Becky, Jodi and John (2007)

CREATED & PERFORMED BY: Becky Hilton, John Jasperse, and Jodi Melnik

CHOREOGRAPHY & DIRECTION: John Jasperse

MUSIC: Hahn Rowe

LIGHTING DESIGN: John Jasperse and Joe Levasseur

SET ASSISTANCE: Hannah Price

 

Description:

Becky, Jodi and John is an evening-length work for three dancers, choreographed by John Jasperse. The project addresses the longevity of the performer. Dance, unlike most of the performing arts, places a strong emphasis on youth and has little work for seasoned performers once they enter into their forties and beyond. Jasperse and his peers address through this project the issue of sustaining a performing career past forty.

Becky Hilton, Jodi Melnick and John Jasperse met, through dancing, almost twenty years ago. While their paths through life and dance have brought them to varied places, they remain friends and they all continue to be deeply connected to the form of dance. Becky, Jodi and John is born out of a proactive desire to momentarily reweave these paths back together; it is a poetic portrait of these individuals, a celebration of their varied senses of humor and their commitment to this form. Another friend and colleague, Tere O’Connor, once said, “People are like balsamic vinegar. They just get more like themselves as they age.” The work examines the inescapable constancy of self, and its paradoxical capacity to radically transform, through both aging and growth, as well as how this transformation of self is informed by the phenomenon of dancing. What does it mean to spend one’s life dedicated to creating experiences which disappear as soon as they are reified, but which aim to stain the consciousness of those who experience them, both in perceiving and in doing?

Performances:

WORLD PREMIERE: Dance Theater Workshop (NYC), April 2-7, 2007

Remount Dance Theater Workshop (NYC), May 27-30, 2009

Festpeilhaus St. Pölten, St. Pölten (Austria), February 21 & 23, 2010

TsEKh Festival (Moscow, Russia), July 27, 2010

Dance Massive Melbourne, Dancehouse (Melbourne, Australia), March 24-27, 2011

Press:

3 Dancers Making a Show of Their Age – Gia Kourlas, NYTimes 4/3/07

Next, the Toy Truck Will Plié – Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice 4/3/07

Becky, Jodi and John Find Their Balance – Diane Botta, Columbia Spectator 3/27/13

Becky, Jodi and John – Susan Yung, Dance Magazine 7/11/07

Becky, Jodi and John – Francesca d’Ath, Supernaut 3/22/07

“Becky, Jodi and John” – Susan Reiter, danceviewtimes 4/7/07

talkin’ ’bout my generation – Philipa Rothfield, realtime 3/26/11

Video:

Project Funders:

Becky, Jodi and John was commissioned and supported by Dance Theater Workshop and The Myrna Loy Center in partnership with the National Performance Network. The music for Becky, Jodi and John was commissioned by the American Music Center Live Music for Dance Program. The project received support through Maximised by Chunky Move, Melbourne, Australia. Premiere performances at DTW were supported in part by The Harkness Foundation for Dance and are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.