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WEDDINGS AND BEHEADINGS
It's not pretty. Life is beautiful.
Weddings and Beheadings is a surrealistic, unsettling meditation on the "latter days." Zustiak's collaborative work with visual artist Robert Flynt, scenic designer Nick Vaughan and lighting designer Joe Levasseur is filled with images of disturbing beauty and redemptive pain.
Premiere: 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival at Ailey Citigroup Theater, New York City, March 11-15, 2009
Approximate running time is 80 minutes.
Direction, Choreography and Sound Design: PAVEL ZUSTIAK
Performers: ELENA DEMYANENKO, SHO IKUSHIMA,
JEFF KENT JACOBS, LINDSEY DIETZ MARCHANT
Rehearsal Assistant: GINA BASHOUR
Projections Concept and Images: ROBERT FLYNT
Projections Design and Animation: KEITH SKRETCH
Lighting Design: JOE LEVASSEUR
Set and Costume Design: NICK VAUGHAN
Weddings and Beheadings was created with major funding from the Greenwall Foundation and supported by funds from the 92nd Street Y New Works in Dance Fund and in part through the Movement Research Artist-in-Residence Program, funded, in part, by the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional funding was provided by Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation and through Materials for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs / NYC Department of Sanitation / NYC Department of Education.
"... a ghostly atmosphere ... Old black-and-white photographs mix with X-ray images of bodies, molten ribbons of light and shots of the dancers themselves ... capturing the portraits of these unknown people in a beautiful, floating slide show.
...the performers cycle through myriad costumes (from fancy dresses to bare skin) and vignettes, turning the stage into their own private wreckage party. ... they have such a stranglehold on their emotions that nothing can come out straight. They grapple with one another, morphing between lovers and antagonists, and themselves ..."
Claudia La Rocco, THE NEW YORK TIMES <read full review>
"You're already a habitant of Pavel Zustiak's Mardi Gras funhouse. By the time his new work--Weddings and Beheadings--reveals its solemn, surprise ending, you probably won't need that fact to be made plain. You're human, he's had his eyes on you, and you can feel it."
Eva Yaa Asantewwa, InfiniteBody <read full review>
"To say that Zuštiak is a fine choreographer is true; but he is also a theatre artist who, with Weddings and Beheadings, fulfills the promise of his earlier work. So please, no talk of "emerging" or "promising" when it comes to this work: it is mature and complete. Catch it while you can."
George Hunka, SuperFluities Redux <read full review>