This Grass Is So Close to This Building

Performances will be outside of the Burchfield Penney Art Center

This performance will require movement from the audience. If you wish to sit, please bring your own chairs. 

August 23rd at 7:00 p.m.

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August 24th at 2:00 p.m. (Closing Reception to Follow)

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Ticket Information:

$20 - Not Yet Members

$10 - Members

$5 - Students (With student ID. Please purchase student tickets at the admissions desk.)

Performance Overview from Director Nancy Hughes: We are devising a captivating spectacle specifically for the exterior of the Burchfield Penney Art Center. As dancers, actors, and poets, we will be creating from our bodily experiences.  “This Grass Is So Close to This Building” is a site-specific dance that draws attention to the concept of being on the outside while knowing that something is happening inside. The performance evokes a sense of awareness and presence, allowing the audience to appreciate and engage with the experience of what we see outside daily and the tension of what is not seen. “This Grass Is So Close to This Building” invites you to experience the Burchfield Penney Art Center in the same way one views what it holds.

Vicariously experience the dancers “kiss” the building with their feet and embrace the grass with their bellies as you immerse yourself in the beautiful Buffalo summer weather. In the movement there is passion and physicality, touched with a hint of longing. Watch as the dancers interact with the walls, gently pressing against the windows, and losing themselves in the flowers. Follow their emotional journey as it intertwines with your own isolated thoughts. The audience will have the option to reveal what they perceive during the performance. This is to make undeniable connection and conversation with the audience and performers during any live performance tangible and undeniable.  The dancers and the audience are in a relationship. 

Artistic Vision: Could not a definition of art be "to see the everyday in a new way"? By seeing something new in front of you, you can see yourself—and therefore others—differently. This show will make the outside of the building come to life, as we are made of the outside; we are nature. There is both a danger and a freedom in dancing outside of the theater.

Lead artists:  Christina Vega-Westhoff, Melinda Harrison, Muriel Ventura Pontin and Desire Amaiya

Dance collaborators: Ella Genovese, Lyla Giallombardo, Dani Schofer, Shirite Westreich, Erica Welch, Ilana Selli, Michaela Neild, Zafrin Tishana, Jo O'Donnell and  Lindsay Camp along with Center Dance Youth Performance

Composers:  Matias Homar, Dani Schofer and Jackson Rousch

"I look for ways the audience can feel the importance of their role and find surprise; through movement invention that is part of the site-specific work, using the dance space in an unexpected way and playing with expectations of known and unknown. Surprise can cause curiosity. This heightened state will ideally lead to learning something new about local artists, others, and themselves."  — Director Nancy Hughes