Dance Takes Over Guild Hall

Guild Hall pulls out all the stops for an immersive dance performance July 29 through July 30 from 8 to 9:30 p.m. 

Part-tribute, part live-archive, part new work, “Get Dancing” is an evening of downtown dance history re-imagined. 

Presented in partnership with The Watermill Center, the program includes dances from the 1970s by the late choreographer Andy de Groat, re-staged by Catherine Galasso, as well as Galasso’s notes on de Groat, featuring original choreography and a contextualization of de Groat’s legacy, revealing “an aesthetic of task lifted by beautiful music, of circles of the mind, of patience and poetry” (Wendy Perron, 2016).

Andy de Groat emerged as a choreographer in the 1970s. His early choreography places spinning and pedestrian movement within a complex framework, presented with a keen sense of timing, phrasing, and rhythm. 

He is known for numerous collaborations with Robert Wilson, including the choreography for the original Einstein on the Beach in 1976. 

This collaboration with Galasso, created while de Groat was still living, was commissioned by Danspace Project, developed at The Watermill Center, and nominated for a New York “Bessie.”

Galasso will once again re-stage de Groatʼs “Fan Dance” and “Get Wreck,” this time with local community performers from the East End, alongside Galasso’s company dancers. 

The program also includes a film by Jon Meaney and Andrew Horn of de Groatʼs Rope Dance Translations (1979).

Tickets are $50, online at guildhall.org.

Beth Young

Beth Young has been covering the East End since the 1990s. In her spare time, she runs around the block, tinkers with bicycles, tries not to drown in the Peconic Bay and hopes to grow the perfect tomato. You can send her a message at editor@eastendbeacon.com

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