Video clips from Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church, April 6, 2009. Featuring the work of Benjamin Ford Asriel, David Appel and Jen McGinn.

We have become Beautiful (excerpt)
Choreography: Benjamin Ford Asriel
Creation and Performance: Benjamin Ford Asriel, Jodi Bender, Carly Pansulla,
Jillian Sweeney, Jennifer Sydor
Documentation: Project Paper Trail http://www.basriel.com/ 

As a Fair Trade Dance Organization, Project Paper Trail www.basriel.com
publicizes its pay rates: rehearsals = $8/hour, this performance = $50.

Benjamin Ford Asriel grew up in Kentucky with cows, corn, and caves.  He
loves dance, games, and Spring, among other things.  Jodi Bender has
appeared in the work of Jen Abrams, Renée Archibald, Christine Cali, Laura
Diffenderfer, Michael Helland, K.J. Holmes, Sam Kim, Risa Jaroslow, Tara
O'Con and Aaron Rosenblum. Carly Pansulla is a Brooklyn-based freelance
performer. She has been recently been seen in works by Beth Gill, Tara
O'Con, and Gretchen Weber.  Jillian Sweeney has been presented at Food for
Thought, Dixon Place, HERE, and DanceNOW.  She recently performed with Red
Metal Mailbox and enjoys working with Ben.  In addition to working with Ben
Asriel, Jennifer Sydor has most recently worked with David Parker, Doug
Elkins, The Metropolitan Opera,  and the band Fischerspooner.

Bed of Roses (a work in progress)
Choreography: David Appel, with the dancers
Performance: David Appel, Cynthia Berkshire, Michelle Durante, Jenny
Efremova, Michelle Gilligan, Carla Reitano, Kristen Schifferdecker, Carrie
Stern, Caitlin Trainor
Music: Lou Harrison, Garage A Trois

As sometimes happens, this piece started out going down one road, then
turned onto another. In the course of things, my initial thinking about an
individual and a group, and later about several ways of setting them in
motion, changed as well.

 Over four rehearsals, these eight women met and engaged each other and an
extraordinary amount of material. My heartfelt thanks to them: for their
willingness to embrace and invest in this process amidst the few moments we
had together, for the individual qualities with which they have infused it,
and for enabling me to dream for a bit in a different direction.

A tip of the hat to Amanda Ghanooni and Ritsuko Sato, who participated in
our first rehearsals.

 David Appel is a choreographer, performer, and teacher whose work has been
presented to acclaim throughout North America, Europe, and in Mexico since
1973. For the past 15 years, he has been focusing primarily (though not
exclusively) on the possibilities that arise out of more intimate and
detailed solo dancing, musing on how we mediate and move fluidly between our
inner landscapes and being "in the world." As part of this pursuit, he has
found himself exploring an ever more subtle yet expansive quality of
articulation, celebrating the body's innate and quirky musicality, and
evolving a movement language that is paradoxically singular and familiar,
idiosyncratic yet somehow connects. He has also performed with Simone Forti,
City Dance Theater of Boston (a company touring innovative pieces during the
early 1970's), several dance/music collaborative groups, and with many other
individual artists in a variety of media. He has received a number of grants
and awards for his choreography, including three Choreographers' Fellowships
from the National Endowment for the Arts, and has been invited to festivals
in both the U.S. and abroad.

Naughty Bits
Created by: Jen McGinn
with Erika Hand, Jung-eun Kim, James McGinn, Daniele Paloumpis, Emily Wexler
Music:  Bob Dylan, Otis Redding, Harry Nilsson

 Jen McGinn began dancing in the womb of an incredible ballerina, while
listening to the Scottish limericks and songs whispered to her by her
father, a painter. Today, she makes works with her friends and family as an
independent dance artist and as part of map dance collective. She received
her B.A. from Hollins University in Dance and Arts Management in 2005 and
continued on to receive her M.F.A. in Dance from Hollins in partnership with
the ADF in 2006. She has been an artist-in-residence at Hollins, Booker High
School Visual and Performing Arts Center, the American Dance Festival School
for Young Dancers, the West Coast Civic Ballet, and currently as a nEW
Festival Artist. She has shown her work along the east coast, primarily in
New York and Philadelphia, where she lives. Her interests include Cecchetti
ballet, magical thinking, and logic problems.