Bootleg Theater

Past shows include...

Show Box L.A. Announces West Coast Premieres of
Two Interdisciplinary Dance Works

Show Box L.A. concludes its 2014–15 season with the West Coast premieres of two evening-length interdisciplinary dance works in an “as-small-as-you-can-make-it-and-still-call-it-a-festival” format. This pairing of independent works includes Milka Djordjevich + Chris Peck’s MASS, a choir of voice, action and image, and Michelle Ellsworth’s In Preparation for the Obsolescence of the Y Chromosome, a performance deployment of web technology, choreography and her unorthodox archives. These works are presented on alternating nights: Milka Djordjevich + Chris Peck on Thursday & Saturday, June 18 & 20; and Michelle Ellsworth on Friday & Sunday, June 19 & 21. Performances take place 8pm, except Sunday at 3pm, at Bootleg Theater, located at 2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057. All tickets are $20 and are available at www.showboxla.org.

Although these artists work in very different ways, together they investigate new territories in dance and performance—embodied and virtual, contemplative and attention-deficient. Show Box L.A. is excited to host a platform to share these distinctive works with audiences in Los Angeles.

Mass comes to Los Angeles following its premiere at The Kitchen in New York, though its co-creator and choreographer, Milka Djordjevich, is an L.A. based-dance artist who is on faculty at UC Riverside. In Preparation for the Obsolescence of the Y Chromosome has toured to major experimental venues around the country, including American Realness and Fusebox Festival, and Michelle Ellsworth serves as Co-Director of the Dance Program at University of Colorado, Boulder. Read more following the program details.

Performance Schedule & Details

Thur, June 18 at 8pm Milka Djordjevich + Chris Peck’s MASS
Fri, June 19 at 8pm Michelle Ellsworth: In Preparation for the Obsolescence of the Y Chromosome
Sat, June 20 at 8pm Milka Djordjevich + Chris Peck: MASS
Sun, June 21 at 3pm Michelle Ellsworth: In Preparation for the Obsolescence of the Y Chromosome

TICKETS: All Shows $20, General Admission

https://www.artful.ly/show-box-l-a

INFORMATION: www.showboxla.org

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Presented in Association with Bootleg Theater.
Made possible in part with generous support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.

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MILKA DJORDJEVICH + CHRIS PECK:

MASS

June 18 & 20, 2015
Thursday and Saturday at 8p

“Materials—the body, sound—merge exquisitely in this hourlong dance-song (song-dance?) … the song unravels into something wild, then plain, bodies as they are.” —The New York Times

MASS is a dance. It is singing and dancing. A song and dance in a black box. A slow dance on a pedestal for three women. With music. It’s also the mass, force and friction against, around and inside that box. It’s a trio of voices tuning, their bodies objectified and recomposed through gradual processes in motion and sound. Like a prayer, it proceeds without manipulation, loving the flaw. Three female dancers execute an interdependent score of movement, choreographed by Djordjevich, and music, composed by Peck. They are their own musical accompaniment; a choir of voice, action and image. The trio creates hyper-objectified anonymous forms and three-part harmonies that pulse and throb through the black artifice of the theater.

The performers oscillate between action and inaction, singing and dancing, chanting and swaying—an engine that evolves through space and generates friction over time. The work aims to unveil the materiality of the moving and sonic female body, unraveling its inherent choreographed code. MASS deepens Djordjevich’s focus on a transdisciplinary dance-making process developed through her long-term collaboration with composer Chris Peck.

FULL CREDITS AND INFORMATION

DOWNLOAD PRESS IMAGES

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MICHELLE ELLSWORTH: PREPARATION FOR THE OBSOLESCENCE OF THE Y CHROMOSOME

June 19 & 21, 2015
Friday at 8p and Sunday at 3p

In an inventive and humorous unscripted live performance, Michelle Ellsworth prepares audiences for the end of men. Her “man archive”—a vast compendium of science, non-science, procedures and possibilities—provides the foundation for a hyper-linked tour through the modern mind and the future of our species. Committed both to conservation and archival efforts, Preparation for the Obsolescence of the Y Chromosome employs web technology, choreography and the latest data from the Whitehead Institute at MIT to ask a random sampling of humans what it might mean if, as some scientists have predicted, men disappear from the scene. Under the steady watch of her male gaze simulator, Ellsworth demonstrates her one-of-a-kind replacement apparati, shares her idiosyncratic research and works to expand an inventory of artifacts that just may become irreplaceable.

FULL CREDITS AND INFORMATION

DOWNLOAD PRESS IMAGES

SHOW BOX L.A. MAJOR FUNDERS

Major support for Show Box L.A. comes from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.

PENTACLE PRESENTS: HOME GROWN @ BOOTLEG

NEW WORK BY DANZA FLORICANTO/USA
AND
HORTON AWARDS CELEBRATION FEATURING 5 L.A. EMERGING COMPANIES

June 26 at 7:00 PM

Danza Floricanto/USA

szalt

OdDancity

No)one. Art House

June 27 at 1:00 PM

Danza Floricanto/USA

The Assembly

The Sunland Dancers

June 27 at 7:00 PM

Danza Floricanto/USA

The Horton Awards Celebration

All performances at Bootleg Theater, 2220 Beverly Blvd., L.A.
Tickets: $20 in advance/ $25 at the door
Reservations: 213.289.3856 or www.bootlegtheater.org

Get your tickets today!

After a successful first run in February, the second run of Home Grown will feature a new contemporary work by Gema Sandoval, Artist Director of Danza Floricanto/USA, and Dance Resource Center’s Horton Award celebration that will include five emerging L.A. based companies.

Founded in 1975, Danza Floricanto/USA is the oldest existing professional Mexican folk dance troupe in Southern California. From an Aztec ritual to the vibrant fiestas of today's Jalisco, from the Spanish-influenced tropics of Veracruz to the conflictive realities of the Chicano experience, Danza Floricanto/USA presents the bold, colorful panorama of its Mexican heritage as it interacts with its American reality. Danza Floricanto/USA, under the direction of Gema Sandoval, has recreated the movement, costume, and song of 17 different regions of Mexico, and over half a dozen works on the Chicano experience which celebrate cultural identity for the Mexican American community and the immigrant experience for the rest of America.

This year marks the second Dance Resource Center Horton Award Ceremony focusing on those who have contributed to the Los Angeles area dance community. The Horton Awards celebrates dance in Los Angeles, honoring those who sustain the field and propel it forward. DRC will dedicate three Community Leader Appreciation Awards to local dance advocates, educators, presenters, or funders and one to Artist Appreciation Award to an artist/choreographer who has enriched the field. DRC’s Board President Amanda Hart says of including the Horton Awards in Home Grown: "Working together, Pentacle and DRC enable one another to actively and creatively celebrate the diversity and vibrancy of the Los Angeles arts community! DRC is proud to support a unique professional performance opportunity, honor community leaders who fuel LA dance, and serve as a centralized networking dance hub for an important gathering such as this."