Press

"A penetrating new evening-length dance-theatre work,...An American Rendition is dark, biting satire of the ilk that's so brilliantly constructed that it makes you laugh out loud while feeling almost sick inside as you gradually realize the true horror of what you're laughing at."

Lisa Jo Sagolla, Backstage.com: The Actor's Resource
>full article (PDF)

 

"Aided by her splendid colleagues Joan La Barbara (music), Steve Miller (visual design), David Ferry (lighting), Jung-eun Kim (video projection design) and Liz Prince (costumes), Comfort stiches her disparate materials together with almost faultless theatrical skill."

Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice
>full article(PDF)

"Ms. Comfort's muscular, often violent physical language is unsettingly evocative."

Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times
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"Mark your calender next time Comfort has a New York engagement, particularly if it's An American Rendition"

Susan Yung, Sunday Arts
>full article (PDF)

>additional press

 

 

Description

Jane Comfort and Company is a dance-theater group whose work pushes the limits of dance and drama to achieve a new form of theater. An instigator of collaborations across various artistic disciplines, Jane Comfort’s subject material is as diverse as the artists and art forms she employs.

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Jane Comfort Biography

Jane Comfort is a choreographer, director and writer who has pioneered the possibilities of multidisciplinary dance since the ‘70s. Known for issue-oriented works integrating text and movement, she is called by The New York Times “one of the most fertile minds in the theater of mixed forms,” and by The Village Voice “one of the most original choreographers on the downtown scene.”

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Repertory> full repertory info

Beauty
Beauty, a dance/theater work exploring the American notion of female beauty and its metamorphosis over the last 50 years. Beauty frames the dialogue of the cultural pressures surrounding women’s physique, attire, and appearance around the quintessential icon of American beauty: Barbie. Beauty addresses the plasticity of a variety of “benign” beauty regimens as well as self-destructive habits such as eating disorders and extreme surgeries. >read more about Beauty

 

Faith Healing
Originally produced in 1993 at PS122(NY) and then presented Off-Broadway at the Classic Stage Company (NY), Faith Healing takes the story line of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie as its point of departure. The issues of nostalgia, regret, fantasy, hope, anger, and unrequited love addressed in The Glass Menagerie are given a vivid and fresh examination through Comfort’s perspective of movement and performance theater. Additionally, the play’s themes of fantasy and nostalgia are embodied by multiple escapes into contemporary pop culture. >read more about Faith Healing

An American Rendition (60 minutes)
In a time when more votes are cast for American Idol than a presidential election, An American Rendition explores our moral and political paralysis in the face of torture alongside our national addiction to TV reality shows.

 

Fleeting Thoughts: Mr. Henderson's 3am (48 minutes)
Fleeting Thoughts: Mr. Henderson's 3AM returns Comfort to her roots - the musicality of language - after twenty years of dance theater spanning non-linear as well as narrative-driven work.

 

Underground River (25 minutes)
Underground River, winner of the Bessie Award as a “risk-taking and profound theatrical tour de force,” is a dance/theater work that explores the rich inner life of a girl who appears to the outer world to be unconscious, or comatose.

 

Persephone (35 minutes)
Persephone is performed within a set of metal and neon sculptures by internationally recognized artist Keith Sonnier, with a score based on Javanese gamelan musical structures by Tigger Benford. The work is based on the classic Greek myth of Persephone, admired by Hades who abducts her, forcing her to live with him as Queen of the Underworld.

 

 

Downloads and Links

Website: Jane Comfort & Company

 

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