"FLATROCK WILDFIRE"
Dixon Place, April 2013
In the science-fiction films of the 1970s, the future is depicted as a dark place. Mankind has created an oppressive and mechanized social system, or suffers the rages of mother nature as she retaliates against science. FLATROCK WILDFIRE looks at possible futures through the lens of films such as Andromeda Strain, THX 1138, and Logan’s Run. These documents of fear and fables of precaution are also testaments to compassion, intellect, and emotion -- all things these films predicted we are destined to lose, and destined to find again.
Choreographed by Tze Chun
Dancers: Tony Bordonaro, Tze Chun, Elisa Davis, Shannon MacDowell, and Tim Ward
Music by Richard Vagnino
"TAKEN"
Tribeca Performing Arts Center, July 2012
TAKEN examines the concepts of transport and transition. What lessons do we learn from our experiences, that we then carry through life? A devised project, TAKEN draws imagery and details from the dancers' own experiences. Using the image of a suitcase (and its inherent associations) as a point of departure, TAKEN investigates the relentless human desire to hold, carry, and possess.
This piece was made possible, in part, by the Tribeca Performing Arts Center Artist in Residency Program.
Choreographed by Tze Chun
Original score by Richard Vagnino
Performed by Tony Bordonaro, Elisa Davis, Adi Kfir, and Tim Ward
"Up and Up"
BeijingDance / LDTX Theater, Beijing, China, July 2010
Up and Up is a new performance piece that explores art perception and classification between popular and highbrow. It combines dancers with live video capture and playback to sample and multiply the dancer's image. This creates a uniquely fused interaction between the previously distinct media of dance, video, and sound.
Performed by Tony Bordonaro, Elisa Davis, Eileen Farrell, and Ilana Webber
Created by Tze Chun and Daniel Iglesia
Music by Daniel Iglesia
TRAILER: "Parlour Games"
A FREE Brooklyn dance series, "Parlour Games" will be performed in private homes, public spaces, and venues all around Brooklyn April-June 2010. Exact locations can be found at www.TzeChunDance.com.
TRAILER #2: "Parlour Games"
A FREE Brooklyn dance series, "Parlour Games" will be performed in private homes, public spaces, and venues all around Brooklyn April-June 2010. Exact locations can be found at www.TzeChunDance.com.
TRAILER #3: "Parlour Games"
A FREE Brooklyn dance series, "Parlour Games" will be performed in private homes, public spaces, and venues all around Brooklyn April-June 2010. Exact locations can be found at www.TzeChunDance.com.
Excerpts from "PARLOUR GAMES"
Flea Theater, April 2010
Choreographed by Tze Chun in collaboration with the dancers.
Performed by: Jules Bakshi, Tony Bordonaro, Elisa Davis, Eileen Farrell, Meghan Frederick, Renuka Hines, Katherine Richardson, Dana Thomas, and Ilana Webber.
Music by Chris Becker.
Piano by Daniel Kelly and Pedro Tsividis.
Costumes by Hannah Shaw and Tze Chun.
"Sunderland"
The 92nd Street Y, January 2010
Argentine Tango sets the mood in the Tze Chun Dance Company’s "Sunderland." Born in the barrios of Buenos Aires in the late 19th century, Tango quickly became a common language for the diverse working class. For over a century, gender, race and class politics have been negotiated through this dance form’s intricate and powerful steps. Inspired by Tango’s rich history, "Sunderland" uses modern dance to examine the Argentine spirit of speaking through movement.
Choreographed by: Tze Chun.
Performed by: Jules Bakshi, Tony Bordonaro, Tiffany Clarke, Elisa Davis, Eileen Farrell, Alison Schechter, and Matthew Westerby.
Music by Astor Piazzolla and Color Tango. Text written by Jorge Luis Borges, spoken by Arnoldo Foa.
"For the Record"
Dance Theater Workshop, October 2008
For the Record examines the concept of nostalgia through a playful lens of retro Shanghai aesthetics and 1960s radio. Set to music by Patsy Cline and Chinese covers of Beatles songs, this work explores how memories and expectations (like radio music) are distorted through time and distance.
"Out and About"
CSV Center, NYC June 2008
Out and About is an experiment in the limits of inhibition and examines the comfort with which people today document previously private aspects of their lives. The dancers consume actual alcohol over the course of the 28 minutes work, and as they toy with the real effects of alcohol and its consequences both physical and social, audience members are implicated as by-standers to the self-destruction they are witnessing.
Performed by Elisa Davis, Eileen Farrell, Meghan Frederick, Seth Miner and Ilana Webber
Score by Daniel Iglesia
Rehearsal clip: PHASE VIDCODER
CultureHub NYC, December 2011
A rehearsal clip from the live video project "Phase Vidcoder" Daniel Iglesia and Tze Chun presented as part of CultureHub's Live-Wired Series.
"Go-Ban"
CSV Center, Lower East Side, June 2008
Go is a traditional board game from China and considered the oldest game still played in its original form. A game of strategy and no chance, Go reflects Asian philosophies on war, art, and life itself. The Goban is the wooden board upon which the game is played, and the stage upon which the drama of Go unfolds.
Influenced by Go game theory, and the visual and visceral aspects of the game, Tze Chun transforms the stage into an intellectual landscape in her latest work Go-ban. Based upon real-life game patterns and stone formations, Go-ban follows the games specific form of movement and response, action and reaction.
Set to an original score by Composer Daniel Iglesia, who utilizes the recorded sounds of Go stones as the primary source for his electronic elaborations, Go-ban creates a safe-space in which larger issues of power and war are played as innocently as a game.
CSV Center, Lower East Side, June 2008
In this LIVE multi-media collaboration with Tze Chun, composer Daniel Iglesia uses live video capture to sample and multiply the dancer's image. Based on the nature of each motion, Iglesia improvises the playback and layering of the video in real-time.
A film by Peter Buntaine
Choreographed by Tze Chun
Produced by Alex Hannibal
Starring: Molly Brush, Tze Chun, Elisa Davis, Eileen Farrell, and Ilana Webber
Music by Daniel Iglesia
A 16mm dancefilm inspired by words of a John Cage poem "Indeterminacy" (1959), "The Four Mists" follows the journey of Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire, as they journey to meet a Chaos. The film examines the mythology of elements across a number of different cultures, and depicts Chaos not only as a physical element like the others, but also as an organizing force of nature. In this choreographed creation story, filmmaker Peter Buntaine experiments with in-camera effects and double exposure compositions created by chance.
NY Times video by Perri Santanachote
The Tze Chun Dance Company is headed back in time to the Victorian Era with Parlour Games, a mobile series of performances set for a dozen Brooklyn locations -- ranging from a Fort Greene brownstone to under the Manhattan Bridge.
The first performance is Saturday at 2 p.m. in a Victorian parlor at South Oxford Space, 138 S. Oxford St. The hour-long show, like the others slated to run through June, is free.
Tze Chun, a Clinton Hill resident, said the piece is based on Victorian parlor games that were played around the time of the late 19th century Brooklyn brownstone boom.
"Performing in these spaces make the piece a time capsule that takes you back in time to give you a glimpse of what happened inside these houses," said Ms. Chun, 26.
Choreographed to fit within the dimensions of a classic brownstone parlor, Parlour Games examines the borough's cultural and architectural history through contemporary dance, she added.
The dancers' movements are based on actual parlor games, such as "Pass the Orange," "Suck and Blow" and "Duck, Duck, Goose."