Studio Visits are evening-length hybrid performance events, offering audiences a multi-angled view of the featured artist and their craft. Each Studio Visit includes an introduction by the artist, a presentation of new work-in-process, a critical response essay by a guest artist, and a Q&A. The guest artist for this Studio Visit is Jane Comfort.

Surveys the Prairie of Your Room: A duet about what happens in liminal spaces and states, where and when things could go in any number of directions and you’re not quite sure which one is right. Also about what happens in hotel rooms, elevators, etc., temporary places that are yours to fully occupy. Also about ASMR recordings. This show is made to be shown in theaters and in actual liminal spaces: bars, lobbies, hotel rooms, train stations, galleries, etc. It will eventually have an original score by Heather Christian and the ASMR text will be adapted/ re-written by Jeremy O. Harris and recorded to sound like the original.

Witness Relocation formed in 2000 and make shows ranging from plays (including world premieres by Chuck Mee and English premieres by Toshiki Okada) to original dance/theater pieces to many things in between. Based in NYC, they are one of the “ensembles who now lead the city’s progressive theater scene” (Village Voice), and are recipients of three New York Innovative Theater Awards. They have performed across the US,and internationally at venues including Theatre de Chaillot (Paris), Les Subsistances (Lyon), Patravadi Theater (Bangkok),  and an abandoned factory in Poland where it rained thru the roof and a light fell off the grid almost killing Dan during a show, among many other places. Ae is a lead performer with WR, makes a lot of their own work, and teaches at NYU/ PHTS. Dan taught at NYU for twenty years, was Head of Movement Training at PHTS, and is now faculty at MIT.

Director/Choreographer/Performer: Dan Safer
Co-creator/Performer: Ae Andreas
Suits provided by Ministry of Supply. Developed in part during residencies at The Skirball Center and The Orchard Project. Thank you to Zëk Stewart for early assistance.

Jane Comfort is a choreographer, writer, and director whose recent 40th anniversary retrospective at La MaMa was nominated for a Bessie Award for best revival.  She is being awarded a lifetime achievement award for her work by the American Dance Guild in October. Her work has long explored the intersection of movement and text, often mixing high and low arts to make social and political commentary. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a BESSIE Award, a Doris Duke Award for New Work through ADF, a Habey Award for distinguished service to the arts from the University of North Carolina, and multiple artist fellowships from NEA, NYSCA, and NYFA. She also works in theater and opera, and choreographed the Broadway musicals Passion, by Stephen Sondheim, and Amour, by Michel Legrand, as well as Shakespeare in the Park’s Much Ado About Nothing (2004), the Off Broadway musical Wilder at Playwrights Horizons, and Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of Salome with Deborah Voigt.

Upcoming

A full version of this piece will be performed at MIT on February 22-23, 2019

www.witnessrelocation.org; www.facebook.com/witnessrelo