NY, NY 10019
In Oscillating While Dreaming, choreographer Dylan Crossman creates a site-specific dance piece in response to an installation of outdoor bronze sculptures — Wandering Mountain (2014) and Temptation (2014) — by the noted sculptor and leading figure in American art furniture, Wendell Castle. The performance is held in conjunction with Wendell Castle Remastered at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) on view October 20, 2015 – February 28, 2016.
Oscillating While Dreaming is Crossman’s attempt to animate the human hand in Castle’s abstract sculptural works. Through an investigation of Castle’s sculptural practice, Crossman explores his own creative process and in comparing the two, notes the need for art to acknowledge spontaneous accidents that lead the maker into new realms of discovery. Bridging sculpture and dance, Crossman simulates Castle’s balance of organic and modern forms in a fluidly architectural performance that addresses “relative failure.†Defining the limits of an idea, a concept, or a space becomes an integral part of the piece, even when it leads to dead-ends.
Joining Crossman is long-time Merce Cunningham Dance Company dancer Lisa Boudreau and new Shen-Wei Dance Arts recruit Russell Stuart Lilie. Oscillating While Dreaming was commissioned for Wendell Castle Remastered by Katerina Llanes, Manager of Public Programs at MAD.
Costume consultation by Costello of Reid and Harriet Design.
Dylan Crossman graduated from the Laban Centre (UK) in 2006 and performed at Burklyn Ballet Theatre before moving to New York. He joined the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 2009 after working daily with Cunningham for two years as an understudy.
Now freelance, Crossman works with Pam Tanowitz, Kimberly Bartosik/Daela, Sally Silvers and Ryan McNamara. He is a faculty member for the Cunningham Trust and a NYLA associate artist, as well as a substitute teacher for Purchase College. Crossman has returned to Burklyn Ballet Theatre as a master teacher. He also established his own company, Crossman Dans(c)e, in 2013 which looks at identity issues in human behavior. Crossman Dans(c)e has performed at Abrons Art Center as a part of Laurie Uprichard’s Travelogues series and at the 92nd street Y as part of the Fridays @ Noon series: Looking to the Future. BOUND, his latest solo (2015) received a Foundation for Contemporary Art’s emergency grant. Crossman received a Bessie Schonberg Award for his performance in Pam Tanowitz’s Be in the Grey with me. In addition, Kid Birds, a project inspired by Merce Cunningham’s work and performed by both French and political refugee middle-school children in France, won the French Cultural and Artistic Audacity Award in 2014.
Lisa Boudreau graduated from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School and became a member of the Cunningham Dance Foundation Repertory Group in August 1994. Lisa currently teaches Cunningham technique classes at the Merce Cunningham Trust.
Russell Stuart Lilie graduated from Idyllwild Academy in 2008 and completed his BFA in Dance at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2011. Since graduation, Russell has danced for Shen Wei Dance Arts, Greene Lilie, Dai Jian Dance, Jordan Isadore and others. His choreographic works have been presented at NYU, Danspace, La MaMa, Gibney Dance Center and Bennington College. He has also taught dance, dance composition and improvisation in New York, at Bennington College and at Beijing Normal University in China.
