MISCELLANEA

MinuteZero NYC Presents MISCELLANEA: An Immersive Dance Experience

A theatrical experience that exists inside a metaphorical mood ring, MinuteZero will collaborate with lighting designer Mextly Couzin (Birthday Candles, Which Way To The Stage) to wash the space and event-goers completely in curated, colored light. Built to a live soundtrack spun by DJ and Broadway favorite Ari Groover (recent DJ highlights include the 2022 TONYs and Pride Times Square), and guided by a cast of Timekeepers, audience members are treated to an evening that is part theater, part ritual, and part good old-fashioned dance party.

Directed by Kristin Yancy.

Choreographed and Conceived by Kristin Yancy, Clinton Edward, Mayte Natalio, Chris and Lauren Grant/CREELO, and Emily Palmquist. MISCELLANEA is a MinuteZero NYC production.

With Lighting Design by Mextly Couzin and Music Supervision by Eric Chaves.

MISCELLANEA features live performance by Penelope Wendtlandt and DJing by Ari Grooves.

#TheColorWheelIsReal. 

Performances begin on August 25th, 2022 at Event Hall BK in Brooklyn.

Early bird tickets start at $35 and are available at MISCELLANEA.eventbrite.com. 

PIECES OF A PANDEMIC

At the time, I didn’t feel like I wanted these to be too accessible. I was too fragile, and they were too strange. And I liked making a digital journal that most humans wouldn’t see. It felt good to make things without wondering if they made sense, if they were connected, if they were any good. It was nice to have a prompt, to make a mood board, not for a client or a project, just to jump start something, anything, creative.

Looking at some of these pieces together, they’re a mood board in and of themselves. And this is the only place I have to pin fragments like these and not lose them to the CLOUD, where mp4s go to die. So I’ll leave them here, where they can talk to each other, and one day I’ll revisit them and see what they have to say.

CHARACTER SKETCHES: HONKY CAT

THIS CAT IS A HONKY CAT.

HONKY 2.jpg
HONKY 1.jpg

This cat thinks she’s a dog.

(Until she returns to her hometown and realizes that she is, in fact, a cat.)

—

1/3 CHARACTER SKETCHES.

Filmed and Edited by Jake Primmerman/PRIMMETIME VIDEO

Concept and Choreography by Kristin Yancy

Music: Honky Cat by Elton John

I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THIS MUSIC.

AN OFFERING FOR THE TIME CAPSULE

A love letter, an ode, a guide. A prompt I might never have given myself, which ironically sparked something that made me feel the most like myself, more than I had in a long time.

Photo by Julia Discenza

Photo by Julia Discenza

Heartfelt thanks to the ever lovely Michael Callahan for including me in the stellar lineup of choreographers that made up The Love Project, and to Sean Dolan, for embracing my weird idea (and my very long shot list) and bringing it to life with so much care. I’m in awe of your talents.

AN OFFERING FOR THE TIME CAPSULE

Written, Choreographed, and Performed by Kristin Yancy (hi there)

Director of Photography: Sean Dolan

With a special guest appearance by Eric Chaves

Music: Magnificat in D Major, BWV 243, Johann Sebastian Bach; Glori Patri, Monteverdi Choir, John Eliot Gardiner, & English Baroque Soloists

January Twins

This little video is an ode to sun and the human that is technically not my twin but actually is, for all intensive purposes. So cheers to quirk and weirdos and this very blue sky and my little Nina who makes me want to skip and giggle, below:

10 points if you can correctly guess which witch is which.

I guess the only other thing to say is how great it is to see people framed by stunning visual places and spaces and also CLEARLY I am a big fan of Wes Anderson and my subconscious is kind of a thief. The life lesson here: the beautiful thing about claiming the role of an amateur filmmaker is that I can try whatever the EFF I want.  

Wowza, right? Click below for a beach vacation:

Inside the Mumus: Kristin and Nina Yancy

Music: JazzyFrenchy, Royalty Free courtesy of BenSound.com

Edited by #1 Lover of PaddleTurns, AKA Me

THE HUNT

I've been gone from this blog for a while. Not because I haven't been making things. But because I've been making one, huge thing. This thing we called The Hunt. And we shared it. From November 17th-21st, we shared it, and now I am taking some time to think about what exactly it even was.

This is what I remember from that time, and what I learned.

It's fall. I'm running to catch these witches, to make them real. I'm obsessed, and it feels pretty damn good.

I'm about to work harder on this than I've worked on almost anything. I'll dream about it at night, and I'll roll out of bed in the morning and open my computer, only to find myself still in the same position six hours later, dragging these witches out of the universe. I'll break down, twice. It will instigate exactly one big fight in my relationship. I would be proud it was just the one time, except for that I know the credit doesn't belong to me because my partner is a superhero.

I will be amazed at how things come together, figure themselves out, once they've begun. I will be amazed by the talent around me, the willingness of others to jump. I will relish the opportunity to stand outside of this and watch, for once.

Working on it will change my understanding of my community. I will see friendships in new light, all kinds of light. I will see what I'm capable of, and I will take on the jobs I normally hate, gladly.

I will see the downfalls and perks of mixing naiveté and optimism. I realize that I can't do everything, but I try anyway. 

I will take pride in finishing what I started. At the end, I'll feel very tired, but I'll wonder also what comes next. 

I'm still wondering, but something is starting to stir. Witches may visit me again. I hope they do.

Until then, a documentation. This is the long-form of the teaser we circulated. I'm sharing this one because we chose to circulate the shorter one, but I made this first, in a frenzy, and this blog is the place where I share the real and rough versions of my heart.

Here is a behind-the-scenes view of what we we looked like in process:

Here is what it felt like to reach our fundraising goals:

Here is what we built, from scratch:

Here is a bit of what it looked like in real life:

And , most importantly, here are the people who made it happen:

Stay tuned for a reappearance of the beast itself. 

 

Oh, Ruby

The following can be credited to one of those times when the joke became the work. 

In this case the "joke" was brought on by a late night jam session with friends, which birthed a sort of irreverent character that was so clear in my mind that I felt we had to make some visual record of her.

Leading up to this point, I had been trying to build what might be classified as a "serious" phrase, something grounded and earthy, and also, evidently, something stubborn, as inspiration would not come and I was left with some very disjointed pieces which I had no choice but to abandon and bookmark for later.

But I was teaching the following day and I needed a phrase. What followed was a caricature of the "other girl" that was awake at that hour (it was a late night)--- or how I envisioned her--- someone stylish but just a bit overdressed, free but teetering on the edge of sloppy, and, most importantly, someone who was fresh out of fucks to give. 

Only badass, confident women could run with this prompt the way Mel, V, and Em could and did. So a cheers and stomp for them, and a cheers and a stomp for you, for watching this, and then hopefully putting on a red lip and a lash and raising some hell.

Enjoy.

Rabble-Rousers: Melanie Comeau, Victoria Finehout Vigil, Emily Palmquist

Tunes: Ruby Blue, by Roisin Murphy

Concept, Choreo, Film, and Edits by Yours Truly, with some help from the keen eyes and ears of a one Mr. Eric Chaves.

Point of Invention

I have thought for a long time on whether or not to share the origin text that inspired this piece.

I’m not going to. It gives too much. Which might seem odd, given that in other cases I have expressed a commitment to being clear with the viewer, but you know? Sometimes I find that source material restricts the viewer to only seeing one (JUST ONE) truth? And in art, in everything, there is so much more to see than a singular Option A. The dancers themselves did not even see the origin story until just before going onstage at their opening performance.

Now that it's made, it doesn't belong to us anymore anyway. Us= myself, and my choreographic partner on this one, Katherine Roarty, who I'm also very lucky to call a friend. I think some of the complexities of our friendship snuck into the fabric of this piece, which I love. And I think it is evident just how beautiful stories can be when they are a teensy bit strange? Beauty only results for me when I do not strive for beauty. 

The only other thing I'll say is this: look at these young young souls! How much to be learned from working with dancers fresh to this madness!  I'm remembering my own experiences with these kinds of beginnings. 

Watch the fountain of youth below:


—

Filmed by the fabulous and fearless Natalie Deryn Johnson of Lady Deryn Photography. To see more of her goodness: http://ladyderynphotography.com/promo.

Video Credits:

Music: Cirrus, Bonobo

Choreographed by Katherine Roarty and Kristin Yancy

Filmed by Natalie Deryn Johnson

Edited by Kristin Yancy

Performers: Mariah Aivazis, Christina Barr, Brooklyn Bass, Kaitlyn Bonanno, Christophe Desorbay, Shany Dagan, Tessa Jenkins, Sofie Payne, Marisa Schaefer, Marah Thornhill, Hannah Triquet, Adam Wedesky, Corey Wright, Sydney Zucker

Sly and Wily Ones

It is remarkable, I find, how much a space can feed us, and how much we can, in turn, charge a space. In this case, I am referring to the chemical reaction that occurred when a hotel room with bad lighting slowly became wistful, melancholy, and full of memory. I personally became very aware of just how many people had passed through the exact same room, slept there, woke there. I think the boys felt their ghosts.

a frame within a frame within a night.

a frame within a frame within a night.

Another thought occurred to me in editing, and that is this phenomenon: the sudden frustration of losing a motor skill, one generally taken for granted, for no other reason than the fact that someone has just reminded you to do it. I am talking, in this case, about blinking. I have heard recently a theory about blinking that I like very much: that the act of blinking is the method in which we capture and compartmentalize memory. The blink is the shutter for the camera that is your brain. Isn't that great?! I have attempted to give a nod to this in Sly and Wily Ones.

See these flickering lights:

Performers: Alexander Cruz, Alejandro Fonseca, Michael Ehlers

Thanks to: Emilio Ramos for indulging me, and keeping a steady hand when my own started to fail me.

team efforts, brought to you by late night Chinese food.

team efforts, brought to you by late night Chinese food.

"Maybe that is because I long for the time when we sat all day in the sun and laughed for a while, then wept while masked actors wailed, and both the humor and the desperation of life were illuminated on one day."

Sarah Ruhl, 100 Essays I Don't Have Time To Write (on Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater)

Mister Sister

Familiar concept, unfamiliar task.

Encouraged by a bottle of red wine and my creative partner in crime, Clinton Edward, and inspired by the following lines pulled from a journal entry made on September 1, 2015:

“...small splurges felt like luxuries. A printed bowl. A clean white candle. The smooth black surface of an old round table. Soft, soft sheets.”


and:

“It was meditative, the undertaking of these tasks. Their completion was oddly exposing, auto-biographical. Which is why I invited so few people to see it.”

and:

“It was, perhaps, the most time I had ever spent alone.”

The contrasts I see in the end result make me uncomfortable, but mostly in a good way? The music choice, most of all, is unsettling.

Watch the test run of all of this here:

Homebodies: Clinton Edward and Kristin Yancy

Edited by this number one strange-o, hi.

Music: “Unsquare Dance” by Dave Brubeck Quartet.
…

(It feels worth it to mention that the night later evolved (devolved?) into this:)

and that'll be all, for now.