Appalachian Spring Break

By Brendan Connelly and Scotty Heron
December 10 - 12, 2015

JACK presents the first collaboration of composer/musician Brendan Connelly (Theater of a Two-headed Calf) and Bessie-winning choreographer/performance artist Scotty Heron – a staple of the downtown scene in the 80’s and 90’s. The two, both currently New Orleans-based, play with the iconic, confused and clichéd relationship of choreographer and composer, glancing sideways at Martha Graham and Aaron Copland’s only collaboration and its sepia-toned Americana. The lines of collaboration are gleefully blurred in this duet, where all movement, sound and light are generated and manipulated by the onstage duo. Contact microphones fill the stage and movements are often sound-generating: toe-shoes on an amplified piano bench; a reverbed water pail dragged across the stage; two dismantled clarinets; an adult diaper and a pair of toe-shoes; a bucket of water and a pile of guitar pedals. Ken Burns’ Civil War. A pop. A click. A slow entrance from the hanamichi. A flourish of eyelashes and then, the Finale.

BRENDAN CONNELLY is a composer/sound designer and co-founder of the OBIE-winning Theater of a Two-headed Calf with Brooke O'Harra. Scores for The Two-headed Calf include You, My Mother, Trifles, Major Barbara, and Drum of the Waves of Horikawa. He is a frequent collaborator of PearlDamour, creating the sound and music for Lost in the Meadow (Longwood Gardens), How to Build a Forest (The Kitchen) and the ongoing Milton project. As a theater sound designer, Brendan has worked with directors Anne Kaufmann, Pam MacKinnon, Suzan-Lori Parks, Ian Belton, Aimee Hayes, Seth Bockley, Isis Misdary, Gisela Cardenas, David Levine and others. His concert music has been performed by Wet Ink, S.E.M. Ensemble, Yarn-Wire, TimeTable Percussion and Hunter-Gatherer. He is an alum of the TCG/NEA Career Development Program and the MFA program at Bard College. He is currently working on something with Karinne Keithley-Syers, entitled Wild Land, based on the writings and life of Willa Cather.

SCOTTY HERON is a movement­based performance artist living in New Orleans. His solo and group theater works have been commissioned and produced in downtown venues including Movement Research, The Kitchen, La Mama E.T.C, Dance Theater Workshop, Franklin Furnace and Performance Space 122 which commissioned 4 evening­ length works. As a performer he has appeared in works by Sally Silvers, Jennifer Monson, DD Dorvillier, Karen Finley, Linda Austin, Cathy Weis and countless others. He is a juggler, stilt­walker, rope walker, acrobat and founding member of Jennifer Miller's Circus Amok, bringing free queer circus to New York City parks for a dozen years. In 2003 he was received a New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) award. He recently finished a two-year project in collaboration with Brussels­based Thomas Hauert/Zoo which toured extensively in Europe, Canada and the U.S. He also maintains a long­term collaboration with HIJACK dance of Minneapolis. Most recently he made “Twink Spree Melee” in collaboration with Layard Thompson.

Photo by Sean Smuda.