Press
Press
“Dis Place, choreographer Aviva Geismar’s two part, multimedia exploration of America’s history of displacement, packs an emotional punch.”
Cecly Placenti, SIX DEGREES DANCE
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“Watching Aviva Geismar move is like witnessing the unfettering of a soul…. Physical, emotional, and mental tension transform Geismar’s body and the body of her dancers into conduits between the redemptive world of spirit and the human condition struggling against obstacles and oppression.”
Cecly Placenti, SIX DEGREES DANCE
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“keeps resonating...What made Dis/Location (Fort Tryon) work so well was the articulate and performative nature of the choreography. The dancers, strong, individual, and equally able to hold the stage, all embodied a complete understanding of the material and how to use its movement language to put forth Geismar’s rich choreographic ideas."
jULIET NEIDISH, OP EDGY
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“Aviva Geismar knows firsthand about the healing power of movement.”
TOBIN HACK, IOBY
“To confront our own incongruity, we must confront history…. Geismar’s “Line of Descent” taps this truth through its emotional and physical structures of power.”
Brian McCormack, GAY CITY NEWS
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“Geismar, whose dynamic gestures are reminiscent of German expressionist Mary Wigman, exhibited incredible dramatic range playing both the part of a prosecutor and a defendant in “The Unbidden and Unhinged.”
Stacey Menchel Kussell, FORWARD.COM
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“A provocative brew of cruelty and comedy boiled in two new dances by Aviva Geismar… Geismar’s dead-on understanding of social realities is like a poke in the ribs.”
TOM STRINI, MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
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“Ms. Geismar’s strangulated, tortured body communicated understandable confusion and pain in a tour de force of performing, twisting in on itself endlessly but settling into a semblance of tranquility and even hopeful purpose for miraculous moments toward the end.”
Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times
“Geismar’s meticulous choreography investigates every crevice of these confined worlds with wry determination.…The mesmerizing amalgam strikes chords in the gut and the soul.”
George Russell, Gay City News
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“Standing ovations!”
Bettina Schulte
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“… a compellling program of troubled personalities…. inner demons…extracted from the pressures and joys of life and love…. Bright passionate performances lift the inevitable cloud formed by this dredging.”
ori Ortiz, offoffoff.com
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“Four choreographers in New York have been mining their dancers’ emotional behavior in a deeply resonating way. Their work reveals a complex awareness of “affect,” the malleable, physical evidence of feeling.”
Chris Dohse, Dance Magazine
‘‘‘riveting…breakneck, percussively compelling.” One of “Downtown’s wittiest” choreographers.
Elizabeth Zimmer, The Village Voice
‘‘…important, hybrid tanztheater, dances full of ideas…a bruising briefcase ritual with the gestural force of Joos’s ‘Green Table.’...character studies fraught with meaning. Vanessa Adato’s masterful solo for Geismar is beautifully danced…’’
Chris Dohse, dance insider
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“… an evening of humorous and powerful work…”
Meital Waibsnaider, The Village Voice
“a splendid duet about attraction, repulsion and co-dependence, all communicated vividly through dance.”
Michael Crabb, National Post, Toronto, Canada
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“…wicked, off-kilter movement…’’
Gia Kourlas, Time Out New York
‘‘…her work burns with a very particular intensity; it probes deeply into psychological nuance, daring to face the drastic realities of the human psychic condition.”
Fiona Marcotty, choreographer
‘‘There’s something potent about dances that try to tell you only one thing, or maybe two, and speak plainly, boldly. Aviva Geismar’s pieces do this.”