Rachel Thorne Germond is a performer, dancer, teacher, choreographer, and visual artist and has been creating dance/performance work since the late 1980’s. Based in New York City from 1986-1998, she presented her choreography at notable venues such as St. Mark’s Church Danspace, Dixon Place, and The Joyce Soho, amongst others. In 2000 she achieved an M.F.A. in Choreography from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and afterwards founded her Chicago-based company, RTG Dance. From 2010-2014 she taught in Southeastern Virginia at Old Dominion University and Christopher Newport University and was part of a multidisciplinary performance troupe, ArtPile. Since returning to New York in 2014, she has performed with Alice Klugherz and Karen Bernard, and continues to create and present multidisciplinary performances that incorporate visual art, dance, video, and photography via Rachel Thorne Germond Performance Collage.
Tasha Taylor (performer) has performed extensively with many choreographers including Pat Cremins, Steve Gross, Dean Moss, Lynn Shapiro, Matthew Brookoff, and RoseAnne Spradlin. She received a “Bessie” Award for her performance in Spradlin’s Underworld. Tasha is excited to return to dance with Rachel and RTGPC . A Feldenkrais® practitioner since 2006, Tasha teaches classes at Movement Research and maintains a practice on the Upper West Side focusing on performing artists interested in improving their self-use. Tasha delights in improvisation and poetry and is curious about the relationship between movement, feeling and learning.
Enigma of an Afternoon
Enigma of an Afternoon is a visual and movement installation—with no intended beginning, middle, or end— that addresses various physical and psychic states that have emerged and escalated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rachel Thorne Germond and Tasha Taylor perform a sort of metaphysical dreamscape, inspired by a trip to the beach on a cold March afternoon in 2021. Created as we are coming tentatively out of a year of isolation, the artists ask: How has the world changed? How have we changed? They try to comprehend a new reality and explore how they can move within it.
“My creative history with New Dance Alliance goes a way long. Since my friend, Chivas Sandage brought me to New Dance Alliance to rehearse in early 90’s, the place has become a part of my creative life. The long time existence of the studio and Performance Mix Festival are vital to the artists who seek and explore deep into their process. Whenever I step into the studio, it’s a new space with a lot of memories. I lie down on the floor, listen to my body, and I dance. It is valuable. The time in the space nurtures my practice and artistic vision. Karen’s vision of Lift-Off residency, feedback sessions, providing peer to peer connections are more significant than ever. It has been helping us to get through 2020 and we are going into 2021.”
– Nami Yamamoto
New Dance Alliance
182 Duane Street
New York, NY 10013
All venues are wheelchair accessible.
