And Now, Hold Me
“And Now, Hold Me” offers up kaleidoscopic approaches to holding space via prismatic performance. This unflinchingly tender and unfailingly tenacious duet teases apart the relationship between self and space by using performance as means to couple the living in—and holding of—fleshy bodies and social spheres.
What to expect:
A 55-minute contemporary performance including:
Two unmasked performers
Full, vigorous dancing with spoken and sung text
Loud music and very quiet moments
Performers being in close to the first row of audience only during the last 5 minutes of the performance, always keeping a minimum of 6 feet of distance.
Captioning via iPad at each performance.
ASL Interpretation on Saturday’s performance.
Calendar
Past
Jan 22-23, 2022: Dance Place (Washington, DC)
Oct 18, 2020: BEING HERE Workshop at Dance Place (Washington, DC)
Jan 10, 2020: Yale School of Drama (New Haven, CT)
Sep 14, 2019: American University Museum at Katzen Arts Center (Washington, DC)
Aug 12-16, 2019: Sibu International Dance Festival (Sibu, Malaysia)
Jul 21, 2019: VisArts Rooftop (Richmond, VA)
Jun 8, 2019: SMUSH Gallery (Jersey City, NJ)
May 8, 2019: Baryshnikov Arts Center (New York, NY)
May 3, 2019: Dance Exchange (Washington, DC)
Credits
Producer, Director, Britta Joy Peterson
Performance and Movement Collaboration by Sergio Guerra Abril and Dylan Lambert
Lighting by Evan Anderson
Scenery by Elsa Rinde
Sound by Gavin Price
Costumes by Stephanie Bahniuk
Associate Producing by Olivia Weber
Original Music by Evan Anderson and Liam Bellman-Sharpe
Text generated by the artists
Music: “Big Rock”, “Little Rock” and “Christian Rock” by Evan Anderson, “In Moments of Pause or Repetitive Movement” by Liam Bellman-Sharpe, “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis & The News, “Liebstraum No. 3” by Franz Lizt performed by Evgeny Kissin, “Desátame” by Mónica Naranjo, “Happy Days are Here Again” by Jack Yellen and Milton Ager
Performance Provocation by Pixie Adventura, Inertia Dewitt, Patty Gallagher, Kristopher Pourzal
Process Responders: Nathan Bluestein, Amanda Blythe, Sean Doyle, Carolyn Hoehner, Elizabeth Johnson, Nikki Lane, Isaiah Wooden
Images by Elsa Rinde
Video Content Creation by Erin Sullivan
And Now, Hold Me is supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
Intersections
Relational Series
“And Now, Hold Me” is the final project in BJP’s relational series; a trilogy of duets including “Vinegar Spirit” (2018) and “Tired hearts kick darkness and bleed light." (2016). “Tired hearts…” grapples with the relationship with other – specifically through the lens of durational relationships (siblings, romantic partners, etc.) where “Vinegar Spirit” spirals through the relationship with self through the lens of gendered comportment. As the final duet, And Now, Hold Me encapsulates four years of research through a boundary-pushing and boundary-breaking process of holding space.
BEING HERE: Strategies for holding space for self/others in an increasingly virtual world
Inertia DeWitt, Mental Health Professional and Healing Arts Practitioner, and Britta Joy Peterson, Dance Place Artist in Residence, share strategies for holding space in a time where space is, well, spacey. Springing from BJP’s research within And Now, Hold Me and DeWitt’s work in somatic psychotherapy, this interactive workshop offers real-time methods for connecting and communicating more fully with self and others for in-person and virtual settings.