More Mutable Than You (2015)

About

Jumatatu Poe and Jesse Zaritt began working together artistically in 2011, as strangers. Their current work explores the evolution of that initial strangeness, asking. Mutually interested in ideas of queerness and heroism, the pair’s creative process involves personal self-discovery within the framework of a partnership. In their new duet More Mutable Than You, Poe and Zaritt create a performance world that juxtaposes images of the conqueror, the valiant, the superhero with notions of the failed, the victimized, and the fallen.

Click here to see a piece of writing authored by the two artists, and originally published in Two Too, a collection of writings about the duet form in performance that accompanied the Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane retrospective, Body Against Body, at the Painted Bride Arts Center in Philadelphia (2013).

Production History

2015 – Premiered at Gibney Dance Center, NYC.
2014 – Presented in Dance It Out. Aux Performance Space, Philadelphia, PA.
2014 – Presented in Moving Men Series. Dixon Place, New York, NY.
2014 – Presented by Triple Canopy in a showing of solo sections from the work. Baryshnikov Arts Center. New York, NY
2013 – Presented through Studio Series. New York Live Arts. New York, NY.
2012 – Presented as QuHeroics. Live Arts Brewery (formerly a part of FringeArts). Philadelphia, PA

Project Credits

created and performed by Jumatatu Poe and Jesse Zaritt
sound design by Llain Jackson (with looped material from Me’Shell Ndegeocello)
additional music from Journey and Rihanna
lighting design by Haejin Han

Funding Credits

Initial development of the work was supported, in part, through a commission from New York Live Arts’ Studio Series program with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; a residency at the Philadelphia Live Arts Brewery (formerly a part of Philadelphia’s FringeArts organization); and a writing/performance commission from Triple Canopy. More recent support of the work comes from Gibney Dance Center’s boo-koo space grant.  The artists also like to thank Craig Peterson, Donna Faye Burchfield, and Wendell Cooper for their support through this creative process.