Exhibition
Ilya Vidrin: Everything You Do Matters, No Matter What You Do
05/01/22-09/15/22
Performances · Exhibition-Related
More or Less
Cover Image:
Ilya Vidrin, More or Less (2022). Photo Credit: Lo Kuehmeier.
Choreographer, artist, and educator Ilya Vidrin and the New Museum’s Department of Education and Public Engagement present the world premiere of More or Less, a meditative performance investigating social responsibility and communal care. The culmination of the 2022 New Museum Artist Residency “Ilya Vidrin: Everything You Do Matters, No Matter What You Do,” performances will take place on September 9 at 7 p.m. and September 10 at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.
More or Less is a formal inquiry into partnering. Moving fluidly from dyads to solo to group work, seven performers investigate relationships as they deliberately encounter their own bodies, one another, and physical and sonic elements within the New Museum’s white box theater.
The evening is rooted in Vidrin’s “partnering studies”: loopable exercises that constrain movement to invite relational awareness. Drawing on questions of duty, agency, and consent, the performers negotiate layers of movement and sound to illuminate an emergent logic of care.
Vidrin will be joined in performance with collaborators Eric Seligman (trumpet, vocals, electronics), Mel Hsu (cello, vocals, electronics), and movement artists Jessi Stegall, Niki Farahani, Valeria Solomonoff, and Cameron Surh.
Tickets
The program will be presented onsite at the New Museum. All attendees are required to wear masks, regardless of vaccination status. Performers will be un-masked while performing. Review the New Museum’s COVID guidelines in advance of your visit.
Students can reserve complimentary tickets for public programs by following the general admissions ticketing link below. Student tickets require valid identification onsite.
Friday September 9 | 7 PM
This performance has reached capacity.
Saturday September 10 | 4 PM
This performance has reached capacity.
A limited number of standby tickets may be available at the admissions desk on a first-come, first-served basis. The standby line will open at 3:30 p.m. on September 10.
Saturday September 10 | 7 PM
This performance has reached capacity.
A limited number of standby tickets may be available at the admissions desk on a first-come, first-served basis. The standby line will open at 6:30 p.m. on September 10.
About the Performers
Niki Farahani (she/her; b. 1993, Bridgeport, CT) is a freelance movement artist and fitness professional who lives in New York City. A BFA graduate of UMass Amherst, Farahani has performed works by Ohad Naharin, Camille A Brown, Heath in Progress and the group formally known as VESSELS.
Mel Hsu (she/they; 1991, White Plains, NY) is a classically-trained cellist and soundscape multi-instrumentalist who lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. Her work has been featured on WNYC, at the SXSW Film Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Asian American International Film Festival, Poetic License Theater Festival, Source Festival, NY Indie Theatre Film Festival, and the BAM Puppets on Film Festival. Hsu is a recipient of the Barrymore Award for Outstanding Original Music (2018, Recipient; 2019, Nominee). Hsuholds a B.A. from Wesleyan University.
Eric Seligman (he/him; b. 1990, New York, New York) is a multi-instrumentalist and composer who lives and works in New York City. He frequently collaborates with musician Cliff Notez as a trumpet player and orchestrator, and he has opened for artists including Talib Kweli, Ja Rule, and Gym Class Heroes. Seligman has released indie-classical and indie-rock music with Baby Cleo, Zamin, Fleur de Lune, Mel Hsu, and others. He also teaches about the political economy of mass incarceration at John Jay College at the City University of New York (CUNY).
Valeria Solomonoff ((she/her; b. 1971, Rosario, Argentina)) has choreographed for Broadway, feature films, plays, and circus. Prominent credits include choreographing for the film The Caller where she coached Frank Langella; co-choreographing the musical Evita presented at New York City Center; sharing the stage with Placido Domingo at D.A.R. Constitution Hall; and performing at the Metropolitan Opera House honoring Argentina’s president. Her work has received critical acclaim and recognition, including 2 ACE Awards for her production of Tango por Ellos, 2 ACE nominations for Tango Intimo, and 2 HOLA Awards for choreographing Tango Fever and Doña Flor y Sus Dos Maridos. Solomonoff was the founder and co-director of TangoMujer, the first all-female tango ensemble worldwide. Most recently, Solomonoff was a Resident Fellow at the Center for Ballet and the Arts (New York University) and a recipient of the inaugural Lucy Bowen Award for Inclusive Choreography to create a piece at Mark Morris Dance for the National Parkinson’s Disease program. She is the artistic director of Valetango and the creator of Broadway Tango, and serves on faculty at New Studio on Broadway, NYU Tisch, and Juilliard (Drama).
Jessi Stegall (she/her; b. 1998, Dallas, TX) is a dance theater artist, applied ethicist, and media designer who lives and works in Boston, MA. She has been an artist-in-residence with Ilya Vidrin at the Harvard ArtLab, National Parks Service, Windhover Performing Arts Center, and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and was recently featured as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” (2022). As a dancer, Stegall has performed works by Jill Johnson, LROD, Ali Kenner Brodsky, Ilya Vidrin, and Jamila Glass. Her own work has been featured at the Motion State Film Festival, Cambridge Art Association, and at the aMaSSiT Residency in Cambridge, MA. In addition to her work in dance, Stegall holds an M.S. in Bioethics from Harvard University, a B.S. in Expressive Art Therapy from Lesley University, and is an alumna of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
Cameron Surh (he/they; b. 2000, Napa, CA) is a freelance artist working with movement and computation who works and lives in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). As a dancer, Surh has performed work by Shamel Pitts, Chuck Wilt, and Ted Thomas. His formative teachers include Bay Area-based Wanda McGill and Charles Torres. Surh aims to create interactive installations to consider control and identity. He holds a B.F.A in Dance and an M.A. in Interactive Media Arts, both from NYU Tisch.
Ilya Vidrin (he/they; b. 1988, Boston, MA) is a performer, educator, and researcher working at the intersection of performing arts, philosophy, and interactive media. Born into a refugee family, Vidrin’s research and artistic practice interrogate the complex ethics of human interaction, including the embodiment of empathy, cultural competence, and social responsibility. He is featured as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2022. Vidrin has been an artist-in-residence at Jacob’s Pillow; North Atlantic Ballet; Ballet Des Moines; AREA Gallery; the National Parks Service; Harvard ArtLab; The Walnut Hill School; Interlochen Arts Academy; MIT Media Lab; Boston Center for the Arts; Le Laboratoire; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He has also worked with the L.A. Contemporary Dance Company; The Royal Swedish Ballet: Berlin Staatsballett; Boston Philharmonic Orchestra; The Cambrians; Erick Hawkins Dance Company; and dance artists including Sidra Bell, Aszure Barton, Ohad Naharin, William Forsythe, Brian Brooks, and Wendy Whelan. He is a recipient of several fellowships, including Byron Fellowship in Sustainable Leadership (2015); Derek Bok Fellowship in Media, Visualization, and Literacy (2015); Erasmus Fellowship (2016); Boston Foundation “Live Arts Boston” Grant (2018/2021); and Massachusetts Cultural Council Choreographic Fellowship (2020). Vidrin holds a PhD from the Center for Dance Research, United Kingdom.
Sponsors
Artist commissions at the New Museum are generously supported by the Neeson / Edlis Artist Commissions Fund.
Artist residencies are made possible, in part, by:
Laurie Wolfert
The Bowery Council of the New Museum
Public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Thanks to the Dorot Foundation.
Endowment support is provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; the Skadden, Arps Education Programs Fund; and the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fund for Education Programs at the New Museum.
