Juliana May’s Folk Incest makes its world premiere this week at Abrons Arts Center (photo by Chris Cameron)
Abrons Arts Center, Studio G05
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Tuesday – Saturday, October 9-20, $20, 7:30
212-598-0400
www.abronsartscenter.org
www.maydance.org
New York City native Juliana F. May creates complex, challenging works that take on heavy social issues while exploring the boundaries of dance. Referring to such pieces as Gutter Gate, Adult Documentary, and Commentary=not thing, she states on her website, “I have become increasingly interested in the relationship between feeling, form, and, most recently, in the Aristotelian notion of Necessity. . . . This notion of necessity came to the forefront of the work as I began to wonder how abstraction could be necessary. . . . I manipulate text, song, dialogue and vocalization in an effort to expose the chaotic, conflictual and conversely innocent mode of communication between people.” From October 9 to 20 at Abrons Arts Center, May and her company, MAYDANCE, will present the world premiere of the evening-length piece Folk Incest, a work for five women performers that explores form, sexual trauma, the Holocaust, and the fetishization of young girls; among its pop-culture inspirations are the music of Joan Baez along with John Waters’s Cry Baby, with ample doses of humor added to the seriousness. May wrote, directed, and choreographed the work, which will be performed by Leslie Cuyjet, Tess Dworman, Lucy Kaminsky, Molly Poerstel, and Rebecca Wender, with music by Tatyana Tenanbaum, lighting by Madeline Best, and costumes by Mariana Valencia. Several nights are already sold out, so get your tickets now to see the latest from one of the city’s most fascinating movement artists.