The Bang Group: A Mouthful of Shoes – Danspace Project
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The Bang Group: A Mouthful of Shoes

Photo: Nicholas Burnham.

Post-performance discussions
Thursday, March 9: The Bang Group and choreographer Hilary Easton
Friday, March 10: The Bang Group and choreographer Michelle Dorrance

The Bang Group was founded in 1995 by choreographers David Parker and Jeffrey Kazin. They return for their third Danspace Project season with A Mouthful of Shoes. This new work continues choreographer Parker’s adventurous exploration of the sonic potential of the dancing body in a varied, interlocking suite of percussive dances. Working with a wide-ranging movement vocabulary drawing from classical and contemporary forms as well as tap dance, Parker has taken a set of musical scores both contemporary and traditional, re-created them as choreographic systems, and embodied them with dancers. Thus, they can be “played” entirely by feet and bodies. Musician Pauline Kim Harris will play violin for an original composition by Dean Rosenthal. In addition, the group will perform a version of Stravinsky’s famous experimental jazz composition, Piano Rag Music.

Writes Parker, “I’m passionate about the social aspects of rhythm: the way we use rhythm to connect, argue, seduce, negotiate and contradict…This work is playful and gritty about its exacting musical tasks but its beating heart lies in the pungent mingling of rhythm and psychology.”

Dancers: Chelsea Ainsworth, Dylan Baker, Rebecca Hadley, Jeffrey Kazin, Alison Manning, David Parker, Nic Petry, Tommy Seibold, Caleb Teicher, and Amber Sloan.
Musicians: Pauline Kim Harris, violinist; others to be announced.
Composers: Dean Rosenthal, Morton Feldman, W.A. Mozart, Steve Reich, Igor Stravinsky
Costumes: Pei Chi-Su
Lighting: Kathy Kaufmann

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