In Hoary, a diptych – the first major New York performance by Levi Gonzalez since 2016 – fairy tales become portals into queerness, performing an act of resistance against the numbing effects of normativity while reclaiming the body as a site of agency and (perhaps forbidden) desires.

Through a structured improvisational practice incorporating language, written materials, and found objects, three accomplished dancers build upon their extensive history of collaboration to conjure a deeply intimate response to The Chocolate Factory as a site; creating semi-fictional histories and explored sonic resonances, and employing language, sound and vocal utterance as vibratory tools that give animacy and agency to place, embracing the practice of not knowing something but making something anyway.

Credits

Conceived and Directed by: Levi Gonzalez
Choreographed and Performed by: Rebecca Serrell Cyr, Levi Gonzalez and Kayvon Pourazar
Sound Composition and Performance by: Senem Pirler
Lighting Design by: Madeline Best
Costume and Design Guide: jmy james kidd

Photography Credits: Rachel Keane & Brian Rogers

Production History

Premiere: The Chocolate Factory Theater, NYC | November, 2024

Hoary is Commissioned and Presented by the Chocolate Factory Theater. This work was funded in part by New England Foundation for the Arts’ New England Dance Fund, with generous support from the Aliad Fund at the Boston Foundation. This project has also been supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. Additional support has been provided by the Loghaven Artist Residency, the another audience creative residency at black hole hollow, the Ucross Artist Residency Program, and Rootstock 24 at the Croft Residency. Hoary was also developed as part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s RehearsalWeek program. LMCC.net