Maggie Allesee National Center
for Choreography (MANCC)

www.mancc.org

Artistic Director, Yannis Adoniou, is honored to have been chosen as a choreographic fellow at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University for Spring 2008.

During this choreographic residency Yannis plans to explore a theme new to his work and one he finds is often absent from the intensely introspective act of choreography: humor. Beginning to research such basic questions such as, "what does it mean, in the context of movement and the body, to be funny?"; "what role does narrative play in humor?"; "what is universally funny and why?", Yannis, in collaboration with filmmaker/dramaturg, Talal Al-Muhanna, will attempt to deconstruct the natural physicality of funny movement in a way that may be re-choreographed later. One aspect of this research springs from the observation that the movement we often find funniest occurs in children. Before their body language becomes programmed to be proper according to the culture and environment that surrounds them, movement is the most natural and expressive vehicle for their feelings. During the residency, Yannis and the company dancers will begin to develop a system of movement whose goal is the "kinesthetic deprogramming" or cleansing the palate of the body to return it to this natural, or childlike, state of receptivity.

This research in "kinesthetic deprogramming" stems from a desire to achieve a greater breadth and clarity of expression for the dancers of KUNST-STOFF as well as for this and other choreographic work. By removing the movement context that society, culture, and dance training impart, Yannis hopes to create a blank slate from which a new and unknown movement context may be discovered.

The goal of focusing on humor is to break away from our tendency not only in choreography, but in much of society, to take ourselves and our work so seriously that we don't allow the natural impulse of laughter and humor to put things in perspective in the broad scope of our lives. By understanding and sharing where and how humor can be found and accessed, we hopes that we may all experience it more easily. If vitality and lightheartedness can be brought into dance performance, rather than the solemn regard that is often expected, we will hopefully begin to discover it more often in everyday life.


About Talal Al-Muhanna

Talal Al-Muhanna received his professional training in dance, drama and musical theater at the Elmhurst Ballet School in England - being awarded the Solo Seal of the Royal Academy of Dance at the conclusion of his studies. As a young performer he appeared at the Royal Festival Hall, the Duke of York Theater in London's West End, on the BBC program Blue Peter and in a Command Performance for H.R.H. the Princess of Wales. An additional year of training in the United States at North Carolina School of the Arts was immediately followed by an extensive career in classical and contemporary ballet as a performer with companies in the United States and Asia: North Carolina Dance Theater, Cleveland Ballet, Ballet Chicago, Universal Ballet/Seoul and Feld Ballets/New York. In 1996, he moved to Germany where he then performed in productions for Germany's National Theater Mannheim, Ballett Frankfurt, Ballett Freiburg Pretty Ugly, Unterwegstheater and for Mouvoir - a Cologne-based multimedia dance group. He also choreographed and conducted dramaturgy at some of these same companies and appeared as an actor in short films, musicals and drama productions including West Side Story (National Theater), The Merchant of Venice (Das TAT) and Faust (Ruhr Triennale). In New York, his improvisational work was presented at both the O.K. Harris gallery and Joyce Soho as part of the Downtown Arts Festival in 1999 and at the alternative Brooklyn venues Galapagos Art & Performance Space and The Cave thereafter. His collective stage experience has included professional engagements at most of the major international performance venues in North America, Europe and Asia including for the opening of TATE Modern.

Since 1999, Talal has been regularly engaged as a dramaturge, curator and producer for various companies, theater productions, films, special events, symposia and festivals in Europe and the United States. In this capacity, he has developed multi-media programs showcasing dance, theater, music, film and video for the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Frankfurt Culture Committee; UnterwegsTheater, TANZinternational and Forum Neue Art (Heidelberg); the Korzo Theater (Den Haag); Side Step Festival (Helsinki); PACT Zollverein (Essen); Goethe Institute (Brussels); The Kitchen (New York) and for Ballett Frankfurt and Das TAT under the direction of William Forsythe. He is currently co-curating a screendance event in Ireland in cooperation with Dance Ireland, Daghdha Dance Company and the Dublin City Council Arts Office. The series will present workshops with artists such as Rosemary Butcher and Iina Naoto (Dance & Media Japan), discussion forums with Irish media artists and choreographers plus screenings of international dance videos and installations. As an extension of his curatorial work, Talal has utilized video to document and/or interview artists such as Dutch theater director Jan Ritsema, New York performance artist John Kelly and filmmaker Mike Figgis.

Talal has coordinated and developed academic/educational projects such as the 2003 international symposium Dance and the Brain (in cooperation with The Dana Foundation in New York); imPACT 04:Strategy and Scope of Theatrical Practices - the 2004 retrospective of William Forsythe's work for PACT Zollverein and, most recently, the Daghdha Mentoring Programme in Choreography & Dance - a major public-private initiative to support emerging artists in Ireland that is run in cooperation with Ireland's Employment and Training Authority.

Holding a BA in Film & Moving Image Production from Leeds Metropolitan University, Talal has also produced, directed and edited digital video projects for public presentation at Das TAT (Frankfurt), tanzhaus NRW (Duesseldorf), PACT Zollverein (Essen), Side Step Festival (Helsinki) and the New Media Series @ Dance Mission Theater (San Francisco). His work has been exhibited at international dance film festivals such as ADF's Dancing for the Camera (N. Carolina), Danscamdanse (Ghent), BOZAR (Brussels) and Coreografo Elettronico (Naples). Recently he co-produced/directed a promotional video for Dance Umbrella in London - featuring performance excerpts and interviews with Mark Morris, Michael Clark, Charles Linehan and Trisha Brown Dance Company amongst others. He also holds a Certificate in Fundraising from New York University and is producing a documentary sponsored by Dance Films Association (NY).

Photo Gallery

MANCC Residency Photos
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL - March-April 2008
photos courtesy of the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography