DANIELLE DAVIDSON
iTMRW is an 90-minute dance-theater piece set to a live performance of Arc Iris' upcoming futuristic concept album of the same name. It’s premiering through The American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T) on January 25th and 26th at Oberon in Harvard Square, and continues its initial short run of shows to Burlington, VT at ArtsRiot, The Shea Center for the Arts in Turner Falls, MA on March 13th and Le Poisson Rouge in NYC on March 18th.
iTMRW features contemporary dance theater and performance art by HDC Dance Ensemble.
The year is 2080. iTMRW, the love story of Robert and his android partner, Jenny, unfolds against the backdrop of a world where advanced technology is both a source of and a “cure” for human alienation: advertisements come in the form of “pop-up thoughts,” entire cities float on islands of trash, female forms are purchased and discarded at will, and aristocrats live in a state of debauchery and despair. The piece takes its title from iTMRW, the mega-corporation that produces and sells every single product known to man. Despite societal chaos, the human spirit persists in its quest for love.
Music: ARC IRIS / Jocie Adams, Zach Tenorio-Miller and Ray Belli
Performance Art Director: Mustafa Samdani
Choreography: Danielle Davidson
Performers/Dancers: Gisela Creus, Orlando Hernández,
Jessica Howard, Ellen Oliver, Stephanie Turner and Jacob Regan
A.R.T. - OBERON, Cambridge, MA, - Jan 25 &26, 2020 -https://americanrepertorytheater.org/shows-events/arc-iris/
ARTSRIOT, Burlington, VT - TBA, 2020 -
SHEA CENTER, Turner Falls, MA - March 13, 2020 -
https://sheatheater.org/d/1617/The-Shea-Presents-Arc-Iris/
LE POISSON ROUGE, New York City, NY - March 18th, 2020 -
https://lpr.com/lpr_artists/arc-iris/
UPDATE: Due to covid-19 the touring of this large-scale production has been postponed until 2022-2023.
Arc Iris (Music and Story)
Providence, RI art pop trio Arc Iris fuses story-based songs with dense electronic and orchestral arrangements. The group, which began as the solo project of Jocie Adams, formerly of The Low Anthem, includes keyboardist and sample artist Zach Tenorio-Miller and drummer Ray Belli. Arc Iris released its acclaimed self-titled debut in 2014 on ANTI/Bella Union. Subsequently, the band toured with artists such as St. Vincent, Jeff Tweedy, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. In late 2017, Arc Iris teamed up with Guster’s lead singer, Ryan Miller to form the offshoot band, Bwahaha, and in early 2018, Arc Iris joined Kimbra on her North American tour. Later that year, the trio released back to back records, “Icon of Ego,” on Brooklyn label Ba Da Bing Records, and “Foggy Lullaby”, their re-imagination of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue.’ In mid 2019, Arc Iris completed the composition of their futuristic, dystopian concept record, iTMRW set in the year 2080 that is center piece of the production at Oberon.
HDC Dance Ensemble (Dance Company)
HDC Dance Ensemble is a Providence based performing arts collective, founded by Gisela Creus, Danielle Davidson, and Orlando Hernández. Their works incorporate elements of voice, percussion, improvisation, and storytelling through physical theater/dance to create unique interdisciplinary dance experiences, primarily in a blend of tap and contemporary dance theater. They have been presented by DanceNOW Boston, The Provincetown Dance Festival, Fresh Dance Fridays, AS220's Modern Movements Festival, AS220's Providence Dance Festival, Roger Williams University, and Providence College. They currently have three duet works in repertory, two solos, and a trio. For the fall of 2019 HDC was in residence as guest choreographers at The Providence College Dance Company, setting three new works on the student company and performing HDC Rep in the Fall Dance Concert. For the winter/spring season of 2020, HDC will be working on a commission from American Indie Rock Band ARC IRIS. HDC will be designing the movement, in collaboration with four local dancers, and then performing in iTMRW; a 75-minute dance theater piece set to a live performance of the futuristic concept album by the Providence art-pop trio. HDC will be touring New England throughout the spring with the band.
Danielle Davidson (Choreographer)
Born in Canada, is a performing artist/dancer, choreographer, producer, and educator, currently based in Providence, Rhode Island. Her current research and practice revolve around ideas of embodied consciousness; including the process of meditative moving, altered or deeply embodied states of consciousness during movement, and the notion of optimal movement efficiency during such states of consciousness. She is passionate about exploring modalities that may optimize or enhance the conditions thought to bring about Flow state. She is an Assistant Professor of Dance at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and a company member with Lorraine Chapman, The Company. Davidson has danced with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Ballet Espressivo, Productions Fila 13, and Prometheus Dance. As a choreographer, she makes work independently, in collaboration, and on commission. She designs movement for theater, live music and opera companies, as well as for university and college dance programs. Her choreography has been presented by the fFIDA in Toronto, and Le Festival International de la Danse at La Place des Arts in Montreal Canada, The Place in London UK, The Gibney Dance Center in NYC, Keene State College (NH), Endicott College, The School of Contemporary Dance and Thought and The Provincetown Dance Festival in MA, Roger Williams University, Providence College, Brown University, AS220, and WaterFire Providence/Festival Ballet in RI. In recent years she has danced for and collaborated with choreographers such as - Diane Arvanites, Korhan Basaran, Heidi Henderson, Kellie Lynch, Thierry Manlandain, Paul Singh, Sydney Skybetter, B.J. Sullivan, Ilya Vidrin, and Riley Watts. Danielle has curated, produced and performed shows collaboratively, and as the co-founder, with Shura Baryshnikov, of Doppelganger Dance Collective (2015-2018). She also co-produces and curates the Providence Dance Festival at AS220 which is now in its fifth season. She is a founding member of HDC Dance Ensemble with Gisela Creus and Orlando Hernández, and is designing movement for American Indie Rock band Arc Iris' 75 minute futuristic concept album iTMRW.
Akhil Bhatt (Animations)
Akhil Bhatt is an art director and motion designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area specializing in audiovisual performance. He is an active VJ and has collaborated on multiple live performances and music videos with Arc Iris since 2014
Dana Tarr (Costumes and Sets)
Dana Tarr is an internationally published celebrity photographer and creative director based out of Providence, RI. He has published for brands including Nike, Addias, Bacardi, and photographed Macklemore, Ludacris, Chris Brown, Nicki Minaj and Drake.
Noah Harley (Lucian Greg aka The Face of iTMRW) is a singer-songwriter, writer, and translator based in the Hudson Valley.
Gisela Creus (Ensemble) is a dancer, educator and choreographer with international and interdisciplinary interest. She graduated with a Dance Diploma in Barcelona and moved on to Laban Centre in London where she earned her Bachelor’s Degree with Honours in Dance-Theater. She has worked for a number of different dance companies and choreographers throughout Europe and has presented more than ten professional pieces of work as choreographer/performer, both individually and collaboratively. She is a founder of NunArt, a creative practices association for artists in Barcelona where she remains a member of the leading board and the Head of Education. Creus has been teaching contemporary, ballet, improvisation and creative dance for over 10 years; from beginners to professionals in Barcelona, London and US, and internationally, as a Guest Artist, through Masterclasses, Workshops and Residencies. She has recently joined Salve Regina University, in Newport, as a Faculty Professor at the Department of Music, Dance and Theatre. She is also the director of Contemporary Dance Ensemble, an educational program that allows professionals to engage in the three stages of work: Training, Creative Processes and Performances in RI. This Fall she will premiere two piece of work for Providence College Dance Company and Roger Williams University Dance Theatre. She has also joined the New Movement Collaborative in Boston where she assists on outreach for the Festival Lion’s Jaw and is the director and curator of Festival Lion’s Jaw Barcelona.
Orlando Hernández (David) is a tap dancer and theater-maker based in Rhode Island. He has presented his work in Solo: A Festival of Dance at On the Boards (Seattle), Movement Research at the Judson Church (NYC), The Provincetown Dance Festival (MA), the SPACE Gallery (Portland, ME), The Activist Body at Brown University (RI), Modern Movements Dance Festival at AS220 (RI), DANCE NOW at Joe’s Pub (NYC), and La Casa de Cultura Ruth Hernández Torres (Río Piedras, Puerto Rico). He has received residencies from Yaddo and La Espectacular. He is the 2019 recipient of the Fellowship in Choreography from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and a 2019 recipient of the Rebecca Blunk Fund Award from the New England Foundation for the Arts. As an actor, Orlando has performed in productions by Trinity Rep, the Brown/Trinity MFA Program, Spectrum Theater Ensemble, and Arte Latino of New England. Since 2016, he has been involved in Trinity Rep and Rhode Island Latino Arts' bilingual summer theater collaboration, Teatro en el Verano, as an actor, tour director, translator, and choreographer. He works as a teaching artist with organizations including Rhode Island Latino Arts and Turnaround Arts, and he is a member of the Providence-based HDC Dance Ensemble, with Danielle Davidson and Gisela Creus, and the Boston-based tap dance company Subject:Matter, directed by Ian Berg.
Jessica Leigh Howard (Ensemble): As a dance artist, Jessica Leigh Howard, is interested in investigating how meditation and mindfulness can be explored in and of service to the embodiment of the creative process and performing aspects of dance and theatre. As a performer, her goal is to encourage a shared meditative / absorptive experience between the audience and performers. Whereas both performer and audience can break through the structure of the mind and simply be with the experience, for all it is, as it is, in and of itself. Jessica is the Abbess, Mentor & Guide of the P.O.T.E.G.P. Spiritual Guidance Center 501(c) 3. She is the lead instructor for the Center’s Yoga Teacher Training Program, a Registered Yoga School, as well as a Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider. As a dance artist she has worked with Lorraine Chapman, The Company, Ali Kenner Brodsky & Co and is currently working with Danielle Davidson. Jessica graduated with her Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Dance from Keene State College. She was a recipient of the Alta Lu Townes Memorial Endowment and the Charles Hildebrandt Award in 2009. As a theatre and dance undergraduate Jessica was privileged to study under Marcia Murdock, Cathy Nicoli, Candice Salyers, and William Seigh and was selected to work with guest artists such as Paul Besaw, Mark Dendy, Pilobolus, and Sara Sweetly Rabidoux. In 2011 she began an intensive apprenticeship in the studies of world religions and philosophy under the guidance of Greg Squillante (founder of the Philosophy of the Eight Guided Paths, Spiritual Guidance Center), until his passing in 2014. Jessica continues with her studies, practices and devotion to understanding our innate Nature.
Ellen Oliver (Ensemble) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Providence and Boston. Her work values cross-disciplinary collaboration and friendship. She is the Youth Program Director at TEN31 Productions and co-founder of ProviDANCE Project and 3 Spice Dance. Ellen is a 2016/17 Young Artist in Residence at Bearnstow, Maine, and her professional work has been presented at venues and residencies in New England, NYC, and India. Her recent short films were screened at dance film festivals including Inside/Outside Festival in New Delhi, Festival of Recorded Movement in Vancouver, the ROLLOUT Dance Film Festival in Macao, and Breaking 8 Festival of Videodance in Cagliari. Ellen is currently a dancer in Lorraine Chapman The Company and Metamorphosis Dance Company, and she has recently performed with Ali Kenner Brodsky & Co, Fusionworks Dance Company, Cynthia McLaughlin, and Kelley Donovan & Dancers. Ellen attended University of North Carolina School of the Arts for high school and received a BA at Hampshire College in 2016 with semester research at Universidad de las Artes in Havana, Cuba. Ellen is also a living statue at TEN31 Productions, mixed media painter, and rock climber.
Jacob Regan (Robert) began his study of movement with capoeira at a young age. When he was 16, he discovered dance and was forever changed. He went on to graduate from East Carolina University with a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography. Jacob found his movement home base in release technique and post modern contemporary work, citing major influences on his movement to be delving into the worlds of contact improvisation, Forsythe methods, Gaga, and working with choreographers such as Doug Varone.
Stephanie Turner (Jenny) is a dance choreographer, performer and educator based in Providence, RI. Her work evolves from a deep curiosity for learning through the body, building community and using performance as a process of re-enchanting everyday life. She has taught Contact Improvisation and Contemporary Dance as an Adjunct Lecturer at Brown University and Salve Regina University, as an independent artist at Headlong, AS220 and as a teaching fellow at Hampshire and Smith College. As the founder/director of The Movement Exchange she produced dance and theater events, hosting local and international artists. Her choreographic work has been performed in venues throughout New England and Philadelphia. She is currently a visiting artist at the Rhode Island School of Design, co-facilitating Contact Improvisation Providence and is a freelance graphic/web designer for performing arts and wellness. Stephanie received her BFA in dance performance from Rhode Island College and MFA in Choreography from Smith College.