David Neumann / advanced beginner group

David Neumann / advanced beginner group believes in making multi-disciplinary dances from scratch, bringing to gesture, word and proximity a delighted embrace of our contradictory lives; engaging in surprising ways, always a valuable effort in trying to bend the habitual gestures around new shapes. In spite of his proclivity toward complicated ideas and structures in dance, Neumann is saying something very simple through this blessedly varied and adaptable art form: “As a species, this is what we’re doing right now, and this is what I think about it."

Press Quotes

“a sinuous blurring of fiction and truth… deftly strange and confident… the way he intersperses movement throughout the piece is entrancing.”—New York Times

“I Understand Everything Better takes choreographer Neumann's already-wonderful touch for movement and the wry phrase and cuts it into diamonds. ...  Neumann has just entered a triumphant next phase of his work. … here he makes something for his company, Advanced Beginner Group, that feels genuinely important, both to the form and to minds of those who see it.” —Helen Shaw, Time Out New York

Upcoming Works

I Understand Everything Better
Commissioned by the American Dance Institute, Abrons Arts Center, and the Chocolate Factory Theater

I Understand Everything Better, a multidisciplinary dance-based performance by Bessie-Award winning choreographer/performer David Neumann, explores our impulse to report on calamity; the shimmer of attention to realms unseen; the concurrence of unrelated events and the body as evidence of a will having to let go. Neumann's "deeply felt and deeply moving" work (New York Times) manifests as a 'solo with other performers’, marking Neumann's return to performing in his own work after an absence of several years. The other members of the collaborative team include: Sibyl Kempson (text), Tei Blow (sound), Chloe Z. Brown and Christine Shallenberg (lighting), Andrew Dinwiddie, and Jennifer Kidwell (performers), and Mimi Lien (set).

I Understand Everything Better is commissioned by the American Dance Institute, the Chocolate Factory Theater, and Abrons Art Center. Developmental support for this project is by Ringling Museum and the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University. David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group has been awarded touring support through the National Dance Project, a program of New England Foundation for the Arts.

Winner! Two Bessie Awards:

OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION: "For creating a mysterious and whimsical world in which to explore the dual devastations of personal loss and public destruction, taking the audience on a visceral journey through internal and external storms.”

OUTSTANDING MUSIC COMPOSITION/SOUND DESIGN to Tei Blow: “For a virtuosic live audio performance mixing recorded sounds, percussive rhythms, a live mic, and spinning vinyl to transport the audience from the mountains of Japan to the hurricane-ravaged shores of New York.”

Upcoming Events for I Understand Everything Better
PS 122’s COIL Festival at the Chocolate Factory: January 10–15, 2016
Tickets here →

The Ringling, March 11–12, 2016
Tickets here → 

Recent Events

MANCC Residency: January 12–25, 2015
WORLD PREMIERE: American Dance Institute, March 27–28, 2015 at 8 PM
NEW YORK PREMIERE: Abrons Art Center (Playhouse), April 6–26, 2015

Ringling Residency and the Osolo Theater/FSU: August 20–26, 2014
PRELUDE Festival: Martin Segal Theater at October 10 at 5:20 PM
Dance Recon: Abrons Art Center, November 8 at 4–4:45 PM
BRICLab: Work-in-progress showing, December 19 & 20 at 7:30 PM

APAP 2016 Information Available here

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