During my residency, I will be coming to the Egg to further develop my new choreographic work “wish you were here.” that will be presented on Friday June 1 and Saturday June 2 at 8 PM as a part of Take Root at Green Space in Long Island City, Queens. Below is a description of the work, my bio, and photos from the piece when it was last presented.

Grant Jacoby is a New York City based choreographer, performer, and teacher. He received his BA in Dance and Theater from Connecticut College and his MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College. He has performed in works by Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, David Parker & The Bang Group, Mark Dendy, Annie Kloppenberg, and Lauren Simpson, and was a company member of Quicksilver Dance and Lorraine Chapman The Company. He has presented his choreography nationally and abroad at La MaMa ETC, Triskelion Arts, Movement Research Open Performance, Green Space, The Dance Complex, Green Street Studios, AS220, and The International Festival of Arts & Ideas, among other venues. He has had residencies at The Dragon’s Egg, Green Street Studios, The Dance Complex, and as a part of The Shaker Dance Revival Project. He has also set pieces at Babson College, Endicott College, and OnStage Dance Company, and has choreographed numerous musicals, including the premiere workshop and production of Friday the 13th: The Musical. As a teacher, he has been on faculty at Boston Ballet, The Boston Conservatory, and The National Theater Institute.

 

“wish you were here.” is a post-modern dream ballet that meditates on fragmented memory, sudden loss, and Trisha Brown’s Newark. On an interpersonal level, the dance intends to explore what is gained and lost as we move further away from past events that haunt us. How might we step back into a physical and psychological space to unpack what once was, what has dissipated, and what still lingers? Furthermore, the work probes at questions surrounding inspiration, influence, and direct quotation. Indeed, as an artist, what does it mean to view established material and recognize a projected or idealized version of yourself inside of it, as well as a conceptual notion that you are similarly trying to wrestle with in your own movement practice? By stepping into someone else’s creative headspace or finished work, is there a way to unleash something undiscovered about your own way of thinking and moving? Designed for four dancers, “wish you were here.” is a quiet, and sometimes irreverent, movement study that proposes no finite conclusions, only a continued dialogue of of emotional and physical process and product.