From July 22 to 25, 2009, Minneapolis-based Time Track Productions, headed by Paula Mann, an originator of NY's "downtown dance," will perform her newest evening-length work, "I Love Tomorrow" at Dance Theater Workshop, Manhattan. The piece comes to NYC with assistance from the McKnight Foundation Fellowship program.
Structurally complex, "I Love Tomorrow" connects perceptions on the passage of time and the organization of events through memory. Utilizing the concept of backward causation, the work reverses itself upon itself. It strives to elucidate the circuitous journey of the past in relationship to preconceived notions about the future, transposing the literary form of memoir into a movement-based structure that integrates video, animation and dance into a whole new environment.
Mann reveals her story by creating scenes based on pivotal life experiences in which one simple decision changed her direction forever. For instance, in the early seventies Mann, then 14, decided to run away from home and hitchhike across country, "my first courageous, crazy, yet creative act." This event led her to study modern dance, attend NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and form a dance company in New York during the 1980's (Dudek/Mann + Dancers). In "I Love Tomorrow," five performers careen from giddy optimism to unsettling density, charting the creative seismic changes that occur over thirty years of making dances as if their outcome was somehow their cause.
Choreography and direction are by Paula Mann. Media are by Steve Paul. The sound score is compiled by Steve Paul and includes music from The Books and Brahms. The performers are Jessica Briggs, Robert Haarman, Dustin Maxwell, Stephanie Shirek and Paula Mann. The performance will include a cameo by New York actor Stephen Peabody ("One True Thing," "Law and Order," etc.).
Backward induction is the process of reasoning backwards in time, from the end of a problem or situation, to determine what would have been the optimal sequence of actions. As a theme of the piece, it is conveyed more structurally than through particular images. In the middle of the dance, following a duet between Steven Peabody and Paula Mann, there is a turning point in which Paula Mann is on a swing with video projected on her back. It contains a collage of videos of Mann 30 years ago at Merce Cunningham, so that her younger self is projected on her older self. From that point, the piece reverses itself, ending with its beginning. Along the way, it comments on the nature of dance and performance.
The movement of the piece is postmodern but with an energetic vocabulary that is Mann's own, evolved over 30 years of her work. She says it is filled with the influences she was taught along the way, mentioning Cunningham, Limon/Humphrey, Eric Hawkins, Bertram Ross and DV8. It is somewhat theatrical-based because it's not movement for its own sake, but linked to an emotional energy in her and connected to the narrative.
Paula Mann is a 2008-2009 McKnight Foundation Fellow in Choreography. She began her dance studies in 1974 when she attended an early admission program at Kent State University. She was introduced to modern dance initially through improvisation and composition, and continued to study a range of techniques including Humphrey/Limon, Hawkins Technique, Cunningham, Ballet, Release Technique and Contact Improvisation. While still in high school she toured with the Kent State University experimental movement troupe "FIBER" As a part of the bicentennial activities, FIBER improvised their way through a tour of Ohio (which included performances on Cincinnati streets and buses) supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Mann moved to New York in 1977 and soon became part of the burgeoning downtown dance community. Her first concert of choreography was produced at the Merce Cunningham Studio in 1980 and later that year she co-founded Dudek/Mann + Dancers with partner Tina Dudek. Dudek/Mann performed in many New York venues, toured the north east, and were amongst the youngest women to be given a full production at Dance Theater Workshop as a part of the 1985 Winter Events Series.
Mann moved to the Twin Cities from New York in 1987, armed with a BA and MFA in dance from New York University, and following seven years as co-director of Dudek/Mann + Dancers. Building on a background of modern dance technique and ballet, she has expanded the scope of her work as a dancer and choreographer to include animation, text, sound collage and physical theater, creating unique performance experiences. Since her arrival in the Twin Cities fifteen years ago, Mann has created 35 new works. She is now co-artistic director of Time Track Productions, whose mission is to explore the relationship between media and humanity using live performance as a foundation. In 1999, she traveled to Germany to study with DV8 and now considers this an important influence.
