The New Adventures of Old David
David Gordon | (What Happened- 1978/2021)
BROADCAST, STREAMING, AND ONLINE PREMIERE July 14, 2021
Streaming and online are FREE 24/7 beginning with the premiere
Captured at the Alexander Kasser Theater February, 2021.
David Gordon’s six-decade career has been a journey of constant self-reimagining in which new productions frequently incorporate fragments of his past works and his personal life often becomes explicit source material. In The New Adventures of Old David (What Happened – 1978/2021), Gordon builds upon not only a previous performance, but also his experience making work expressly for the screen—as in the three-time Emmy-nominated David Gordon’s Made in U.S.A. (1987), starring his partner, Valda Setterfield, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. The New Adventures of Old David is a film written, directed, and choreographed by Gordon, in which he returns to his 1978 dance-with-words What Happened to create something whose content and form are new. A company of recent and longtime collaborators— Wally Cardona, Scott Cunningham, Leslie Cuyjet, Karen Graham, Iréne Hultman, Justin Jain, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Dean Moss, Cynthia Oliver, and Setterfield—perform movement from the original work, in their homes and on the stage of the Alexander Kasser Theater, while Gordon, Setterfield, and Gordon’s stage manager of 30+ years, Ed Fitzgerald, tell the story of how What Happened happened. The result is a revealing memoir, a loving tribute to Setterfield, and evidence of Gordon’s ever-expanding artistry.
David Gordon’s complete works to date are in the permanent collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and all can be accessed at his archive website davidgordon.nyc.
THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD DAVID
(WHAT HAPPENED- 1978/2021)
PRODUCED BY
PEAK Performances @ Montclair State University
In collaboration with the Pick Up Performance Co.
Written, Choreographed, and Directed By
David Gordon
Producers
Alyce Dissette
Natalie Marx
Editor and Additional Video
Daniel Madoff
Assistant Director and Associate Producer
Wally Cardona
Production Stage Manager
Ed Fitzgerald
Dancers
Wally Cardona
Scott Cunningham
Leslie Cuyjet
Karen Graham
Iréne Hultman
Justin Jain
Shayla-Vie Jenkins
Dean Moss
Cynthia Oliver
Valda Setterfield
Flashmob – Bolero de Ravel at the Pinacoteca in Sao Paulo, Brazil
Project of Marine Gandon, Ghislain Roffat & Pierre-Olivier Schmitt and the Conservatoire de Paris
Toy Piano Bolero Uno, Pianist
David Gordon is a director, choreographer, writer, based in New York City. From his seminal beginnings as a founding artist in the Judson Dance Theater, David Gordon has examined and expanded the line of theater and dance and pioneered the use of textual narrative in movement work. Gordon not only signified his later writing and directing for the stage, but also predated the live theater form that became known as “performance art.” He has created 100+ works for his own company, The Pick Up Performance Co., as well as numerous commissions to create dance and theater for other leading arts organizations, including American Ballet Theater, American Conservatory Theater, Ballet Rambert, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Guthrie Theater, Mark Taper Forum, PEAK Performances and White Oak Dance Project among others. Gordon’s accolades include three BESSIES Awards two Guggenheims, three 3 National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpiece grants, two OBIE Awards, two Dramalogues, two Pew Charitable Trust Grants (in both Theater and Dance), and the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. His complete works to date are in the permanent collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and all can be accessed at his archive website davidgordon.nyc.
Engage
Ep 17. The Talking Cure: David Gordon and Valda Setterfield
Recorded on June 16, 2021.
David Gordon and Valda Setterfield talk about art & life in the context of 60 years working and living together from the early days (now known as the Postmodern Dance Movement.) They talk with long-time collaborator Jedediah Wheeler in their Soho loft about their shared history as well as David Gordon’s new film work created for PEAK Plus, The New Adventures of Old David (What Happened 1978-2021.)
Gallery
Amplify
September 8, 2020 | David Gordon Digs Into His Archives for a Dance That Matters
November 20, 2019 | Dance Magazine Award Honorees: David Gordon & Valda Setterfield
Credits
Support For PICK UP PERFORMANCE CO.: New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Howard Gilman Foundation Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
Support for the office of Arts + Cultural Programming provided by the following: The Alexander Kasser Theater Endowment Fund, PEAK Performances Patrons, New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
