US V THEM presents an evening of performance from young improvisers of today. Curated by THEM director and choreographer Ishmael Houston-Jones, US V THEM features the work of those who keeping the practice of improvisation and improvised performance alive and well.

Part of THEM AND NOW.

For US V THEM Ishmael Houston Jones has curated five male dance artists, Felix Cruz, Niall Noel, Brandin Steffensen, Arturo Vidich, and Enrico Wey, who in a variety of ways demonstrate how the diverse techniques of improvisation can be used to create work. The practices they employ include contact improvisation, street dancing, vogueing, dancing with visual art objects, an extension of more traditional modern dance, and several other avenues of approach.

“I’ve known them in different contexts: some have been students of mine, some have appeared in my work; some I’ve seen in performance; and some I’ve jammed with. They range in age from early twenties to early thirties. One has lived in New York all his life; another is newly arrived here. They make very different kinds of work, one from the other but in each of them I see a continuation of the kinds of movement experimentation and research I was exploring as a dance-maker thirty years ago.”
—Ishmael Houston-Jones

Felix Cruz recently received his BFA in Dance and Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Niall Noel makes dances and occasionally appears in dances made by close friends. Besides attending Virginia Commonwealth University for undergrad study, he has also spent summer after summer comprehending the perpetually reflexive nature of dance at the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina. Naill is a native of Richmond, Virginia, and has been living and performing in New York since 2007. 

Brandin Steffensen is a dance artist presently performing with Liz Gerring Dance, Christopher Williams, and with the lovely Keely Garfield. His experiments with improvisational practices are an evolving transposition of ideas culled from game theory, complexity theory, and his research with artists Nancy Stark Smith, Deborah Hay, and Chris Aiken. His design Pentamode has been presented at Bates Dance Festival, Dance Theater Workshop, The Harkness 92nd Street Y, and AIR on Metropolitan. He has produced his own choreography in his show NEWS & More @ 8, which includes his solo adaptation of Deborah Hay’s News. He choreographed for Jonathan Caouette’s recent film Mountain Park. He is the founder and artistic director of the Catskill Collaborative, an annual residency program in Catskill, New York. Steffensen has performed with Brian Brooks Moving Company, Lawrence Goldhuber, Yoshiko Chuma, and in reconstructions of Alwin Nikolais’s master works with Salt Lake City’s repertory Ririe Woodbury Dance Company. He holds a BFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah, and currently hosts a monthly practice group researching with a form conceived by Nancy Stark Smith known as Underscore.

Arturo Vidich is an artist from New York City. Vidich identifies as an inter-media artist working mainly in experimental performance. Vidich’s approach to performance uses technology and movement to identify and reflect upon the way we process information through the body. He is interested in treating the performer’s body and sculptural materials as interchangeable objects, and in the possibilities that emerge out of endurance, resistance, and limitation. His performances often engage the viewer’s assumptions about narrative, form and content. Beginning in 2003, Vidich's performance work has been shown at The Chocolate Factory, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Dixon Place, Chashama, DorkBot NYC, and AUNTS. He has also shown in Los Angeles, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, and New Zealand. In 2007, Vidich was awarded the first International Artist Residency at the Red Stables, Dublin, Ireland. In 2008, Vidich was awarded the Movement Research Artist Residency. In 2007, he co-founded and now co-directs Culture Push, a nonprofit art organization that brings together diverse professionals to share knowledge and resources. Vidich’s work has been reviewed in the Village Voice and the New York Times, and he has been interviewed by WNYC. His A New Theory of Biology was recently in the Brucennial 2010, and Miseducation and VOLUME at AT1 Projects in Los Angeles. Occasionally Vidich curates performances through Kunstverein, New York. Vidich is a master's candidate at the Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYU Tisch. He will collaborate with Igal Nassima for US V THEM.

Enrico D. Wey makes his work primarily through the living laboratory. He has shown iterations of work from 2006 onwards at various spaces in the New York area. He was commissioned for Danspace Project's winter season. He was selected as a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council SwingSpace and Dance Theater Workshop Fresh Tracks Residency Recipient in 2010. As a performer, Enrico has worked extensively with Team Djordjevich and has had the pleasure of working for choreographers Ashley Byler, Melinda Ring, Vanessa Anspaugh, and Jen Rosenblit, with the bands Great Republic of Rough and Ready and Shitheads on Dynamite, and puppet artists Tom Lee and Emily Decola. Wey has been engaged as a member of Handspring Puppet Company from South Africa since 2004, touring internationally with Tall Horse and the William Kentridge directed opera, Il Ritorno d'Ulisse. In addition to serving as a technical director and designer, Wey is a part of Danspace Project's Platform 2010: The Adventure, curated by Trajal Harrell, and is developing collaborative B-sides.

Photo Credit: TJ Hellmuth