Red Shoes

source: degenerateartensemble

Degenerate Art Ensemble invades all of the senses with work inspired by punk, comics, cinema, nightmares and fairy tales through cross-discipline post-genre performance collaboration that is at once visceral, unforgettable and sublime. The work brings together the rarest of art influences with a virtuosity that appears as effortless organized spontaneity. The group’s work is infused with the energy of live original music and driven by a unique style of visceral movement theatre and dance that aims to achieve a heightened sense of awareness one might find in a sacrificial rite. These are not dance pieces nor concerts nor gallery installations but immersive meditations that use light, sound, music, movement and space as tools to strip away the waking world to reveal an alternate reality inhabited by spirits, sprites and demons. Their work hits the audience at a subliminal, visceral, guttural level where worlds rise and fall before their eyes. Soundscapes of invented instruments and strings underscore the virtuosic movement of Haruko Nishimura who conjures a pantheon of mythical creatures and grotesque demigods.

“You can trace plenty of avant-garde and indie influences — Pina Bausch, anime, the Kronos Quartet, Aphex Twin, among others. The members are bold, versatile musicians, and move from thrash to classical to rap with appealing nonchalance. (DAE’s) Haruko Nishimura has real physical charisma, and her Butoh-inspired twitches, blinks and eerie vocalizing register vividly. They have a keen sense of materials and space.”
(LA TIMES)
Degenerate Art Ensemble’s work has been presented in venues across the US and Europe and has been commissioned, supported and awarded by noteworthy organizations such as Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, Arts International, the International Theatre Institute, Guggenheim Foundation and many others. DAE’s work is fluid and collaborative – the group enjoys working with venues to create and adapt the work to integrate fully with the conditions, architecture and community that surrounds them. The group works in both traditional theater and site-specific contexts.

DAE has been presented by On The Boards (Seattle), REDCAT (L.A.), New Museum (N.Y.), Festival Alternativa (Prague), T.F.F. Festival (Germany) and many others in ten countries of Europe and North America.
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source: degenerateartensemble

Project Description:

Degenerate Art Ensemble’s Red Shoes is a re-imagining of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of a girl who is cursed to dance herself to death for following her creative desires. DAE’s interpretation of this beloved fairy tale/ horror story is a rich drama of dreams, passion, discipline, desire, trauma, transformation, and reinvention. DAE’s work shows parallels between this story and the struggle to follow one’s creative path in contemporary society. In it’s 2011 premiere, the performance began in Seattle’s Frye Art Museum galleries and spilled onto the streets. The group created a theater inside of an abandoned supermarket, performed in a cathedral courtyard, in a fountain, and around a bonfire in the back streets of Seattle’s first hill neighborhood. Red Shoes brings together non-verbal theater, dance, song, live music and visual art sensibilities to create an immersive, abstract and poetic yet narrative performance environment. Red Shoes emerged from DAE’s deep relationship with Seattle, as residents, creators, and influencers of its cultural landscape. Red Shoes emerged in a year-long series of impromptu solo performances by Haruko Nishimura in Seattle’s streets, city parks and neighborhoods. Incubated by the full DAE company in a Frye Art Museum residency and a residency at director Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center a Laboratory of Performance in New York, Red Shoes was nurtured and produced in the embrace of an unprecedented neighborhood partnership that included Seattle’s Frye Art Museum and St. James Cathedral. The work has since been developed into a touring project that works to engage with the community, architecture and culture of the venues at which it takes place. Red Shoes was directed by DAE’s Haruko Nishimura with original music by Joshua Kohl and Jherek Bischoff and video by Leo Mayberry.