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Rachel Thorne Germond
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Modern/Contemporary
Links Hall
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Chicago, IL

Press release- RTG Dance's Once Removed: Peripeteia

by Rachel Thorne Germond
October 12, 2007
Links Hall
3435 N. Sheffield Ave., 2nd floor
Chicago, IL 60657
(773) 281-0824
September 12, 2007 Press Contact: Melissa Simo
For Immediate Release Press Contact Tel. #: 708.955.3221
Photos Avail by Request Alternate #: 773.895.4186
Ticket Reservation (773) 281-0824
Email: rachelthorne2@rtgdance.com



PRESENTS

ONCE REMOVED: Peripeteia

Choreography by
Rachel Thorne Germond
(RTG Dance)

Friday - Sunday, October 12th - 14th &
Thursday - Sunday, October 18th - 21st , 2007
All shows at 8:00pm

at Links Hall
3435 N. Sheffield Ave., 2nd floor, Chicago, IL

The show opens Friday October 12th through Sunday October 12th, with a second weekend of performances Friday October 18th through Sunday, October 21st. All Shows are at 8:00pm at Links Hall, 3435 N. Sheffield Ave. There will be a Post-Performance Discussion to follow Friday and Saturday night performances. Tickets are $15 general admission and may be purchased at the door, online at www.brownpapertickets.com, or reserved by calling Links Hall at (773) 281-0824. Discounted group rates are available for groups of 10 or more.

Once Removed: Peripeteia
This evening length dance by Rachel Thorne Germond (RTG Dance), to be presented for two consecutive weekends at Links Hall, is part of Germond's current research into ways that we make sense of loss and disaster. The dance debuted as a work in progress titled Tragic Dance at Links Hall in June 2006 and has been performed in various states of progression as it has been developed for the past year and a half. Once Removed: Peripeteia, the new title, refers to the turning point in a drama after which the plot moves steadily to its denouement. It is discussed by Aristotle in the Poetics as the shift of the tragic protagonist's fortune from good to bad, which is essential to the plot of a tragedy.

Among its strategies, Once Removed: Peripeteia collides the principles of classic tragic drama as set out by Aristotle with the formal, emotionally detached aesthetics of postmodern dance. Once Removed: Peripeteia is arranged as a collection of fragments: Dressed in formalwear and sculptural costumes by artist/designer by Pate Conaway, the dancers move through a series of tableaux that evolve into thoughtfully choreographed sequences. Conaway also contributes to the set and prop design. Renown Chicago composer Michael Zerang has created original music for this production which is embedded within and serves to contextualize a musical score by Germond- incorporating fragments of popular songs and disparate music by artists such as the Smiths, Neil Diamond, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Video artist Mason Dixon will provide an environment of video-projected tragic imagery.

Dancers/Performers: Rachel Thorne Germond, Lucy Riner, Johannah Wininsky, Jeannine Salemi, Julie Haller,
Ambryn Melius, and Jennifer Guglielmi

Collaborators: Michael Zerang (Composer), Pate Conaway (Costumes & Set Design), Mason Dixon (Video Projection)

(over)
Biographies:

Rachel Thorne Germond (choreographer/performer/artistic director of RTG Dance)
To create her work, Rachel Thorne Germond draws on a knowledge and fascination with contemporary and historical artistic, biographical, and literary sources ranging from authors such as Gertrude Stein and Dave Eggers to icons of Popular Culture such as Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. Intrigued by a wide range of random and disparate inputs from modern life, Germond employs multiple strategies of investigation in her choreography, creating ambiguous juxtapositions and new, unfamiliar languages. This work is highly theatrical, laden with rich referential imagery of the culture-at-large while maintaining a personal and intimate relationship with the audience through it's and raw, gutsy dancing.

Germond has been presenting her work in Chicago since 2000, primarily at Links Hall, but also in performances with the Girlie Q Variety Hour, the Chicago Kings, and in festivals such as the Estrogen Festival, Full Circle Festival, Other Dance Festival and Around the Coyote. In New York City she has presented her work at such venues as the Joyce Soho, Movement Research at Judson Church, WAX, Chashama, The Merce Cunningham Studio, Dixon Place, amongst others. Ms. Germond is a graduate of Cornell University (1986) where she began dancing while obtaining degrees in Fine Arts and Comparative Literature. She achieved an MFA in dance and choreography (2000) at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana where she was a Fellow. Her training includes intensive study of Klein/Mahler technique with Barbara Mahler and with such notable teachers as Mary Anthony, Anna Sokolow, Pedro Alejandro, Tere O'Connor, and Nancy Topf. She was the recipient of the city of Chicago's CAAP grant in 2003, 2005, and 2006 and formed her Chicago-based pick up company, RTG Dance, in 2004. For more info see: www.rtgdance.com.

Michael Zerang (composer)
Michael Zerang was born in Chicago, Illinois and is a first generation American of Assyrian decent. He has been a professional musician, composer, and producer since 1976, focusing extensively on improvised music, free jazz, contemporary composition, puppet theater, experimental theater, and international musical forms. He has collaborated extensively with contemporary theater, dance, and other multidisciplinary forms and has received three Joseph Jefferson Awards for Original Music Composition in Theater, in 1996, 1998, and 2000. He has over sixty titles in his discography and has toured nationally and internationally since 1981 with an ever-widening pool of collaborators. He was the artistic director of the Link's Hall Performance Series from 1985-1989 where he produced over 300 concerts of jazz, traditional ethnic folk music, electronic music, and other forms of forward thinking music. He continued to produce concerts at Cafe Urbus Orbis from 1994-1996, and at his own space, The Candlestick Maker in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood, from 2001 - 2005. He has taught as a guest artist at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in performance technique, sound design, and sound/music as it relates to puppetry; rhythmic analysis for dancers at The Dance Center of Columbia College, Northwestern University, and MoMing Dance and Arts Center; courses in Composer - Choreographer Collaborations at Northwestern University; music to children at The Jane Adams Hull House. He has held workshops in improvisational music and percussion technique and teaches private lessons in rhythmic analysis, music composition, and percussion technique. See www.michaelzerang.com more info.

Pate Conaway (costume design)
Pate Conaway is a graduate of Chicago's Second City Training Center and received his MFA from Columbia College, Chicago. His work explores the connection between visual art and performance. After learning to knit, Pate spent five weeks at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago knitting a pair of mittens large enough for him to sleep in. His work explores the fusion of sculpture, installation, and interactive performance. For Tragic III, Pate worked with the dancers to create shrink-wrap costumes that are a combination of knitting, crochet, and knot work. Some of Pate's work can be seen at www.margingallery.org/pate.html

Mason Dixon (video projection)
Mason Dixon teaches motion graphics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and owns a small media design company, Design After Next. Mason has designed public sculpture and video performances for the City of Chicago, South By Southwest Interactive, Museum of Contemporary Art, Boston Center for the Arts, Cambridge University UK and Burning Man. Mason Dixon's work has investigated the specific subjects of: the moving image as a performance medium; aesthetics and warfare; identity hacking; and public art.

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"Gutsy Dancing, Sharp Satire…..Smart Choreography"
-The Philadelphia Inquirer
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