Baryshnikov Arts Center presents Multidisciplinary Premieres from AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company) and Eunbi Kim & Xuan
Company:
Baryshnikov Arts Center
BARYSHNIKOV ARTS CENTER PRESENTS
AMOC* (AMERICAN MODERN OPERA COMPANY): HOW TO FALL APART (N.Y. PREMIERE)
AND EUNBI KIM & XUAN: IT FEELS LIKE A DREAM (WORLD PREMIERE)
New York, NY — Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) presents two multidisciplinary premieres during February 2023, continuing its long term commitment to nurturing theatrical presentations of concerts: the New York Premiere of Carolyn Chen’s How to Fall Apart, performed by instrumentalists and dancers from AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company), and the World Premiere of it feels like a dream, with music by Angélica Negron, Pauchi Sasaki, Sophia Jane and Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), performed by pianist Eunbi Kim and created in collaboration with new media artist Xuan.
AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company)
How to Fall Apart (New York Premiere)
February 10 + 11 at 7:30PM
Jerome Robbins Theater
Tickets: $25 at bacnyc.org
Running Time: 60 Minutes
Composed by Carolyn Chen, How to Fall Apart describes cosmic, natural, and human processes of disintegration, aging, and falling apart. This evening-length work for three dancers, one violinist, and one cellist integrates text, gesture, and music, building upon Chen’s long-standing compositional work “in which sensuality and abstraction find common ground” (LA Times). How to Fall Apart unfolds as various assemblages of sound, movement, and storytelling cohere, dissolve, and reform, telling personal and scientific stories about the climate crisis, cosmological history, the erosion of soil in Northern Chad, the aging body, The Billion Oyster Project in New York, and the operations of microbes.
Composer: Carolyn Chen
Performers:
Julia Eichten, dancer
Keir GoGwilt, violinist
Coleman Itzkoff, cellist
Yiannis Logothetis, dancer
Matilda Sakamoto, dancer
Movement Director: Julia Eichten
Lighting Designer: Mary Ellen Stebbins
Commissioned by AMOC*.
Developed in part during an artist residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center.
Developed in residency at The Lumberyard.
Special thanks to Or Schraiber and Jay Campbell for contributing to early workshops of the piece, as well as to Justin Decatur, Suzanne Thorpe, George Gwilt, and Dea Lou Schraiber.
Eunbi Kim & Xuan
it feels like a dream (World Premiere)
February 23 at 7:30PM
Jerome Robbins Theater
Tickets: $25 at bacnyc.org
Pianist Eunbi Kim presents a sonic memoir titled it feels like a dream, offering a meditation on family and identity in collaboration with new media artist Xuan. Featuring a dreamy soundworld of classical music with pop awareness interwoven with hypnotic projected visuals, this multimedia performance asks: What are the dreams we carry and pass on? it feels like a dream features music for piano, pre-recorded voices, and electronics written for and performed by Kim from Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Angélica Negrón, Pauchi Sasaki, and Sophia Jani.
Program:
Disco giratorio de palabras by Angélica Negrón (2020)
Saturn Years by Sophia Jani (2021)
Mother’s Hand, Healing Hand (엄마손은 약손) by Pauchi Sasaki (2021)
It Feels Like a Mountain, Chasing Me by Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) (2014)
Pianist: Eunbi Kim
Art Director: Xuan
Composers: Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Angélica Negrón, Pauchi Sasaki, and Sophia Jani
Running Time: 60 Minutes
Developed in part during an artist residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
AMOC*, founded in 2017 by Matthew Aucoin and Zack Winokur, builds and shares a body of collaborative work. As a group of dancers, singers, musicians, writers, directors, composers, choreographers, and producers united by a core set of values, AMOC* artists pool their resources to create new pathways that connect creators and audiences in surprising and visceral ways. Most recently, AMOC* served as Music Director for the 2022 Ojai Music Festival–the second ensemble and first explicitly interdisciplinary company to hold the position in OMF’s 75-year history. Over the Festival’s four days, AMOC* offered 18 performances, eight world premieres, and six new theatrical productions. In July 2022, AMOC* premiered a new production of Harawi at Festival Aix-en-Provence, an affecting interpretation of Olivier Messiaen’s song cycle that breaks open its explorations of love and death into a newly physicalized and theatrical dimension. AMOC*’s 2022-2023 season also includes the world premiere of Bobbi Jene Smith’s Broken Theater, produced in partnership with New Dialect and Carolina Performing Arts a chamber version of John Adam’s El Niño, conceived by Julia Bullock, presented in collaboration with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine; and the New York premieres of Carolyn Chen’s How to Fall Apart and Anthony Cheung’s the echoing of tenses.
Carolyn Chen has made music for supermarket, demolition district, and the dark. Her work reconfigures the everyday to retune habits of our ears through sound, text, light, and movement. Her studies of the guqin, a Chinese zither traditionally played for private meditation in nature, have informed her thinking on listening in social spaces. Recent projects include an audio essay on a scream and commissions for Klangforum Wien and the LA Phil New Music Group. Described by The New York Times as “the evening’s most consistently alluring … a quiet but lush meditation,” Chen’s work has been presented in 25 countries and supported by the Berlin Prize, the Fulbright Program, and ASCAP’s Fred Ho Award for work that “defies boundaries and genres.” Writing and recordings are available in MusikTexte, Experimental Music Yearbook, New Centennial Review, Leonardo Music Journal, Quakebasket, and the wulf. Chen earned a Ph.D. in music from UC San Diego, and a M.A. in Modern Thought and Literature and B.A. in music from Stanford University. She lives in Los Angeles.
Eunbi Kim (pronounced OON-bee, like book) curates programs that compel audiences to meditate on the parts of themselves that are deeply buried. Creating performances expressing dreamlike “liquid elegance” (Times Union), her intimate performances draw from collaborations with composers, filmmakers, and theater directors to create experiences beyond the boundaries of the traditional piano recital format. Kim’s recent album “It Feels Like” debuted at #2 on Billboard Classical Charts and confronts the multiplicity of truths behind memories and identity. It features world premiere recordings of works written for her by Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Pauchi Sasaki, Angélica Negrón, and Sophia Jani. Drawing from the album and its themes, Kim additionally created a 4-night performance and conversation series, also titled “It Feels Like,” as an Artist-in-Residence at WNYC’s The Greene Space. Kim holds a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees for New York Foundation for the Arts and is co-founder of bespoken, a mentorship program for female-identifying and non-binary musicians. Her teachers past and present include Elena Arseniev, Anthony de Mare, and Rosemary Caviglia.
Xuan is a new media artist, filmmaker, and pianist working at the intersection of music, visual art, and technology. A trained classical pianist with a passion for ‘visual music,’ she actively develops innovative, cross-disciplinary projects that broaden the immersive scope of new music and performance. Her work encompasses experimental animation, abstract scenography, narrative documentaries, music videos, videography, interactive installations and real time audio-visual programming. Her interactive installations have been exhibited at the ErsterErster Gallery in Berlin, DE, the ibug Urban Art Festival in Reinchenbach, DE, and Design Biennale 2019 in Zürich, CH, the RESCUE Residency in Santo Stefano di Magra, Italy, Sound Forms 2021 in Hong Kong, and in 2022 at Quantum Music in Linz, Austria. Xuan is a graduate of Eastman in piano performance and has studied Media Spaces at the BTK University of Art and Design in Berlin. She is distinctly honored to be a fellow of OneBeat 2022 and the Blackbird Creative Lab 2018.
About Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC)
BAC is the realization of a long-held vision by artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov who sought to build an arts center in Manhattan that would serve as a gathering place for artists from all disciplines. BAC’s opening in 2005 heralded the launch of this mission, establishing a thriving creative laboratory and performance space for artists from around the world. BAC’s activities encompass a robust residency program augmented by a range of professional services, including commissions of new work, as well as the presentation of performances by artists at varying stages of their careers. In tandem with its commitment to supporting artists, BAC is dedicated to building audiences for the arts by presenting contemporary, innovative work at affordable ticket prices. For more information, visit bacnyc.org.
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