AMOC (American Modern Opera Company)

How to Fall Apart (New York Premiere)

February 10 + 11, 2023

Composed by Carolyn Chen, How to Fall Apart describes cosmic, natural, and human processes of disintegration, aging, and falling apart. This evening-length work for three dancers, one violinist, and one cellist integrates text, gesture, and music, building upon Chen’s long-standing compositional work “in which sensuality and abstraction find common ground” (LA Times). How to Fall Apart unfolds as various assemblages of sound, movement, and storytelling cohere, dissolve, and reform, telling personal and scientific stories about the climate crisis, cosmological history, the erosion of soil in Northern Chad, the aging body, The Billion Oyster Project in New York, and the operations of microbes.

Composed by Carolyn Chen

Performers:

Julia Eichten, dancer

Keir GoGwilt, violinist

Coleman Itzkoff, cellist

Yiannis Logothetis, dancer

Matilda Sakamoto, dancer

Movement Director: Julia Eichten

Lighting Designer: Mary Ellen Stebbins

Commissioned by AMOC.

Developed in part during an artist residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Developed in residency at The Lumberyard.

Special thanks to Or Schraiber and Jay Campbell for contributing to early workshops of the piece, as well as to Justin Decatur, Suzanne Thorpe, George Gwilt, and Dea Lou Schraiber.