Press

“The guiding spirits behind the theater of mixed forms are often choreographers....and Jane Comfort is one of the most fertile minds in this genre.”
Anna Kisselgoff, New York Times

“Jane Comfort is one of the most original choreographers on the downtown scene.”
Elizabeth Zimmer, Village Voice
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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. What remains constant is her ability to integrate seemingly disparate elements to deliver work that is gripping, inspirational, and unforgettable.

The company has been presented by Lincoln Center’s Serious Fun Festival, The Joyce Theater, Classic Stage Company, PS 122 and Dance Theater Workshop, and Danspace in NYC, The American Center in Paris, Antwerp’s Dance/USA Festival, Actors Theater of Louisville, Jacob’s Pillow, the American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, The Flynn Theater, and many theaters and colleges across the US. Recent commissions include The Joyce Theater, National Performance Network, American Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, National Ballet of Estonia, Jeanne Ruddy Dance and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

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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.”

Jane Comfort grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and received her BA in painting at the University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill. She has been making interdisciplinary work since 1978, and her company has toured throughout the US and in Europe and Latin America. The company was recently awarded a Performing Arts 2007 commission (one of only two American companies chosen) to spend a month developing work with a company in Latin America, Teatro Guaira in Brazil.

Jane Comfort and Company’s work spans both the dance and theater worlds. The company newest work, Fleeting Thoughts, is a dance theater work full of wacky and tender non-sequiturs with a music score by Joan La Barbara that she sings live with the dancers. Fleeting Thoughts was commissioned and produced by Danspace Project in March 2006. Persephone juxtaposes the Greek myth of Persephone with a score by composer Tigger Benford based on Javanese gamelon musical structures in a visual setting of neon and fiber optic sculptures by Keith Sonnier. Persephone was commissioned by The Joyce Theater and the NPN Creation Fund and had its New York premiere at The Joyce Theater in October 2004. Asphalt, a dance/opera, also premiered at The Joyce Theater in 2002 and has a book and lyrics by Carl Hancock Rux, vocal score by Toshi Reagon and instrumental score by DJ Spooky. Commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow, Underground River, with a cappella songs by Toshi Reagon and sets by Basil Twist, won a Bessie Award as a “risk-taking and profound theatrical tour de force.” The company’s work Faith Healing was produced Off Broadway after premiering at Performance Space 122.

Comfort also choreographs for theater and opera. She recently choreographed Salome for Chicago’s Lyric Opera with Deborah Voigt in the title role. She choreographed Michel Legrand and James Lapine’s Broadway musical Amour and was Associate Director/Choreographer of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Broadway musical Passion, which won four Tony Awards, including best musical. In 2004 she choreographed The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado About Nothing and in 2003 the Off-Broadway musical Wilder at Playwrights Horizons.

Jane Comfort and Company has been presented by such venues as Lincoln Center’s Serious Fun Festival, The Joyce Theater, Classic Stage Company, PS 122, Dance Theater Workshop and Danspace in NYC, The American Center in Paris, Antwerp’s Dance/USA Festival, Actors Theater of Louisville, Jacob’s Pillow, the American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, The Flynn Theater and many theaters and colleges across the country. Recent commissions include The Joyce Theater, National Performance Network, American Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, National Ballet of Estonia, Jeanne Ruddy Dance and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Jane Comfort has received 13 choreography fellowships and company grants from the NEA as well as The Doris Duke Award for New Work, and support from Creative Capital Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, NY State Council on the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, The Mary Flagler Cary Foundation, Altria, NPN Creation Fund, multiple NY Foundation for the Arts awards, Arts International, Dance Magazine Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, BUILD and other organizations.

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Repertory

An American Rendition

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. The work uses integrated text, movement and extended vocal techniques performed by a cast of seven, to depict the story of an American citizen who is kidnapped, interrogated, and tortured in a secret prison while we stayed glued to the tube following our favorite models, pop stars, and fashion queens.

At the beginning of the work, two worlds exist: a surface world of pop culture into which we are daily plugged, and an under world of torture that is happening at every moment, but which we cannot see and choose not to think of. However, as the piece progresses these two worlds intermesh, and their performative and sadistic aspects collide into one surreal reality show.

SYNOPSIS
The piece begins with a post traumatic stress syndrome flashback by a man who had been detained, flown to another country, interrogated, tortured, and finally released back to his life, which he can now barely handle. His wife is on the phone, begging him to calm himself and let a family friend into the apartment to help him.

From there, this character’s story flashbacks to his being detained at O’Hare airport, flown to a secret prison and put through a series of interrogations and tortures until his release. A bio chemist, he is reduced from a citizen with a large sense of entitlement to a broken character--physically, emotionally and spiritually. His wife files a missing person report and pursues every avenue that she can to find him. The embassy and various government agencies know nothing. It didn’t happen.

Throughout this narrative, reality shows interrupt, usually by someone indicating a channel change to cut the scene. Shows similar to America’s Next Top Model, Fear Factor, American Idol and Project Runway are enacted by the performers with contestants voted off by audience members in various scenes. These shows build to their finales and big winners. The detainee also “wins,” as he is released. But he is destroyed. And we are not paying attention, because in our collective denial we are focusing on the next new reality show star.

Throughout the work, visual artist Steve Miller’s x ray images of guns, Chanel bags, shoes, broken bones, brains, flowers and jewelry are projected using Isadora®, a live interactive video program that morphs, whirls and shatters them, conjuring TV glitz and the detainee’s collapsing psychic state. Composer Joan La Barbara creates a score of extended vocal technique that the performers sing live along with karaoke versions of pop songs.

An American Rendition has received commissioning grants from the National Performance Network and the New York State Council on the Arts as well as support from American Music Center’s Live Music for Dance. It was part of New York Theater Workshop’s Readings at Three in January 2008 and received an early work-in-progress residency at SUNY Oswego in September 2007. It will premiere at the Duke Theater, Wed-Sun, Sept 24-28, 2008 and be presented at Purdue University on Th, Oct 30, 2008 and by Cincinnati’s Contemproary Dance Theater on Fri & Sat, Jan 23 & 24, 2009.
>press release

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.

Fleeting Thoughts: Mr. Henderson's 3AM is a dance theater work for six performers exploring the restless events of a nocturnal mind—non-sequiturs both wacky and tender, hilarious and profound. Joan La Barbara has composed music that she sings live with the cast. Comfort has created a kinetic painting using movement that explores extremes of timing and spatial relationships, language that hovers just under meaning, and vocalizations that travel well beyond established boundaries.

Joan La Barbara’s score uses her unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques such as multiphonics, circular singing, ululation and glottal clicks that bridge the line between text and song.

Fleeting Thoughts premiered at Danspace Project, in New York City, March 2006. It was commissioned by Danspace Project and supported with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, American Music Center, Meet the Composer and Bossak/Heilbron Foundation, and had early development residencies at Bates Dance Festival, Swarthmore College, Hobart/Williams Smith Colleges and SUNY Brockport.

Fleeting Thoughts tours with the company's Bessie award winning piece, Underground River.

Direction: Jane Comfort
Text: Jane Comfort
Choreography: Jane Comfort and Company
Music: Joan La Barbara
Lighting Design: David Ferri
Costumes: Liz Prince
Dramaturge: Jim Lewis
Performers: Jesssica Anthony, Leslie Cuyjet, Kathleen Fisher, Olase Freeman, Lisa Niedermeyer and Peter Sciscioli

Peresephone (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. Grief stricken, Persephone’s mother, Demeter, causes all nature on earth to die until she wins Persephone's release from the Underworld each year for four months. Persephone’s natural world is one of white flooring and a white cyc upon which slide projections of painted 35 millimeter film are cast. In the chaos following her abduction, this world is torn away to reveal an underworld of metal, neon, ripped earth, and darkness. The white marley flooring is dragged back to reveal another black marley underneath. Light sculptures descend into the space, changing the stage environment to one of neon, darkness, and shadows—the underworld, and the realm of the psyche.

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