encyclopedia
About The Show
Obie and BESSIE Award-winning all-female troupe LAVA explodes into its 11th year with its new show, encyclopedia, beginning June 2nd at 7pm. Directed by Sarah East Johnson and created collaboratively by the company, performances run Tuesday through Sunday at 7 pm, with 3 pm matinees that include opening acts by Magma, LAVA’s junior company. Regular tickets $20. Tuesdays are $10. Kids are $15 for 3pm shows. Friday June 3rd is the opening night gala with champagne reception; tickets $50 for the benefit.
Referring to the Greek enkyklopaideia, which means ever-widening circles of knowledge, audiences will experience aspects of city life through the lens of the company’s 11-year body of knowledge as dancer/acrobats— from Jane Jacob’s notion of the “Sidewalk Ballet” to the intricate choreography of “superorganisms” like beehives and ant colonies.
encyclopedia’s “entries” will include Diving in the Dark, an urban warrior piece in which the brave women of LAVA dive, leap and fly through circles of wood that are balanced on top of each other— feats typically performed by men throughout the world; Invisible Leader, an improvisation on group intelligence inspired by systems of movement unification such as those used by birds flocking, bees swarming, and ants colonizing; You Don’t Own Me, set to the 1964 recording by Lesley Gore, using two-person tangos, contact improvisations, capoeira and wrestling moves to perform the passion, tension, devotion, and coordination of coupling; and Sidewalk Ballet, a Jane Jacobs-inspired examination of the intimacies and tensions of strangers on city sidewalks with choreography that evokes the grid of city streets, the rise and fall of energy around rush hour, and the many times we grab or sometimes miss meaningful connections with a neighbor or a stranger. Sidewalk Ballet is accompanied by a music score by DJ Tikka Masala that brings together the structural complexity of classical Indian music with the pulse and drive of contemporary hip hop music.
encyclopedia is performed and created by Molly Chanoff, Rose Calucchia, Sarah Dey Hirshan, Calia Marshall, Laura Montgomery Sarah East Johnson, Lollo Romanski, Allison Schnur,. Visual and sound collaborators include Nancy Brooks Brody, DJ Tikka Masala, Alison May, Jocelyn Davis, Wayne Schrengohst and Gretchen Hildebran.
About LAVA
An Obie and Bessie award-winning troupe that creates and performs artistic works, LAVA is renowned for straddling the worlds of dance, acrobatics, feminism and theater. Founded in 2000 by Sarah East Johnson, the company’s explosive choreographic language integrates hoop diving, trapeze, swing dancing, wrestling, contact improvisation and tango among others. In NYC LAVA’s work has been seen at City Center, Summerstage, Celebrate Brooklyn, The Joyce Thetaer, PS 122, The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop and Dixon Place. www.lavabrooklyn.org
