DOORKNOB COMPANY: The Miracle Show and the Death of OPTIMISM

June 16–19 & 23–26, 12:30pm

Bowling Green Park at Cobblestone Plaza

DOORKNOB COMPANY’s new dance satire, The Miracle Show and the Death of OPTIMISM, co-directors Shannon Gillen and Elisabeth Motley invite you to the funeral for OPTIMISM.  Funeral Attendants will guide you on a journey through exhilarating dance, woeful song, and uproarious theater, as we gather to mourn OPTIMISM's death and hope for a miracle.  DOORKNOB COMPANY creates a world of deep physicality, virtuosic extremes, and peculiar happenings.  It's high time for a miracle, and this one happens on your lunch break.

Choreography: Shannon Gillen and Elisabeth Motley

Musical Arrangement/Composition: Malina Rauschenfels

DOORKNOBS: Amelia Uzategui Bonilla, Xan Burley, Janna Diamond, Erika Eichelberger, Jane Sato, Marie Zvosec

About DOORKNOB COMPANY

DOORKNOB COMPANY's work focuses on human exchange.  Movement, song, scenic imagery, music, and spoken word each play a vital role.  Emotion, states of mind, dysfunction and function of communication inherent to human stories feed the creative process.  Complex moving patterns, atypical full- bodied partnering, phrases created from potent recalled images, and movement scenes based on everyday experiences work in tandem to produce narrative movement collages consistent with DOORKNOB COMPANY's aesthetic.  DOORKNOB COMPANY has had the pleasure to present work at Dance New Amsterdam for their Raw and Object series, HERE Arts Center's American Living Room, Dance Theater Workshop and held residency at Festival Oltre Passo in Lecce, Italy and Fresh Tracks at DTW.  DOORKNOB has been selected to present new work with Movement Research at Judson Church this fall.

Shannon Gillen received her BFA from Juilliard and studied Meisner acting with Maggie Flanigan. She has presented her work at Alice Tully Hall, Clark Theater, DNA, DTW’s Fresh Tracks, and HERE Arts Center.  Her next choreographic endeavor will premiere at the Ontological Hysterics Theater as part of Sintroca's work, Lasanta. Gillen is a 2009 artist-in-residence at Dance New Amsterdam.

Elisabeth Motley received her BFA from Juilliard where she was awarded the Hector Zaraspe choreography award. Elisabeth has held residency with DTW's Fresh Tracks, Festival Oltre Passo, Vision Into Art, Stella Adler Studio, has served as Assistant Director to Shi-Zheng Chen for the opera, Vespers, and been on faculty as a choreographer at The Juilliard School's summer dance intensive for three years.

Sitelines is generously supported by Mertz Gilmore Foundation, New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Produced in association with the River To River® Festival.

The River To River Festival, presented by American Express, is a collaboration of Lower Manhattan’s major cultural event producers including the Alliance for Downtown New York, arts>World Financial Center, Battery Park City Authority, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Port Authority of NY & NJ, and South Street Seaport. These partners are firmly committed to using the arts as a tool for revitalization and the development of new audiences.

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