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THE RECORD

45 strangers come together for 61 minutes to show us who they are, and who they could be. Part theater, part dance, part group hallucination – vivid human assembly on an epic scale. The subject is us; the time is now.

World premiere at The Invisible Dog Arts Center in Brooklyn, NY in 2013 and subsequently presented in many cities around the world, each time with a new assembly of people that re-create the process and performance.

We’ve taken photographic portraits of every performer, of every iteration of THE RECORD, taken backstage before the show.

2013: The Invisible Dog (Brooklyn, NY)
2014: Under the Radar (New York City, NY)
2014: Noorderzon FestivaL (Groningen, Netherlands)
2015: La Villette & Centre Pompidou (Paris, France)
2015: Festival Theaterformen (Hannover, Germany)
2016: OzAsia Festival, (Adelaide, Australia)
2016: Made in USA/Στέγη Γραμμάτων και Τεχνών (Athens, Greece)
2017: In Between Time Festival (Bristol, U.K.)

See the full list of all performers/collaborator here.

2013: Invisible Dog Art Center (Brooklyn, NY)
2014: Under the Radar Festival, The Public Theater (NYC)
2014: Noorderzon Festival (The Netherlands)
2015: Parc de la Villette & Centre Pompidou (France)
2015: Festival Theaterformen (Germany)
2016: OzAsia (Australia)
2016: Onassis Cultural Centre (Greece)
2017: In Between Time Festival (UK)

“SIMPLE BUT SUBLIME … THE SHOW ALERTS US TO THE AWESOME STRANGENESS, AND THE UTTER ORDINARINESS, TOO, OF BEING ALIVE IN THE HERE AND NOW.”NEW YORK TIMES

“The Record also reinvents and reinvigorates live theater. The show rewrites the code of understanding between players and viewers. They become equals within a new sphere of intimacy. I have never before felt anything like this during a live show. It was almost like a revelation – I kid you not.” CULTUREBOT

“The Record explores the nature of being human, of being at all, moving and interacting with hundreds of others just like, but not quite like, us.” — EXEUNT MAGAZINE

“Without seeing it, THE RECORD might sound like a formalist work, about bodies in space. But in the flesh the piece transcends its structure and becomes about people. We don’t know anything about them, or what these gestures mean or don’t mean to them, or what they feel. But despite this—or, more likely, because of it—their individual humanity shines through each face, each gesture and step, and we bear witness to it. In this way, THE RECORD is us” — NEW YORK THEATER REVIEW

“An ode to humankind. It hardly can be more humanistic.”THEATERKRANT

Original music by Brandon Wolcott, with cellist Emil Abramyan
Visual design by Chris Morris and Eric Southern
Creative Technology by Federico Rodriguez
Website Photos: Maria Baranova & Moti Margolin

The Record is a large-scale, hallucinatory dance. In process, we rehearse with each performer completely individually. They never meet – nor rehearse with – one another until the moment on stage in front of an audience. Our aim with this process is to frame the electricity and intimacy of people together. In order to achieve this technically, the work is elaborately and precisely scored with timing and spatial patterns mapped out completely in advance of rehearsals. The sparse, open score creates permission for the spectators to stare at the people on stage – giving access to the emotional vibrancy of the performers themselves. Fleeting instances of athleticism play out against meditative movements.

The music is by Brandon Wolcott and Emil Abramyan, who perform the music wherever THE RECORD occurs.
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OTHER WORKS