Big Dance Theater

German Premiere

Duration: 80 min

Language: English

This genre-exploding troupe from New York City, excavates the past so as to comprehend on the present. Their new performance “17c” rips open Samuel Pepys’s diaries, in which this 17c man meticulously, and without censorship, notes his daily doings –  from his infidelities, and perversions, to his dancing lessons and binge-shopping sprees.  Was he a forerunner of our social-media culture as he carefully crafts his identity through his image? This intimate portrait is complemented by the voice of his contemporary, the writer Margaret Cavendish. In this way Big Dance Theater creates a savvy texture of music, dance, text and video.

Production: Big Dance Theater

Co-Commissioned by: FringeArts (Philadelphia), Carolina Performing Arts/UNC Chapel Hill, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Old Vic/London, The Yard (Chilmark, MA), Diane and Adam E. Max, Virginia and Timothy Millhiser, the Starry Night Fund, Helen and Peter Haje, and the Heimbinder Family Foundation

Funded by: the Big Dance Theater Creation Circle, individual contributors committed to the development and support of the company’s newest works

Supported by: Howard Gilman Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards program, the Emma A. Sheafer Charitable Trust, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New York Theater Program, the W Trust, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature

Residency supported by: MacDowell Colony, AIRspace program at Abrons Arts Center