Gabrielle D'Angelo and Christhian Diaz: The Distance Between Me and Us is Small: Parts I and III
Friday, July 22 and Friday, September 2
99 Norman Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11222
Simuvac Projects is pleased to announce, in conjunction with Ivy Haldeman's Pulp, Gabrielle D'Angelo and Christian Diaz's collaborative dance performance The Distance Between Me and Us is Small - Parts I and III.
From Christhian and Gabrielle:
After an invitation from Simuvac Projects, we will be performing our second collaborative dance piece, The Distance Between Me and Us is Small: Parts I and III.
However, the distance between me and us isn’t always small. At times collaboration closes gaps in ways that create a more comfortable space for the artist: having accountability for one another takes off some of the pressure that comes out of a solitary studio practice. In this new space, more questions arise: About our distance to one another, the creative process, and each of our individual proximity to the work itself. What is that distance? What are our personal values and do we have a shared future?
We are negotiating ideas–in this case in particular, we exchange some gestures for others, and we’ll consider their aesthetic value–but of course, our individual subjectivity remains at stake. The distance is small, quite literally, in the space of the white cube, but the space opening up through collaboration is actually vast.
What we’ll be presenting in these performances are sculptures. We have been developing movement that is stationary and meant to be walked around like a sculpture. It was initially a way for us to deal with dance in the space of an art gallery but it has quickly become an engaging approach to making work. An image of picket fences might pull our arms in straight lines and sharp angles, while a sculpture of a relaxed cat might find our bodies in long stretches. We’ll also try to walk up a mountain, pretending the floor to be slanted at a steep angle.
Our collaboration started because we wanted to share each other’s work in movement and performance. It has also grown into a dialogue and a shared vision: we create movement that puts to motion our desires and questions about how movement can affect and communicate through us, to each other, and to others.
This work will be presented in three parts this summer, on Jul. 22nd at Simuvac Projects, Aug. 9th at Dixon Place, and Sept. 2nd. again at Simuvac Projects.
Gabrielle D'Angelo lives and works in New York and received her BFA from The Cooper Union in 2011. In recent years she has performed at various venues including, HERE Center as part of the Performance Mix Festival, Movement Research at Judson Church, The Center for Performance Research and Beam Center. She has taken part in both the Chez Bushwick and Cora Dance artist in residency programs. While choreographing and performing her own work, D'Angelo also makes paintings. She had a solo show at Chashama 461 gallery in 2015.
Christhian Diaz received his BFA from the Cooper Union where he first began making collaborative performance work. He has performed at the Whitney Biennial, MoMA PS1 Printshop, the Museum of Arts and Design, Movement Research at Judson Church, The Center for Performance Research, and Beam Center. He was a 2013 MacDowell fellow, was co-organizer of Trade School, and currently organizes a series of open performance nights out of his living room called Fifteen Minutes of Doing Something Now.Christhian and Gabrielle's first collaborative performance was presented at SOHO 20 gallery in December 2015. They were in residence at the We Make Work Residency at LaMama ETC in the Spring of 2016.
Christhian and Gabrielle's first collaborative performance was presented at SOHO 20 gallery in December 2015. They were in residence at the We Make Work Residency at LaMama ETC in the Spring of 2016.