Deville Cohen, Hand to Mouth

Virtual performance: Deville Cohen, Hand to Mouth
Thursday, January 28, 2021, 9pm PST / 12am/Midnight EST

JOAN is pleased to present DE–SUICIDE <part 3>: C’est La Crisis, a virtual performance by the dance company Hand to Mouth, next Thursday, January 28, 2021 at 9pm PST/ 12am Midnight EST. Hand to Mouth was founded in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic by artist Deville Cohen with support from PS122 Gallery.

Hand to Mouth describes itself as a global network of sentient and inanimate collaborators invested in the labor of survival. The dance company produces monthly workshops, titled “Notions,” which explore specific choreographic and sculptural themes. The final results of these workshops are then released to the public each full moon as part of a growing body of original experiments, actions and propositions.

This performance, titled SUICIDE <part 3>: C’est La Crisis, is the third in a series on the notion of suicide, preceded by SUICIDE <part 1>: The Junction and SUICIDE <part 2>: DE-SUICIDE, and features dancers Tushrik Fredericks (Johannesburg), Margaux Marielle-Tréhoüart (Berlin), and Laura K. Nicoll (New York).

Dear Diary,
Another full-moon midnight.

Twenty-eight days ago the moon entered our notion of SUICIDE. This is a Three-Moon Notion. 

Drawing on The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) written by French-Algerian writer Albert Camus, we toil over the illusion of a choice between suicide or recovery. This absurd hero struggles to give illusory meaning to his tedious existence and finds himself at a Junction. His choices are clear: Sisyphus will either die voluntarily or accept the disillusionment of life’s meaninglessness.

“Weariness comes at the end of the act of mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness[….] At the end awakening comes, in time, the consequence: suicide or recovery.”

November 2020: we traversed BACKSTAGE to this SITE, which feels like a JUNCTION: an absurd splitting or conjugation of the evils of so many worsts yet to come.

Bound by repetition and weight, Sisyphus is looped into Camus’s paradox of recovery. For this notion, suicide is a refusal and an attempt to re-turn to The Junction. Its location. Its timeline. Entangled between the past and a present that has yet to happen, we can de-vote ourselves to a detour. Staying on this highway is suicide by default.

Subscribe to Hand to Mouth’s Lunar Updates at this link.

Deville Cohen is a New York City based visual artist and a director. He studied sculpture at the KHB Berlin from 2002-2007 and received his MFA in film/video from Bard College NY in 2010. His videos and installations were shown internationally in museums and galleries such as MoMA PS1; SFMoMA; The CCA Tel-Aviv; and The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik. He began creating for the stage during a residency at the Wooster Group Performance Garage in the summer of 2014. His creation underline in collaboration with the composer Hugo Morales was commissioned and co-produced by the Deutsche Oper Berlin and The Munich Biennale for New Music Theater in 2016. In 2018 he co-created MENAGERIE with choreographer Shamel Pitts for Gibney Dance Company in NYC. In 2019 his new creation McGuffin was commissioned and produced by The Center of The Less Good Idea in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was an artist in residence at Recess Art; EMPAC Troy, NY; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) workspace, NYC; Fountainhead in Miami; and LMCC Process-Space NYC.

Tushrik Fredrick is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa and is currently based in NYC. He was mostly trained in Hip Hop dancing and specifically found himself drawn towards the style ‘KRUMP’ growing up. He graduated from the Peridance Capezio Center Certificate Program in NYC in June 2015 where he received most of his formal training. He has had the opportunity to work with Ate9 dANCEcOMPANY (Danielle Agami, Artistic Director) and Sidra Bell Dance New York from July 2015 – June 2018. He is now working with Shamel Pitts as well as freelancing. Tushrik was an assistant lecturer to Sidra Bell at The University of the Arts Philadelphia for Sophomore students(2016-2018).

Margaux Marielle-Tréhoüart is a freelance dancer based in Berlin. She studied dance and drama at the Conservatoire de Grenoble, France, and the Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen. She dances with Sasha Waltz & guests since 2013. She worked as well under the direction of Claudia Castellucci/Socìetas Raffaello Sanzo, Pierre Audi, Saar Magal, Elik Niv, Régis Obadia, Fabian Gerhardt, Luis Malvacias, Deborah Hay, Andrew Schneider. Her regular collaborations are choreographers Simon Tanguy and Naïma Mazic, directors Muriel Vernet and Deville Cohen, ensemble Opera Lab Berlin and musician Haggai Cohen-Milo. This year she starts working with choreographer Stephanie Thiersch, and will perform for director Marta Gornicka at the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin.

Laura K. Nicoll is a choreographer / performer who splits her time between Maine and Brooklyn, NY. She is a classically trained dancer who often creates outdoor performances, in public space, or non-traditional dance venues as well as short films for social media and the internet at large. Recent experience includes collaborations with theater director / new media designer Reid Farrington (NYC: The Tank, HERE Arts, Abrons Arts Center, 3LD Art & Technology Center), choreographer / dancer Jessica Nicoll (NYC: Estrogenius Festival, CPR’s Spring Movement Festival), and writer / performer Rufus Morgan Kreilkamp Nicoll (Maine: Maine Moves). Residencies + grants include: Harbor Residency at Opera House Arts, Bates Dance Festival, Mertz Gilmore Foundation Late Stage Creative Stipend via Union Street Dance. Laura was a member of Pittsburgh Ballet Theater’s corps de ballet from 2001–2006 where she was also a union representative. She also performed on the Norwegian Dawn, a cruise ship!