Exhausting Love at Danspace Project (2006)
Exhausting Love at Danspace Project premiered on November 9-12, 2006 at Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in New York City. The full-evening work was inspired by the space in which it premiered, and exploited the similarities between the theater and the church to create an homage to the ritual of live theatre.
2007 Bessie Award winner “Creator/Choreographer”.
Concept and Direction: luciana achugar.
Choreography: luciana achugar with Hilary Clark, Jennifer Kjos, Melanie Maar and Beatrice Wong.
Music: Michael Mahalchick.
Set and Lighting Design: Jonathan Belcher.
Dramaturgy: Nanako Nakajima.
Exhausting Love at [name of venue] is a flexible, non-proscenium work that accommodates to the specific needs of the venue in which it takes place. The work establishes a communal relationship with the audience; who view the work from within the performance space. The lighting acts as an almost didactic narrator of both the plot and the space, and the music enhances the drama as punctuation and description of the emotional landscape. Outfitted in the same factory worker uniforms featured in the earlier piece, A Super Natural Return to Love (2004), the dancers become the blue collar working class of the art form; performing the labor of the body, the labor of dance, the labor of love.
Exhausting Love at Danspace Project was made possible, in part, with funds from the Danspace Project 2006-2007 Commissioning Initiative with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and the Dans/Creation Fund. Funding was also provided, in part, by The Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund, The Puffin Foundation, and with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. The development of this project was supported through LEXDance’s Under the Radar Residency program at Lexington Center for the Arts in Greene County New York with support from Danspace Project and the NYS DanceForce with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts Dance Program, Altria Group, Inc. and The J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation.
