CAST
2017
“The algorithm which determines, for example, which text will be spoken at any given moment of CAST… is designed to confront its own limits, to grind its own gears, and ultimately, to fall apart; or to succeed, but just barely. There’s a non-zero probability that Yanira Castro is the Rube Goldberg of contemporary dance.”
— Brian Rogers, Fusebox’s Written & Spoken
CAST was a performance by four of the fifteen performers that created the CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR trilogy. At each performance a new, never-before-seen computer-generated script was culled from transcripts of the conversations on casting and representation. The four performers (always different and unknown to each other beforehand) received their parts and script in front of the audience and performed it for the first time together, grappling with the challenge of immediate interpretation, building the work, and becoming a cast.
CAST was commissioned by The Chocolate Factory Theater.
Team
Director, Choreographer: Yanira Castro
Collaborators & Performers: Kyle Bukhari, Simon Courchel, Leslie Cuyjet, devynn emory, Iréne Hultman, Luke Miller, Sai Somboon, David Thomson, Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, Pamela Vail, Tara Aisha Willis, Darrin Wright
Contributing Artists: John Hoobyar, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Heather Olson
Installation/Lighting Designer: Kathy Couch
Dramaturg: Susan Mar Landau
Composer/Programmer/Interaction Designer: Stephan Moore
Stage Managers: LD DeArmon
Transcribers: Stormy Budwig, Emie Hughes
Marketing Assistant: Tara Sheena
Interns: Noor Qasim, Zachary Grand, Chloe Tausk
Work-in-Progress
CATCH, The Invisible Dog Center, Brooklyn, NY, June 18, 2019
Premiere
The Chocolate Factory Theater, Long Island City, NY, September 13–23, 2017
Presentations
The Yard, Martha’s Vineyard, MA, July 18 and 20, 2019
Amherst College, Amherst, MA, January 31–February 1, 2020
Press
Eva Yaa Asantewaa in InfiniteBody, “New Yanira Castro trilogy spans three spaces and boroughs”
Brian Rogers for Fusebox’s Written & Spoken, “Brian Rogers on Yanira Castro’s Performance Trilogy CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR”
Martha Sherman for her blog, Dance View Times, “In Dialogue with a canary torsi,” Part 1 and Part 2
Funding
The creation of CAST was made possible, in part, by a generous commission from The Chocolate Factory.
CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR was also made possible with the support of a grant from The Jerome Foundation, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, and by New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Baisley Powell Elebash Fund, and Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR was also made possible by our generous Kickstarter donors.
The development of CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR was made possible, in part, by Yanira Castro’s participation in Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Extended Life Dance Development program, and the work was developed as part of the Extended Life Dance Development program, made possible in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. CAST was researched, developed, and honed with financial, administrative, and residency support from the Dance in Process program at Gibney Dance, with funds provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
We thank Amilcar Guzman for a donation to the making of CAST given in the name of the artistic legacy of his husband, choreographer André Gingras (1966 – 2013).
