Tag Archive for David Byrne

Announcing “Drawing the Surface of Dance”

“Choreography—especially experimental choreography—is nearly impossible to describe before it happens or to capture once it’s over.  In this book, through drawings and charts and personalized text, Annie-B Parson somehow manages to do both. ” —David Lang, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion

Soloing on the page, choreographer Annie-B Parson rethinks choreography as dance on paper. Parson draws her dances into new graphic structures calling attention to the visual facts of the materiality of each dance work she has made. These drawings serve as both maps of her pieces in the aftermath of performance, and a consideration of the elements of dance itself. Within the duality of form and content, this book explores the meanings that form itself holds, and Parson’s visual maps of choreographic ideas inspire new thinking around the shared elements underneath all art making.

Check out Annie-B’s work at NYU’s Skirball Center on November 8 & 9! Meet Annie-B after the show and get your book signed! 

Get tickets to David Byrne’s American Utopia, choreographed by Annie-B Parson.

ANNIE-B PARSON is a choreographer and artistic director of Big Dance Theater. Parson has also made choreography for rock shows, marching bands, symphonies, movies, museums, objects, augmented reality, and people: David Byrne, David Bowie, St. Vincent, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Wendy Whelan, Laurie Anderson, Nico Muhly, Jonathan Demme, and the Martha Graham Dance Co.

Annie-B Parson and David Byrne on Broadway

Beginning this fall, David Byrne is bringing his latest tour, American Utopia, to Broadway in a limited engagement, from October 4th to January 19th. Annie-B Parson did the staging and choreography for the show and Alex Timbers, who also collaborated with Byrne and Parson on Here Lies Love, is the production consultant.

Annie-B Parson, author of Wesleyan’s forthcoming book Drawing the Surface of Dance: A Biography in Dance, has had a long working relationship with Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. Parson, a long-time fan of Byrne’s, began collaborating with him in 2008. She created choreography for his 2008/2009 Brian Eno world tour and his 2012 world tour with St. Vincent. Her dances are also featured in the 2009 film Ride, Roar, Rise about David Byrne.

In 2013, Parson and Byrne collaborated on a musical about Filipina First Lady Imelda Marco, Here Lies Love, that played at the Public Theater in New York City. Parson was choreographer for the show, which featured music with lyrics written by Byrne and music created by Byrne and Fatboy Slim. The musical was later performed at the The National Theater in London in 2014 and most recently in 2017 at the Seattle Repertory Theater.

American Utopia has been called “an experience unlike anything else” by Billboard and tickets are currently available here or over the phone at 1-855-801-5876.