A SPLICE concert of two female choreographers toying with perspective, DNA presents Jen Abrams and Heidi Latsky.

October 17-19

Jen Abrams’ tense and tender, INVOLUTION uses dance, theater, text and video to reveal the assumptions and undercurrents that define a series of intimate relationships.

Performed by Jessica Ames, Jessica Dellecave, Ariel Polonsky, Jen Abrams

Jen Abrams’ work has been presented at BAX, HERE, Dixon Place, the Nuyorican Poets Café, and the Bowery Poetry Club, as well as at WOW Café Theater, where she has been an active member for eight years. She was a 2005 BAX space grantee, and an ’07-‘08 Outer/Space resident at DTW. The Village Voice has called her work “quintessentially New York,” and her performances “convincing no matter what [she chooses] to do.” Jen has studied the form of Contact Improvisation for sixteen years, beginning at Oberlin College, the birthplace of the form. She teaches Contact at DNA and Movement Research. She relocated to New York City from Chicago, where she presented and performed in five full-length concerts with the contact improv-based company she co-founded, Limbic Fix. She is classically trained as an actor, and performed in plays throughout Chicago before moving to New York City to focus on movement-based performance. She is also a writer, and has given readings of her work at St. Mark’s Poetry Project, Halcyon, and Bar 13.

Heidi Latsky presents excerpts of GIMP. A landscape of movement portraits that dives into the heart of difference, voyeurism and the unexpected, GIMP confronts the audience with their preconceptions, challenging us to re-think accepted notions about dance, performance and body image. “GIMP, highlights uncommon virtuosities and the raw beauty of bodies that work in a wide range of “normality” Time Out Chicago, May 2008.

Performed by Christine Briggs Winslow, Jeffrey Freeze, Lezlie Frye, Heidi Latsky, Lawrence Carter Long, Catherine Long

Heidi Latsky (Artistic Director/Choreographer, Heidi Latsky Dance, (HLD) and GIMP), has been a moving force in the dance world for many years, as a choreographer for stage, theater and film. Latsky initially received recognition as a celebrated principal dancer for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance. Her work and company have toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe, performing at preeminent venues and festivals like Central Park Summerstage, Dance Theater Workshop and Judson Church in NYC, the Kennedy Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music and Festivals in Canada, Switzerland, Croatia and Slovenia. Latsky has received many distinguished choreographic commissions including Cannes International Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, the Joyce Theater, Danspace Project, Teatro Libero (Palermo), The Whitney Museum of American Art and the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Project. The world premiere of HLD’s newest project GIMP, will be at North Fourth/VSA Arts of New Mexico in Albuquerque this fall, followed by a NYC season at the Abrons Art Center.

Performance Times: Friday at 8:30pm, Saturday at 3:00pm and 8:30pm, Sunday matinee at 3:00pm
Ticket Prices: $20, ($15 members, $17 students)

Heidi Latsky photos by Lawrence Carlos Arias

Jen Abrams's photos by Katherine Pradt