Douglas Dunn + Dancers, the reprise of GARDEN PARTY 9/10

By Douglas Dunn + Dancers

Sep 10  |  Culture

Douglas Dunn + Dancers, the reprise of GARDEN PARTY

September 10 at 8 pm

Douglas Dunn Studio

541 Broadway NYC

After nine sold-out performances this past April, Garden Party, a collaborative work by choreographer Douglas Dunn, visual artist/designer Mimi Gross, and lighting designer Lauren Parrish, will return this fall. Performances are September 6–10 (Wednesday–Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 4pm and 8pm, Sunday at 8pm), at Douglas Dunn Studio, 541 Broadway, 3rd Floor, in Manhattan. Tickets for Garden Party are $20-$25 (inclusive of all fees) and are available here.

Garden Party is a series of vignettes, each with its own elegant and playful interaction of movement, visual art, music, and language. Dunn partners with longtime collaborator Mimi Gross to transform his loft space into a verdant haven. Ten members of Douglas Dunn + Dancers, including Dunn himself, frolic within this lush garden landscape while lighting and projections by Lauren Parrish illuminate each scene and its interruptions. In this hour-long work, Dunn’s steps are interwoven with poetry (John Keats, Anne Waldman, and others) and music (Robert de Visée, John Lennon, Emmylou Harris, to name a few). The delicate texts, varied musical scores, and the intimacy of the space may urge viewers toward narrative associations and the opportunity to feel themselves in, not just looking at a garden. In her review of the premiere, Gia Kourlas of The New York Times writes: “Woven throughout this party of a dance is emotion and with it a sense of surrender… But it’s also a mischievous, eccentric Day-Glo adventure, or a dance you’d find in the middle of a Wes Anderson movie. It’s a secret garden three floors from the city sidewalk.” 

Choreography by Douglas Dunn, set and costume design by Mimi Gross, lighting and projection design by Lauren Parrish, sound design by Jacob Burckhardt. Pre-show live music by Tosh Sheridan. Garden Party is performed by Alexandra Berger, Janet Charleston, Grazia Della-Terza, Douglas Dunn, Vanessa Knouse, Emily Pope, Paul Singh, Jin Ju Song-Begin, Timothy Ward, and Christopher Williams.