Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People: And lose the name of action
The Brooklyn-based Miguel Gutierrez creates performances that explore philosophical questions about life, desire, and the search for meaning. "And lose the name of action" focuses on improvisation to explore body and mind consciousness in both the performers and the audience, who are seated onstage in a space designed by Gutierrez. Each of the six dancers has worked with Gutierrez for several years on the connections between dance, neurology, and paranormal conditions. The work is co-commissioned by MCA Stage.
TRANSCRIPT
Being them and seeing them and being them and seeing them. Being them and seeing them. Be. [singing]
Miguel Gutierrez: The driver of the piece was the fact that my father, a few years ago, started having a lot of neurological problems. So I think that this piece – something about the matrix of the family and the matrix of a situation that is changing radically inside of a group of people just informed something very powerfully for me for this piece.
- *We talked about this before.
- Oh relax.
- Stop telling me to relax George!
Sorry.*
MG: I think at the heart of my work, I think of the work as philosophical inquiry or research. I have these big life questions and the way that I work them out is in performance.
The title comes from Hamlet; from the "To be or not to be" soliloquy. That whole soliloquy is obviously about the questioning of what the meaning of life is—whether to exist or not to exist. This piece really offers that tension between belief and doubt; faith and not knowing.