Juliana May: Commentary = Not Thing

In this work-in-process showing, May will present the first 30 minutes of her newest evening-length piece, which will premiere at New York Live Arts from February 19-23, 2013. Commentary = not thing is commissioned by New York Live Arts.

Part Stephen Sondheim, part Kate Pierson from the 1990’s group The B52’s, the piece becomes a modern dance opera. This “coexistence of dissimilars” demonstrates a severe compression of time as it aligns a range of singular genres, decades, geographies, emotions, and viscera. These “dissimilars” create a jagged and illegible terrain that makes a case for abstraction and its ability to communicate the expressive possibility of the emotional body. This project will look specifically at the social emotions (i.e. compassion, embarrassment, shame, guilt, and contempt) in an effort to prioritize a more attentive and often aggressive relationship to the naked body, the functions of the body, and the genitals.