Donna Uchizono and the Professionals will present STICKY MAJESTY at Gibney Dance (photo by Donna Uchizono)
MAKING SPACE
Gibney Dance Performing Arts Center
280 Broadway between Chambers & Reade Sts.
January 6-9, 13-16, $20, 8:00 (7:00 on Family Night, 1/7)
646-837-6809
www.gibneydance.org
www.donnauchizono.org
New York City-based dancer and choreographer Donna Uchizono enjoys making pieces that challenge both performer and audience while also incorporating deeply personal elements and unique stagecraft. In 1999’s State of Heads, three dancers start off atop ladders, moving only their heads. In 2004’s Butterflies from My Hand, dancer Hristoula Harakas is lifted skyward by a long red sash. In 2010’s longing two, the first part took place at BAC, where the dancers performed between two horizontal partitions, giving each audience member a different siteline, while the second part moved to the old DTW. Both longing two and 2014’s Fire Underground were inspired by the difficulties Uchizono experienced adopting a child; in the latter piece, the audience sat onstage as Uchizono and Becky Serrell-Cyr ran around the floor, Serrell-Cyr dangerously swinging a long, chained object as she removed her clothing. For Uchizono’s latest work, Sticky Majesty, taking place January 6-9 and 13-16 at Gibney Dance, the seating arrangement and choreography have been set up so that every audience member will get a different view of the performance and no single angle is considered optimum. The work, part of Gibney’s Making Space program geared toward midcareer artists — Uchizono just celebrated her company’s twenty-fifth anniversary — evolved from individual tea-time conversations Uchizono had with invited guests from around the sociopolitical spectrum. “Sticky Majesty delves into the unsettling paradoxes of defining truth through distorted perspectives,” she says about the piece, which is being credited to Donna Uchizono and the Professionals. The work — whose title could be a clever wording based on the Rolling Stones albums Sticky Fingers and Their Satanic Majesties Request — will be performed by Hadar Ahuvia, Sarah Iguchi, Molly Lieber, Heather Olson, and Meg Weeks, with lighting by Natalie Robin, music by David Shively, and set design by Michael Grimaldi. The January 7 show will be held at 7:00 (instead of 8:00) and will provide onsite childcare ($10) for kids ages four and up. Tickets for Sticky Majesty are $20, but the price goes down to $14 if you go to at least one other Making Space show, Jack Ferver’s Mon, Ma, Mes (Revisité) and/or luciana achugar’s An Epilogue for OTRO TEATRO: True Love.