What Shall We Do Next? (performance)

What Shall We Do Next? is a live performance piece conceived by French artist Julien Prévieux and performed by a cast of Houston and Portland-based dancers (Laura Gutierrez, Allie Hankins, Jasmine Hearn, and Alisa Mittin). For more than ten years, Prévieux has been researching and collecting gestures prescribed by technology (such as the pinch and the swipe). He has appropriated these movements and removed them from their utilitarian function to create an abstract choreographic work that conveys a reflection upon the evolution of technology and the body’s absurd relationship to it.

Cash bar 30 minutes prior to performance time.

Each performance will be followed by a talk back with Prévieux and the performers.

What Shall We Do Next? is presented in conjunction with the group exhibition of the same name, on view in the gallery through March 19.

About the Artists

Julien Prévieux has had solo exhibitions at Centre Pompidou, Paris, FRAC Basse-Normandie, Caen; Synagogue de Delme Art Center; Domaine de Kerguennec Art Center, Bignan, among other institutions and was included in the 10th International Istanbul Biennale and the 2015 Lyon Biennale. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Witte de With, Rotterdam; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara; and Kunstverein Hannover. He is the recipient of the Prix Marcel Duchamp 2014 and is represented by Galerie Jousse Entreprise, Paris.

Laura Gutierrez is a graduate of Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and received a B.F.A. in Contemporary Dance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in 2009, where she was awarded a William R. Kenan, Jr., Performing Arts Fellowship at the Lincoln Center Institute. Since then, Gutierrez has performed in museums such as The Menil Collection, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Fabric Workshop Museum in Philadelphia, and the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia. Her own choreography has been seen in New York City at Lincoln Center Institute and Clark Studio Theater at Lincoln Center; in Brooklyn at Triskelion Arts; and in Houston at the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center, Dance Source Houston’s The Barn, Nicole Longnecker Gallery, and Sicardi Gallery. She has been performing in works by Jonah Bokaer since 2012, and in 2014 was named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch.”

Allie Hankins is a performer, performance maker, teacher, and researcher currently residing in Portland. She is an inaugural member of FLOCK, a new dance center & creative home to Portland’s experimental dance artists; and a founding member of Physical Education – a critical & casual, reading & researching, drinking & dialoguing, dance & performance body comprised of herself, keyon gaskin, Taka Yamamoto, and Lucy Lee Yim. She was most recently seen performing in works by Taka Yamamoto and Tahni Holt, and in her own solo Like A Sun That Pours Forth Light but Never Warmth. Her new endeavors include a project in progress titled better to be alone than to wish you were (premiering May 19-22, 2016 at Coho Theater in Portland); her all-levels movement class TRANSCENDENTAEROBICOURAGE; teaching Dance & Social Practice at Portland State University; and learning American Sign Language.

Jasmine Hearn is a freelance choreographer and performing artist/dancer. A native Houstonian, she graduated magna cum laude from Point Park University with a B.A. in Dance. Hearn travels around the country to showcase her choreographic work and to participate in diverse dance projects. Currently, she is a collaborator and performer with jhon r. stronks (Houston), Jennifer Nagle Myers (Pittsburgh), Kate Watson Wallace (Philadelphia), Kendra Portier (New York City) and Marjani Forte (New York City). She is currently a Dance Source Houston artist in residence at The Barn.

Alisa Mittin is originally from Buffalo, NY and an alum of the California Institute of the Arts.   Most recently, she has been a 2015 Dance Source Houston Artist in Residence and a recipient of a Houston Arts Alliance Individual Artist Grant. Her choreographic work has been presented in Atlanta, Buffalo, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston. In addition to dance, Alisa is a visual and multimedia artist, working collaboratively on a series of experiments.