Living Legacy artist Ann Carlson returned to MANCC for the final residency in a series of three supporting the development of her solo project, Dumbo Redacted, which she will both choreograph and perform.

Carlson is an interdisciplinary artist who borrows techniques from dance, performance, theater, and visual and conceptual art, and often dismantles conventional boundaries between artist and subject. She has been a Visiting Artist at Stanford University and has received numerous awards for her work including a Creative Capital Award, USA Artist Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Foundation for Contemporary Art Fellowship, and was the first Herb Alpert awardee in Choreography in 1995.

Dumbo Redacted builds upon her celebrated “Animals” series, and is informed by the movement and mythologies surrounding earth’s largest land mammal, the elephant. The piece is set inside a circus ring and is a story caught both out of sequence and out of date. The work plays with clumsy grace and wild quiet as it collides and colludes with time, gravity, fury, and redemption. Carlson’s dramaturg for the project, Melanie Joseph, continued to assist in refining the narrative and scenic elements of the work while in residence.

At MANCC, Carlson presented her work in an Open Rehearsal during the School of Dance’s weekly Forum. To further her research, Carlson met with FSU Flying High Circus Director, Chad Mathews, to discuss the history and structures of circus performance. As the Director of one of two programs of its kind in a university setting, Mathews spoke with Carlson about the history of circus in the United States, the politics of animals as entertainers and laborers, and the structure and format of traditional circus shows. Carlson observed the student circus performers in rehearsal for their upcoming Spring performance.

MANCC acknowledges the need for deeper, more sustained support to allow artists to research their ideas in and out of the studio, from concept to movement, to production and design. For this reason, with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, MANCC has made a multi-year, multi-residency commitment to supporting vanguard artists at each phase in the development of their work. Carlson is one such artist receiving this sustained support.

Living Legacy Artist Ann Carlson returned to MANCC for her third residency to continue to develop Dumbo Redacted, a solo performance work that builds upon her celebrated "Animals" series and was the focus of her prior residency in the spring of 2016. Carlson resumed the work she began in that residency with dramaturg Melanie Joseph to refine the focus of Dumbo Redacted. Carlson met with sculptor, Carolyn Henne, to research the possibilities of working with material on the body. Continuing her exploration, Carlson began to experiment with hay as a scenic element, while wearing trampoline-like “moon shoes”. Joseph spoke about her work in the field with students taking a course titled Theory of Performance and Directing.

In this second residency, Carlson also began to work on a new ensemble dance work, Elizabeth, the dance, that traces personal and public histories through the lens of aesthetics, embodiment, and desire. Carlson sketched material to build an episodic accumulation of dances and songs, working with "found" movement from modern dance history and individual dancers’ experience. Carlson worked with ten School of Dance students in this exploration.

A public work-in-progress showing, featuring these School of Dance students, was held for Elizabeth, the dance as part of the School of Dance Forum.

Carlson will return to MANCC to further her work in a future residency.

This residency was made possible with generous support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Dumbo Redacted, a solo performance work that continues her celebrated Animal series, was the subject of Living Legacy Artist Ann Carlson’s second residency at MANCC. An abstract story, Dumbo Redacted is an elegy for the past, a celebration of a threatened species, and an invitation to observe the imaginary while anticipating the real. The work plays with clumsy grace, wild quiet, and moving stillness, informed by the movement, intelligence, and mythology of the largest land mammal on earth.

While in residence, Carlson honed the project’s focus by experimenting with costumes and props, formalizing the movement language, and solidifying the thematic contours of the work. Carlson explored the early beginnings of the work with dramaturg Melanie Joseph. This connection marked an interesting moment for Carlson, as collaborating with a dramaturg at such an early stage of the creative process was a new step in her creative practice.

Dance Dramaturgy was the focus of the Entrypoints offered during the residency. Carlson and Joseph hosted a School of Dance Open Forum where they discussed Dumbo Redacted and demonstrated their approach to working together as choreographer and dramaturg. Carlson shared archival footage of her influential Animal Series while parsing her approach and concerns in each work. Later, Professor Mary Karen Dahl’s Graduate Dramaturgy class visited the rehearsal studio where they participated in a sample of the processes and discussions employed while developing Dumbo Redacted. Carlson also engaged with the College of Fine Art’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence MK Haley.

This initial residency for Dumbo Redacted laid the groundwork for several forthcoming residencies, which will occur at MANCC over the course of the next several years.

Ann Carlson’s residency was made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Ash and Artifact: What the Body Knows is an exploration of the way a body of work becomes re-framed over time. While in residence Carlson explored the following questions while re-learning her own pieces created between 1984 and 2003.

What if I just try to remember work from my body (refuse to look at documentation)? 
Where does past work (choreography/text/image/costume) live in the body? 
What am I remembering exactly in rebuilding the work -- documentation or performing or the process of making the work? 
What impact does work made in one time (say 20 years ago) have on the contemporary moment and visa versa? 
What should I do if I don’t like the work anymore? 
What should I do if I can’t do certain parts of the work? 
How will the work be different and how will I know? 
How does the present re-frame work that was made in the past? 
How does a new generation perceive work that was made in another time? 
Does that matter? Is temporal work really timeless? 
What if I invite another choreographer into these questions and dialogue while re-learning the work?

Carlson engaged in daily reflections with faculty and community members to discuss the impact of historical context upon the material. ?She also rehearsed the material through short, impromptu “bursts” in dance, theater, and performance art classes across campus, enabling opportunities for reflection with another generation of audiences and art-makers. The residency culminated with a public showing and dialogue of six solo pieces: Balcony, Blanket, Grass, Bird, Rodeo, and Premiere, that had never previously been presented together in one evening.

During the residency, Carlson also met with a multitude of prospective partners (day care centers, horse farms, puppeteer, and theater directors) to consider options for casting, space, and other logistics for Yellow Bud. This work, a large project commissioned by the Children's Theater Company in Minneapolis, will be a movement-based performance experience for children 18 months to 3 years old.