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, 2019
Thirst, 2018/19
One Of You Is Fake 2017/18
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Beast 2016/17
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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, 2019
"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, 2019
Thirst Trailer (2018) 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 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 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 (choreographer/performer/educator) isa Brooklyn-based artist and scientist. She brings a decade of teaching nationally and internationally, working with populations spanning from non-dancers to advanced professionals. She is commissioned to make a work on the radical inclusion theater group Interact Theater, in Minneapolis with their LGBTQIA+ artists in 2019-20. This project recently received the 2020 MN State Arts Board Arts Touring Grant, and will begin to tour in July 2020 at the Mayo Clinic. She has a collaborative partnership with John Gutierrez (G^2), in which they co-teach improvisation and create performance works together. In addition, Beth partners with BAIRA in Detroit as a teaching and creative collaborator, and is a resident artist for NYC-based Pioneers Go East Collective. 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. Graczyk travels annually to India to work as an educator and choreographer with Kerala-based artists Sen Jansen and Arunima Gupta. She co-directed the performance company Salt Horse in Seattle with Corrie Befort and Angelina Baldoz from 2008-2016. After moving to NYC five years ago, Graczyk launched a solo project called Desire Motor. In NYC, her solo works have been presented by Gibney, La MaMa, Judson Church, Jack, Triskelion, CPR, Movement Research, Oye Group, Kraine Theater, and through Pioneers Goes East Collective. She has been awarded residencies at Abrons Arts Center (NYC), The Marble House (VT) and through the NAP program (PA). As a performer, Graczyk has most recently danced for Raja Kelly, Sara Shelton Mann, Amy Chavasse, and Jen Salk/Chase Angier.
Beth Graczyk (choreographer/performer/educator) isa Brooklyn-based artist and scientist. She brings a decade of teaching nationally and internationally, working with populations spanning from non-dancers to advanced professionals. She is commissioned to make a work on the radical inclusion theater group Interact Theater, in Minneapolis with their LGBTQIA+ artists in 2019-20. This project recently received the 2020 MN State Arts Board Arts Touring Grant, and will begin to tour in July 2020 at the Mayo Clinic. She has a collaborative partnership with John Gutierrez (G^2), in which they co-teach improvisation and create performance works together. In addition, Beth partners with BAIRA in Detroit as a teaching and creative collaborator, and is a resident artist for NYC-based Pioneers Go East Collective. 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. Graczyk travels annually to India to work as an educator and choreographer with Kerala-based artists Sen Jansen and Arunima Gupta. She co-directed the performance company Salt Horse in Seattle with Corrie Befort and Angelina Baldoz from 2008-2016. After moving to NYC five years ago, Graczyk launched a solo project called Desire Motor. In NYC, her solo works have been presented by Gibney, La MaMa, Judson Church, Jack, Triskelion, CPR, Movement Research, Oye Group, Kraine Theater, and through Pioneers Goes East Collective. She has been awarded residencies at Abrons Arts Center (NYC), The Marble House (VT) and through the NAP program (PA). As a performer, Graczyk has most recently danced for Raja Kelly, Sara Shelton Mann, Amy Chavasse, and Jen Salk/Chase Angier.