
Bound is presented in association with Show Box L.A.
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Tickets and info at: http://www.redcat.org/event/steve-paxton-bound
Call the REDCAT box office to purchase at 213-237-2800.
| Date/Time | GEN | MEM/STUDENTS | |
| WED 5/11 8:30 pm |
$25 | $20 | |
| THURS 5/12 8:30 pm |
$25 | $20 | |
| FRI 5/13 8:30 pm |
$25 | $20 |
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ABOUT REDCAT | THE ROY AND EDNA DISNEY/CALARTS THEATER
REDCAT, CalArts’ downtown center for contemporary arts, presents a dynamic and international mix of innovative visual, performing and media arts year round. Located inside the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall complex in downtown Los Angeles, REDCAT houses a theater, a gallery space and a lounge. Through performances, exhibitions, screenings, and literary events, REDCAT introduces diverse audiences, students and artists to the most influential developments in the arts from around the world, and gives artists in this region the creative support they need to achieve national and international stature. REDCAT continues the tradition of the California Institute of the Arts, its parent organization, by encouraging experimentation, discovery and lively civic discourse.
GENERAL INFORMATION
For current program and exhibition information call 213-237-2800 or visit www.redcat.org.
LOCATION/PARKING
Street Address: 631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles CA 90012
REDCAT is located in downtown Los Angeles inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex with a separate entrance at the corner of West 2nd and Hope Streets. Parking is available in the Walt Disney Concert Hall parking structure. $9 event rate or $5 for vehicles entering after 8:00 pm on weekdays.
THE LOUNGE | Open to the public six days a week, the Lounge is a great place to spend an afternoon or grab a drink pre- and post-performance. Hours: Tuesdays– Fridays from 9am until 8 pm or post-show; Saturdays from noon until 8 pm or post- show; Sundays from noon until 6pm or post-show
THE GALLERY | REDCAT’s Gallery presents five major exhibitions each year, and publishes artist books and catalogues. Admission to the Gallery is FREE. Gallery Hours: Tuesdays–Sundays from noon until 6 pm and through intermission
THE THEATER | Tickets for programs held in the theater are available through the REDCAT Box Office, by phone 213-237-2800 or online at www.redcat.org. Group, member, student and CalArts faculty/staff discounts available. Box Office Hours: Tuesdays–Saturday from noon until 6 pm or two hours prior to curtain.
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MEDIA CONTACT:
Kelly L. Hargraves
Marketing & Media Relations Manager
REDCAT/CalArts’ Downtown Center for Contemporary Arts
631 West 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA, 90012-2599
