LISA FAY AND JEFF GLASSMAN
Lisa Fay and Jeff Glassman are composing and performing movement-based
theatre artists, working together since 1991, who apply complex composed structures to ordinary daily human
behavior. Notated movement scores often
accompany their productions. In their
collaborative work for theatre ‘natural-looking’ behavior is subjected to
contortions, subversions and convolutions, letting ‘naturalism’ show its
socially constructed face. They invent
systems for organizing movement and speech in theatre, similarly to how new
systems for organizing sound have been invented for composing music. Each theatre composition, utilizing a
repertory of gestural-choreographic innovations invented by the duo, proposes a
specific critical look at social life.
These inventions include a technique for the orchestration of
instantaneous shifts of time and place in complex patterns.
Performances consist of 4-7 pieces selected from the repertory of theatre compositions, and run from 1-2 hours. Preferably, a performance is tied to a workshop or demonstration-lecture.
Their collective professional histories since 1971 include tours, teaching and
performance residencies, and featured performances at theatres, festivals,
colleges, and public television in the U.S., Eastern and Western Europe,
Mexico, Cuba and Korea, as well as awards that include a Choreography
Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and two Artist Fellowship
Awards for Choreography from the Illinois Arts Council. The duo is a member
ensemble of the Network of Ensemble Theaters.
The duo welcomes invitations to create
works for other ensembles, engage in collaborative projects, and conduct
performance and teaching residencies.
They live in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in the USA, and can be
contacted through JeffGlassman0@gmail.com