The following performance and discussion were recorded at A Necessary Ecology on September 15, 2016. Jen Rosenblit and Simone Aughterlony performed a brief excerpt of their performance Everything Fits in the Room, followed by a conversation with Triple Canopy contributing editor Lizzie Feidelson. They discussed how collections of objects can suggest shifting and fixed social relationships and how performances can explore the shape of a new world order.
For A Necessary Ecology, Jen Rosenblit and Simone Aughterlony will discuss their forthcoming performance, Everything Fits in the Room with Triple Canopy contributing editor Lizzie Feidelson. Their conversation will be preceded by a brief excerpt of the performance. Rosenblit and Aughterlony invite us into a room of decaying things: bones, pine needles, grated nutmeg, the rind of a grapefruit. A collection of everyday artifacts—chairs, ladders, clamps, and rope—form the basis of a series of precarious physical entanglements. We might think of the collection of things in the room as a societal network that encompasses fixed and shifting relationships. But what is at risk in such an organization? Who doesn’t fit into the family? How do you take a bath when the tub has decomposed? Who does the washing? Should we be gentle as the beat goes on?
A Necessary Ecology is part of Triple Canopy’s Vanitas issue, which explores contemporary meditations on mortality as well as the delights, delusions, and pressures of fleshly existence. Everything Fits in the Room is part of Utopian Realities, a co-production of HAU Hebbel am Ufer and Haus der Kulturen der Welt for the festival 100 Years of Now, curated by HAU Hebbel am Ufer. The performance is funded in part by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and premieres in January 2017.
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Triple Canopy’s venue is located at 264 Canal Street 3W, near several Canal Street subway stations. Our floor is accessible by elevator (63" × 60" car, 31" door) and stairway. Due to the age and other characteristics of the building, our bathrooms are not ADA-accessible, though several such bathrooms are located nearby. If you have specific questions about access, please write at least three days before the event and we will make every effort to accommodate you.
- Simone Aughterlony is an artist based in Zurich and Berlin who predominantly works in dance and performance. She has collaborated with Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, Forced Entertainment and Jorge León, and Phil Hayes, among others. In 2015, León and Aughterlony devised Uni * Form, which premiered at Zuercher Theater Spektakel and is currently touring in Europe. In the same year, she was awarded the Swiss Dance Award for outstanding female performer. She is currently collaborating with Jen Rosenblit on the project Everything Fits in the Room, commissioned by HAU Hebbel am Ufer and Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
- Jen Rosenblit lives in New York City and makes performance that engages bodies, architectures, and ideas surrounding the discontents of desire and autonomy. Her works focus on an improvisational approach to choreographic thought, locating ways of being together amidst seemingly impossible spaces. Recent works include Clap Hands (Invisible Dog/New York Live Arts, 2016) and a Natural dance (the Kitchen, 2014). Rosenblit is a 2016 MAP FUND recipient and a 2015–16 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence; she received a 2014 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Emerging Choreographer for a Natural dance. Rosenblit’s upcoming work, Swivel Spot, in collaboration with Geo Wyeth, premieres at the Kitchen in March 2017.