LA Improv Dance Festival - Duets Across the Pacific

“The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing.” – James Brown

The LA Improv Dance Festival & Highways presents Duets Across the Pacific, a performance that combines live duets with a dance film premiere of a China-USA digital collaboration, including an international conversation between the collaborators as they meet and speak for the first time. This unique method of working across borders, languages, and cultures is also taught in a workshop prior to the performance: Dances From the Earth is open for registration through Highways combo tickets, for more information visit www.NotManApart.com.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

12:30 - 2:30pm: Dances From the Earth Workshop @ Highways

4:00 - 5:30pm: Duets Across the Pacific Live Performance & Film Showing @ Highways

6:30 - 9:30pm: Santa Monica Jam @ Dance Home (for more info on this, visit www.notmanapart.com)

Workshop: Dances from the Earth

Returning from 5 years in China, performing with Cirque du Soleil and various Chinese dance artists, Jones Talmadge gathers together artists from China and LA to present his cross-cultural collaboration approach and “360 Flow” movement style. Employing unique training in circus acrobatics and principles of Contact Improvisation, Jones now applies this study to ground movement and video partnering in a workshop about your personal connection to the earth as a dance partner. Students will develop solo and duet movement that evokes self-expression and cultural awareness inside of a dance. Combining elements of relationship, respect, and dynamic movement we will explore elements of his 360 Flow technique and methods to connect to a partner through distance, touch, and digital media, which were used to create the Duets Across the Pacific project.

Instructors: Jones Talmadge and Participants from the Duets Across the Pacific project

Performance: Duets Across the Pacific

Duets Across the Pacific is a performance collaboration project sponsored by Los Angeles-based performing arts company Not Man Apart. The goal of this project is to connect the continents through dance by using digital media to create movement and physical communication partnerships between dancers in China and counterparts in the United States. This performance will showcase a premiere video project between the two countries, and also LIVE duet performances from the participants of this project. This exclusive show features some of LA’s best dancers in Contact Improvisation and Choreography, including duets from Jen Hong, Marcus Van Duren, Cheyenne Dunbar, Ilana Summers, Ezra LeBank, Jeffrey Nash, Kasey Lockwood, Jones Talmadge, and Maura Tousignant. Performance includes a post-show video conference with the collaborators in China about how the arts can be used to bridge cultures and differences, followed by an invitation to the Santa Monica Contact Improv Jam.