The performing arts centers at The Egg and the University at Albany, which jointly present Dance in Albany, are proud to present the next two offerings in the series which will both take place in early February. Monica Bill Barnes & Company will be in the Capital Region for a week-long residency leading up to a performance of The Running Show on Saturday, February 3, 2024 at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on the uptown University at Albany campus. Italy’s NoGravity Theatre will make its Capital Region debut at The Egg at the Empire State Plaza in downtown Albany on Friday, February 9, 2024 at 8pm.
Founded in 1997, MBB&CO is a New York based dance company that began with a suitcase of costumes and a collection of solos that could be performed anywhere. Since then, Barnes has worked with many artists and performers, including long time collaborators/designers Jane Cox and Kelly Hanson and performer Anna Bass, in developing relatable work with a subversive sense of humor. Since 2013, MBB&CO has been co-led by Barnes in partnership with Robbie Saenz de Viteri where the mission evolved to “bringing dance where it doesn’t belong.”
Together, Barnes and Saenz de Viteri make performances that combine their shared interest in the underlying comedy at work in our lives and ones that hope to find something sacred in the mundane. They cross genres between dance, theater, storytelling, creative nonfiction, feminist treatises and comedy. Their work has traveled to a wide range of theaters ranging from off-Broadway’s WP Theater to The Sydney Opera House, and many in between. They have also created performances in malls, conference rooms, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and interactive websites. They redefine what constitutes performance in every show while maintaining the audience’s experience as the center of everything they create. Their work has been honored by the Bessie Awards, Lilly Awards and Chita Rivera Awards as well as numerous foundations.
The Running Show is a live, physical documentary about the life of a dancer. The show mixes Barnes’s athletic, rigorous dance with stories and interviews told by Saenz de Viteri. Every time it is presented, it is remade with a cast of local dancers supplementing the company members. The cast, which includes Skidmore students plus other locals for the UAlbany performance, learns choreography and participates in audio-only interviews during the residency. Their voices and stories are included in the show.
Described as “full-throttle, humor-infused dance-theater” by Dance Magazine, The Running Show turns dance into a live sporting event for an unprecedented look into the life of a dancer as a new kind of sports hero, one that keeps moving against all odds.
Arts Air declared “The Running Show created a glorious and touching metaphor for that race we call life. …thoughtfully crafted, enthusiastically performed and universally relatable to dancers and non-dancers alike, The Running Show crossed its finish line as an endearing and entertaining winner.” Chatham Life & Style claimed, “The Running Show is a marriage between dance and persuasive essay. It is This American Life meets Center Stage. Perhaps you’ve heard of a Choreopoem. This show is a Choreopodcast.”
Advance tickets for MBB&Co’s The Running Show are $15 for the general public and $10 for students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff. Tickets purchased on the day of the show are $20 for the general public and $15 for students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff. Individual tickets can be purchased on the UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s site at www.albany.edu/pac/tickets.
The performance by MBB&CO is a collaboration with the Dance Department at Skidmore College. The engagement is supported by The Audience Building Project, a program of the Lake Placid Center for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the Governor and New York State Legislature. Additional support is provided by the University at Albany Foundation and University Auxiliary Services.
The performance by NoGravity Theatre is supported by Executive Park at 4 Tower Place in Albany.