Desire Motor:
An NYC-based dance-theater performance project.
“Beth Graczyk invites us to remember that change is indeed possible - that how we feel right now is not set in stone - that it and we will shift. She reminds us that we each have the capacity to transform from moment to moment as she does - through every breathtakingly, detailed second of her crafting of space and time.” – Amy Miller, Senior Company Director at Gibney
Thirst, 2018
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One Of You Is Fake, 2017
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Beast, 2016
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“Penelope engages! She inspires! You sit, rapt, suddenly reacquainted to your BEING, eyelids presenting themselves as miracles, skin reawakened and aware of cloth and air. You embody possibility. I crave her.” – Alicia Walter, Chef and Enthusiast
"It's been a long time since dance critic Apollinaire Scherr, writing for the New York Times, cited the maxim "Talking is talking and dancing is dancing" and lamented how rare it is to find the two working together artfully. Beth Graczyk has that rare talent: she is equally precise and expressive in movement and word." - Jennifer Mack, Data Analyst and Enthusiast
Thirst at CPR - excerpt from Beth Graczyk on Vimeo.
Artist Statement
As a dance-theater artist, I’m fascinated by the continuum of ways humans dislocate or blend their innate internal desires with an external reality. I investigate how these internal/external perceptual fissures influence the way we engage with self and other.
Through my performance research I concoct sensation-based worlds built by observing and amplifying the hidden, the unseen, and the ignored, in an attempt to bring into focus stories and ideas located in the periphery. I enmesh the audience as simultaneously active participants and outside observers, through the interplay between the imagination, the human body, and inanimate objects.
I actively seep my knowledge of science and nature into scenarios that introduce instability to awaken the viewers desire to question information and its source. I use absurdity and humor to crack open ideas in an effort to generate a kaleidoscope of perspectives and sensations of any one thing using my queer-identified, shape-shifting and non-binary body.
A recurrent theme in my work is the interplay between presence and absence, happening in the space between the known and the unknown. I welcome the indeterminate, the improvised, and the causally linked in live performance. I am alive. I am LIVE.
As a dance-theater artist, I’m fascinated by the continuum of ways humans dislocate or blend their innate internal desires with an external reality. I investigate how these internal/external perceptual fissures influence the way we engage with self and other.
Through my performance research I concoct sensation-based worlds built by observing and amplifying the hidden, the unseen, and the ignored, in an attempt to bring into focus stories and ideas located in the periphery. I enmesh the audience as simultaneously active participants and outside observers, through the interplay between the imagination, the human body, and inanimate objects.
I actively seep my knowledge of science and nature into scenarios that introduce instability to awaken the viewers desire to question information and its source. I use absurdity and humor to crack open ideas in an effort to generate a kaleidoscope of perspectives and sensations of any one thing using my queer-identified, shape-shifting and non-binary body.
A recurrent theme in my work is the interplay between presence and absence, happening in the space between the known and the unknown. I welcome the indeterminate, the improvised, and the causally linked in live performance. I am alive. I am LIVE.
Biography
Beth Graczyk is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, performer and a scientist. Graczyk has performed throughout the United States and internationally in Japan, Ecuador, France and India for the past 17 years. Concurrently, she has contributed to 10 science publications in the field of cancer research. She co-directed the performance company Salt Horse in Seattle with Corrie Befort and Angelina Baldoz from 2008-2015. After moving to NYC 4.5 years ago, Graczyk launched a solo project called Desire Motor. Since then, her work has been produced or presented by Gibney, Movement Research, CPR, La MaMa, Oye Group, Movement Research and Jack. Her work has developed through residencies at Marble House Residency in Dorset, Vermont and the NAP program in Kutztown, PA. Work-in-progress versions of Thirst have been presented through Pioneers Go East Collective at Judson Art Wednesdays and for PSOH at CPR this past fall. In addition to working as a solo artist, Graczyk co-teaches and has a creative collaboration with John Gutierrez (G^2), and a twirling queer gogo-dance duo with Rachel Pritzlaff (LezTwirl). She currently is building a dance work with Interact Theater, a Minneapolis-based radical inclusion theater group, and also will teach and choreograph this May-June in Kerala, India at The Floor led by Artistic Director Arunima Gupta.
Beth Graczyk is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, performer and a scientist. Graczyk has performed throughout the United States and internationally in Japan, Ecuador, France and India for the past 17 years. Concurrently, she has contributed to 10 science publications in the field of cancer research. She co-directed the performance company Salt Horse in Seattle with Corrie Befort and Angelina Baldoz from 2008-2015. After moving to NYC 4.5 years ago, Graczyk launched a solo project called Desire Motor. Since then, her work has been produced or presented by Gibney, Movement Research, CPR, La MaMa, Oye Group, Movement Research and Jack. Her work has developed through residencies at Marble House Residency in Dorset, Vermont and the NAP program in Kutztown, PA. Work-in-progress versions of Thirst have been presented through Pioneers Go East Collective at Judson Art Wednesdays and for PSOH at CPR this past fall. In addition to working as a solo artist, Graczyk co-teaches and has a creative collaboration with John Gutierrez (G^2), and a twirling queer gogo-dance duo with Rachel Pritzlaff (LezTwirl). She currently is building a dance work with Interact Theater, a Minneapolis-based radical inclusion theater group, and also will teach and choreograph this May-June in Kerala, India at The Floor led by Artistic Director Arunima Gupta.