Talented
photo by Maria Baranova
Center for Performance Research
lighting design by Amanda K. Ringger
creative support by Stephanie Acosta
Talented, a solo performance created by Leslie Cuyjet, interrogates personas and formalities from the worlds of past, present, and make-believe in an effort to confront realities in the in-between. Most known for her work as a performer and a recent recipient of a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Performer, Cuyjet asks, “how is my body consumed in performance with all of its technical dexterity, post-modern nuance, and compositional instinct, that is also curvy, unpredictable, aging, and Black?” Rooted in personal, cultural, and dance histories and narratives whose origins have been forgotten, her embodied research is interwoven into storytelling and gesture. In turn, Talented approaches a rewritten history of her own.
This performance was supported in part by a Mertz Gilmore Late Stage Production Grant through CPR - Center for Performance Research, an artist residency at Marble House Project, and through the Movement Research Artist-in-Residence Program, funded, in part, by the Davis/Dauray Family Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, and through public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
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