HaltForce Art Collective Co-hosts Performance Residency with Returning Dance Artist Erica Gionfriddo (2019)
Billings, MT— November 2nd, 2019
HaltForce Art Collective and the Billings Symphony Orchestra are co-hosting professional dance artist Erica Gionfriddo, of ARCOS Dance, for a collaborative project with dramaturg and post-modern choreographer Krista Leigh Pasini.
Gionfriddo will share the stage with the Billings Symphony Orchestra for a live performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in a concert in tribute to the Ballet Russes. The Rite of Spring premiered in 1913, and was Stravinsky’s third full-length ballet commission for the Ballet Russes. Stravinsky worked with dramaturg Nicholas Roerich, a Russian expert on folk art and ancient rituals, to tell the pagan tale of the advent of spring and the sacrifice of a young girl who dances herself to death. The ballet, originally choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, paired with Stravinsky’s orchestral score, caused disruption and uproar among the audience members. Descriptions of the score include “frenetic,” “jagged,” “brutal,” and “tender.” What remains, is a dissonant (and culturally) challenging work for both dancers and musicians to execute. Rite of Spring, separate of the ballet, symbolically foreshadowed the unrestrained horrors of the Great War, World War I, and the sweeping cultural changes that followed. This is one of the many points of entry artists Pasini and Gionfriddo are investigating in their performative work and while both artists approached Rite of Spring as a document of history, a time capsule from 1913, they also re-contextualized their work through current contexts and future narratives.
Merging Gionfriddo’s somatic research with Pasini’s post modern choreograpahic methods allowed the Gionfriddo to weave dystopian inquiries amid historical, ecological, and current cultural contexts into a Re-(w)Rite of the iconic work of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. What began as a practice of kaleidoscope thinking slowly evolved into what Gionfriddo and Pasini call a Re-(w)Rite of Spring. Gionfriddo possesses an evocative and nuanced movement language that brings Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring to a present pitch of seduction and urgency. Pasini, director of HaltForce, has employed a system of creation for this project that investigates historical context, ecological inquiries, along with current cultural narratives as source material for Gionfriddo to physicalize as part of a creative response to what is arguably Ballet Russes’ most complicated ballets.
“Perhaps the best way to pay tribute to the disruptors and provocateurs of the Ballet Russes is with our own equally unabashed and avant garde approach” Erica Gionfriddo.
Performed for one evening only with the Billings Symphony Orchestra on Saturday November 2nd at Lincoln Center.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Krista Leigh Pasini • Art Doula & Social Dramaturg
Krista Leigh Pasini is a classically trained dance artist & postmodern choreographer working with somatically informed performative inquiries, historiography, & movement ontology research. Her research weds an extensive technical training with poetic gestural patterning, which she integrates into her role as educator & choreographic collaborator. As co-director of HaltForce Art Collective LLC—currently based in Eastern Montana—Krista facilitates & produces performance-driven artist residencies & education. Pasini's creative versatility blends dance, performance art, theater into site-specific events & socially relevant immersive installations. Krista is an Honors Scholar with a BFA in History from Montana State University–Billings, & holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College.
Erica Gionfriddo • Dance Artist
Erica Gionfriddo is a dance artist, educator, and somatic researcher who believes in the intelligent body each of us occupies. She is co-founder of ARCOS Dance, whose ongoing inquiry probes the intersection of technology and humanity through rigorous interdisciplinary experimentation. Erica’s extensive experience as a GYROKINESIS® and GYROTONIC® trainer guides her pedagogical methodology, which she brings in her capacity as lecturer in dance at the University of Texas at Austin and as a national teaching artist. Erica holds a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from Shenandoah Conservatory and an MFA from Hollins University.