Guggenheim
Fellows in Choreography, Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer have collaborated as
performers and choreographers since 1978. Their innovative work developing
"video partnering" — the total integration of live performance and
video technology — has been acclaimed for exploding the duet form into a
magically populated stage where image and reality collide.
Since 2001, they
have been creating their own alchemy of the live and the virtual in works that
probe the themes of identity and perception while asking the question:
"what is real and what is image?" This has led to their current
works, Trilogy and Double Expose, where they enhance the possibilities of dance
by multiplying, transposing and manipulating their own life-size video images,
and integrating these images into their live performance. Their distinctive use
of technology, their sensual partnering, and their surprising humor give the
work a physically and theatrically riveting edge.
Bridgman and
Packer are the first to have been jointly awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in
recognition of their collaborative work. They are also recipients of grants
from the National Endowment for the Arts ('07, '08, '09, '10, '11), New England
Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, USArtists
International, Performing Americas Project, National Performance Network, and
La Red. They have received two Choreography Fellowships, as well as a BUILD
grant, from the New York Foundation for the Arts, three National Performance
Network Creation Fund Awards, and commissions from Dance Theater Workshop,
Danspace Project, the 92nd Street Y New Works in Dance Fund, and Dance New
Amsterdam.
Based in New
York City, they have been presented by City Center Fall For Dance Festival,
Lincoln Center, The Baryshnikov Arts Center, The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance
Festival, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Performance Space 122,
Dance New Amsterdam, and Central Park's Summerstage.
They have toured
throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Central America, performing in
festivals, art centers, and universities including: Spoleto Festival
USA, Jacob's Pillow
Dance Festival, Munich
International Dance Festival, The Institute
for Contemporary Art/Boston,The Ordway
Center for the Performing Arts (St. Paul), Festival
Internacional de Artes Escenicas, Panama, Aronoff Center
for the Arts (Cincinnati), Bates Dance
Festival, and Kintetsu
Theater, Osaka, Japan.
Bridgman/Packer
have been guest artists at over 100 universities including New York
University's Tisch School of the Arts, California Institute of the Arts, Ohio
State University, Arizona State University, and the University of Utah.
Bridgman and
Packer were selected as Dance Theater Workshop Digital Fellows. They were
highlighted in Dance Magazine's issue on Great Partnerships, and their work in
live performance and video technology is featured in the 2009 book
"Gegenwelten, Zwischen Differenz und Reflexion" (Against Worlds,
Between Difference and Reflection) by Jurgen Schlader and Franziska Weber,
published in Munich.
Maggie Allesee
