Art Sonje Center presents Maria Hassabi’s choreography performance to accompany REAL DMZ PROJECT 2015.

SHOW
2011

At the core of Maria Hassabi’s practice is a preoccupation with stillness. SHOW (2011), originally created for a theatrical setting, casts a focus on the elements of live performance in a bid to make them plastic and palpable. The work reveals the paradoxical condition that must be negotiated and resolved by any live performance: the attempt to be present in a moment of expression, while existing in awareness caught by a set of definitive frames.

SHOW features Hassabi and dancer Hristoula Harakas, with the two being largely bound to the ground. Their movements assume an uncannily sculptural quality as they mutually negotiate the twists and turns of a highly plastic choreography. The two bodies are engaged in an involuted shadow and retreat from one another, seeming to gently collide but never actually touch. Rarely does the human figure seem so palpable with materiality, so subject to gravity. Presented in the public sphere, it reminds us what the harried urban experience often enjoins us to take for granted: attention, and the awareness of detail that springs from it, are often their own most rewarding form of redemption.

About the Performer
Maria Hassabi(b. Cyprus) is a New York-based artist and choreographer. Hassabi’s works are presented worldwide in theaters, festivals, museums, galleries and public spaces, including Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2015); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2015); BONE 17, Bern (2014); Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels (2014); steirischer herbst, Graz (2014); Le Mouvement: Performing the City, Biel (2014); CentrePasquArt, Biel (2014); Kunsthalle, Oslo (2014); XING, Bologna (2014), The Kitchen, New York (2013, 2011, 2006); Visual Art Performance Biennial Performa, New York (2013, 2009); the 55th Venice Biennale (2013); Kaaitheater, Brussels (2014, 2013, 2010); ImPulsTanz, Vienna (2013, 2011, 2006); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2012); Springdance Festival, Utrecht (2012); Middelheim Museum, Antwerp (2012); deSingel, Antwerp (2011, 2010); Tanz im August, Berlin (2011); Museo Soumaya, Mexico City (2011); Panorama Festival, Rio de Janeiro (2012); Festival Contemporãneo de Danca, São Paulo (2012); Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland (2010), amongst others. Maria Hassabi is a recipient of the 2015 Herb Alpert Award, a 2012 recipient of The President’s Award for Performing Arts from the LMCC, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2009 Grants to Artists Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Hassabi holds a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts.