In his first new solo performance since the Bessie-award winning Crotch, dancer-choreographer Keith Hennessy uses dancing, singing, story telling, and magik to gather people for a ritualistic "moment" outside of daily life.
The intimate and low-tech performance pretends to be informal and yet is motivated by grand spectacle and avant prayer. Bear/Skin is politically motivated by the tension between killer cops and virgin sacrifice, the racist failures of modernism, imaginal activism and plastic shamanism, and mental dis-ease as a socio-political situation. And yes, Bear/Skin is a dance.
Bear/Skin appropriates Nijinsky's choreography for Le Sacre du Printemps (1913) to consider Modernism's dependence on appropriations of the indigenous, folk, exotic, and "other" to ask questions about ritual, art, and sacrifice today. Hennessy says, "There will be a bear dance that has nothing to do with gay bears and everything to do with The Rite of Spring, teddy bears, the reconstruction of native/folk bear dances, action movies and virgin sacrifice, springtime in the northern hemisphere, the land I grew up on and where my parents are buried, the land I now live on and where my uncle and other relations have died Come to heal or be healed or not."
Bear/Skin uses the basic tools of gathering, the technologies of bringing people together: story telling, vocal music, and body movement. Hennessy's current work explores the breakdowns of idea and narrative, of form and identity. Bear/Skin approaches storytelling through the influence of both ADHD (speed, distraction, lack of focus) and dementia (scrambled meaning, memory loss, drifting). Bear/Skin is an autobiography and it is dance history. It is kid's play, therapy, ritual, trickery, and it is a dance unto death.
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The intimate and low-tech performance pretends to be informal and yet is motivated by grand spectacle and avant prayer. Bear/Skin is politically motivated by the tension between killer cops and virgin sacrifice, the racist failures of modernism, imaginal activism and plastic shamanism, and mental dis-ease as a socio-political situation. And yes, Bear/Skin is a dance.
Bear/Skin appropriates Nijinsky's choreography for Le Sacre du Printemps (1913) to consider Modernism's dependence on appropriations of the indigenous, folk, exotic, and "other" to ask questions about ritual, art, and sacrifice today. Hennessy says, "There will be a bear dance that has nothing to do with gay bears and everything to do with The Rite of Spring, teddy bears, the reconstruction of native/folk bear dances, action movies and virgin sacrifice, springtime in the northern hemisphere, the land I grew up on and where my parents are buried, the land I now live on and where my uncle and other relations have died Come to heal or be healed or not."
Bear/Skin uses the basic tools of gathering, the technologies of bringing people together: story telling, vocal music, and body movement. Hennessy's current work explores the breakdowns of idea and narrative, of form and identity. Bear/Skin approaches storytelling through the influence of both ADHD (speed, distraction, lack of focus) and dementia (scrambled meaning, memory loss, drifting). Bear/Skin is an autobiography and it is dance history. It is kid's play, therapy, ritual, trickery, and it is a dance unto death.
In his first new solo performance since the Bessie-award winning Crotch, dancer-choreographer Keith Hennessy uses dancing, singing, story telling, and magik to gather people for a ritualistic "moment" outside of daily life.
The intimate and low-tech performance pretends to be informal and yet is motivated by grand spectacle and avant prayer. Bear/Skin is politically motivated by the tension between killer cops and virgin sacrifice, the racist failures of modernism, imaginal activism and plastic shamanism, and mental dis-ease as a socio-political situation. And yes, Bear/Skin is a dance.
Bear/Skin appropriates Nijinsky's choreography for Le Sacre du Printemps (1913) to consider Modernism's dependence on appropriations of the indigenous, folk, exotic, and "other" to ask questions about ritual, art, and sacrifice today. Hennessy says, "There will be a bear dance that has nothing to do with gay bears and everything to do with The Rite of Spring, teddy bears, the reconstruction of native/folk bear dances, action movies and virgin sacrifice, springtime in the northern hemisphere, the land I grew up on and where my parents are buried, the land I now live on and where my uncle and other relations have died Come to heal or be healed or not."
Bear/Skin uses the basic tools of gathering, the technologies of bringing people together: story telling, vocal music, and body movement. Hennessy's current work explores the breakdowns of idea and narrative, of form and identity. Bear/Skin approaches storytelling through the influence of both ADHD (speed, distraction, lack of focus) and dementia (scrambled meaning, memory loss, drifting). Bear/Skin is an autobiography and it is dance history. It is kid's play, therapy, ritual, trickery, and it is a dance unto death.
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The intimate and low-tech performance pretends to be informal and yet is motivated by grand spectacle and avant prayer. Bear/Skin is politically motivated by the tension between killer cops and virgin sacrifice, the racist failures of modernism, imaginal activism and plastic shamanism, and mental dis-ease as a socio-political situation. And yes, Bear/Skin is a dance.
Bear/Skin appropriates Nijinsky's choreography for Le Sacre du Printemps (1913) to consider Modernism's dependence on appropriations of the indigenous, folk, exotic, and "other" to ask questions about ritual, art, and sacrifice today. Hennessy says, "There will be a bear dance that has nothing to do with gay bears and everything to do with The Rite of Spring, teddy bears, the reconstruction of native/folk bear dances, action movies and virgin sacrifice, springtime in the northern hemisphere, the land I grew up on and where my parents are buried, the land I now live on and where my uncle and other relations have died Come to heal or be healed or not."
Bear/Skin uses the basic tools of gathering, the technologies of bringing people together: story telling, vocal music, and body movement. Hennessy's current work explores the breakdowns of idea and narrative, of form and identity. Bear/Skin approaches storytelling through the influence of both ADHD (speed, distraction, lack of focus) and dementia (scrambled meaning, memory loss, drifting). Bear/Skin is an autobiography and it is dance history. It is kid's play, therapy, ritual, trickery, and it is a dance unto death.
show less
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4799 Shattuck Avenue, Oakland, CA 94609
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