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NUDEDESCENDANCE

In early 2005 I created a digitally-animated solo called "NUDEDESCENDANCE," which also involved choreography software to construct movement. The piece was designed as a live triptych, as an homage to Marcel Duchamp's similarly titled masterpiece "Nude Descending A Staircase," in which the human body is rendered irrecognizable through the an assembly of Dada and Cubist painting techniques. As reimagined for live performance, a lone figure descends a flight of stairs, while disrobing nearly 30 articles of clothing; a digital doppelganger then performs a dystopic (and seemingly impossible) series of transformations, which the performer then mimics with surprising accuracy. A final section offers a subversive descent down second flight of stairs.

Jonah Bokaer

Jonah Bokaer (Ithaca, NY) is a contemporary dance graduate of North Carolina School of the Arts, and is a current member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. While studying Visual & Media Art at The New School University he began exploring choreographic software, and has developed several digitally-created choreographies that address the moving body in relation to contemporary technology. These works have been exhibited widely throughout the United States and abroad, to great critical acclaim. Bokaer is also the founder of "Chez Bushwick Studios," an interdisciplinary arts studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn.