New York City’s Peridance Contemporary Dance Company (PCDC) will debut the virtual premiere of Artistic Director Igal Perry’s new work, Reverie, on Valentine’s Day, February 14, at 5pm ET. The program will include a showing of the work, an inside look at the creation process and will conclude with a Q&A session with Perry.
Reverie is a one-of-a-kind duet for dancers Katie Currier and Craig Dionne, choreographed and produced online, with the dancers isolated in their own home, yet sharing the same virtual space and fully interacting in intricate partnering work. The work was inspired by the loneliness and separation brought by COVID-19 and illuminates the idea that meaningful connections are driven by thoughts and feelings. Perry’s dance film features PCDC dancers Currier and Dionne in a duet that captures the complexities of interpersonal relationships through mesmerizing partnering, nuanced phrase work and live music played by pianist Daniel Gortler.
Perry used the COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions as a creative parameter which resulted in a one-of-a-kind process and product. The involved artists were residing in three different states during the rehearsal and film process, so to unify the dancers into one space, green screen equipment was provided and set up in each of their homes. Perry facilitated rehearsals over Zoom, meticulously choreographing each moment so the dancers would seamlessly move from intimate partnering to solo choreography, building one cohesive product. Despite the challenges presented with these conditions, Perry built this unique dance film using advanced editing software; one would never know the artists were never in the same space.
Set to Debussy’s Reverie, Gortler’s moving rendition was recorded and filmed to be fully integrated into the final rendition of the piece, both in sound and presence.
Following the presentation of Reverie, a light-hearted behind-the-scenes video will be shown to offer more context into the creative and technical process.
Igal Perry’s Reverie for Peridance Contemporary Dance Company will premiere on February 14, at 5pm ET. You can watch it for free here.
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