Daily Stream: Paramodernities

In February 2019, the Wex presented Paramodernities by New York-based dance artist Netta Yerushalmy, an ambitious, multdisciplinary deconstruction of classic movement works by choreographers such as Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and Bob Fosse. The six-part event will make its online debut today in a series that will continue through Saturday. The hour-long programs will livestream each day with closed captioning and audio descriptions at 3 PM EDT.

In the words of the company, "Paramodernities boasts a radical and undefinable rethinking of the canon, involving virtually no music. Each section was created as an independent unit with a distinct creative process that features text, read live, by scholars and writers from various fields who place the dances within a larger context. The cast joins Yerushalmy in generating questions about the different paths taken by the modern tradition in dance and beyond. Within each installment, fundamental tenets of modernism are explored, such as sovereignty, spectacle, race, feminism and ableism."

Each performance will be followed by live post-show discussions with a range of guests. They're listed below with a schedule of performances. 

Watch Paramodernities Monday–Saturday, May 4–9, at 3 PM EDT at nettay.com.

Watch a trailer for the event.

Monday, May 4, Paramodernities #1: The Work of Dance in the Age of Sacred Lives, a response to Vaslav Nijinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (1913); post-show talk guest: author and professor Jack Halberstam

Tuesday, May 5, Paramodernities #2: Trauma, Interdiction, and Agency in ‘The House of Pelvic Truth’, a response to Martha Graham’s Night Journey (1947); post-show talk guest: choreographer Pam Tanowitz 

Wednesday, May 6, Paramodernities #3: Revelations: The Afterlives of Slavery, a response to Alvin Ailey’s Revelations (1960); post-show talk guest: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith 

Thursday, May 7, Paramodernities #4: An Inter-Body Event with material from Merce Cunningham’s Rainforest, Sounddance, Points In Space, Beach Birds, and Ocean (1968-1990); post-show guest: poet Fred Moten

Friday, May 8, Paramodernities #5: All that Spectacle: Dance on Stage and Screens, a response to Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity (1969 film); post-show talk guest: playwright Jeremy O. Harris

Saturday, May 9, Paramodernities #6: The Choreography of Rehabilitation: Disability and Race in Balanchine’s Agon, a response to George Balanchine’s Agon (1957); post-show talk guest: historian Peter N. Miller