Jodi Melnick – “One of Sixty-Five Thousand Gestures/NEW BODIES”
“QUITE OFTEN, A STAR BALLERINA, ITCHING TO EXPAND HER REPERTORY, HIRES A CHOREOGRAPHER FROM OUTSIDE OF BALLET. QUITE RARELY DOES ANYTHING GOOD ARISE FROM SUCH AN ARRANGEMENT. THAT TRACK RECORD GIVES THE SUCCESS OF THE COLLABORATION BETWEEN SARA MEARNS AND JODI MELNICK THE FRESHNESS OF A MINOR MIRACLE.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES
In a new double bill, Jodi Melnick, acclaimed performer and choreographer, brings her 2011 solo One of Sixty-Five Thousand Gestures, co-created with the late Trisha Brown, together with NEW BODIES, an original Works & Process at the Guggenheim commission, featuring New York City Ballet dancers Sara Mearns, Jared Angle, and Gretchen Smith. Melnick transmits her creative process and performative instincts onto herself and these extraordinary ballet dancers. The work pushes the space the performers occupy and then pushes the body itself, using the full range of their unique personalities and skills in and out of the ballet shoe, playing with the juxtaposition of music and silence.
This exquisite evening weaves dance, spoken text, and an integrated moderated discussion together with live music for harpsichord by composer György Ligeti, violin by composer Heinrich Biber, and newly commissioned music by Robert Boston.
