Empty is Also

Tamar Ettun and Emily Coates

• X Intiative
• 548 W 22nd Street
• Saturday, November 7 - Saturday, November 14, times vary

Integrating objects, a dancer, a musician, and video, “Empty Is Also” inverts the usual conception of dance and sculpture in relation to the ephemeral by investigating dance’s durability versus sculpture’s ultimate disposability.  The dancer inhabits the sculptural forms even as she rearranges them to create a sequence of landscapes that shift over time.  The sculpture reflects the dancer’s energy and agency, while her movement absorbs the shape and nature of the objects with which she interacts. The tension between the perceived natures of sculpture and dance serves as the installation’s primary conflict, or reason for being. Music by Jane Ira Bloom. AUDIENCE IS INVITED TO ENTER AND LEAVE AT ANY TIME.

Tamar Ettun (Israeli, b. 1982) currently attends Yale University School of Art, from which she will graduate in 2010 with an MFA in Sculpture. She studied at Cooper Union in 2007 while earning her BFA from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, where she graduated with honors. Ettun has previously exhibited at The Jewish Museum NYC, The Center for Contemporary Art (Tel Aviv), Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, and The Israel Museum. Ettun has been honored by several organization including AICF and Artis.

Emily Coates has danced with New York City Ballet, White Oak Dance Project, Twyla Tharp Dance, and Yvonne Rainer, among others. Career highlights include three duets with Mikhail Baryshnikov: Mark Morris’ The Argument, in Karole Armitage’s The Last Lap, and Erick Hawkins’ Early Floating. Her current projects include a 2009 residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, in which she is developing a duet with Lacina Coulibaly, a dancer-choreographer based in Burkina Faso.  She teaches at Yale University and serves as the artistic director of the World Performance Project at Yale.

Commissioned by Performa. Presented by X Initiative. Supported by the Office of Cultural Affairs, Consulate General of Israel.

Nov. 7, 6-9pm
Nov. 14, 1-4pm

FREE