Choreography:
Two Huts (2011-12)
 |
©Ian Douglas |
A radically imagistic, vocally athletic movement theater work about two women living side by side in alternate universes. Skura & Debra Wanner write, dance & chant their world into being. With an iconoclastic approach to language, athletic approach to the voice, respect for subconscious realities, & predisposition for unintended prophecy, the two women make rules, change rules, laugh, argue, almost die, & recycle. Two men in a related universe comment, reflect, foreshadow, dance, lose & regain structure, & exhange identities with the women.
With lighting by David Verkade (Seattle & NYC) & Jessica Carson (PA).
Two Huts extends Skura’s research in free-associative forms of movement into theater, text, and voice, revealing underlying realms both strange and familiar. She wrote the script and developed the work during residencies at Juniata College, PA. Performed at Juniata's Halbritter Center in Huntingdon, PA, & further developed with Skura, Wanner, Tom Cayler & Todd Jefferson Moore at Seattle's Open Flight Studio, & during Roulette's inaugural season in their newly renovated art deco theater in Brooklyn, NY.
Commissioned by Roulette, and partially funded by USA Artists Projects, Seattle's 4Culture, Interaction Arts Foundation, & many generous individual donors.
Highlight Reel, Seattle & NY, 2012 (7 1/2 min)
Video of Seattle showing, Feb 2012, Part One (37 min)
Video of Seattle showing, Feb 2012, Part Two (34 min)
Video of New York performances, March 2012, Part One (36 min)
Video of New York performances, March 2012, Part Two (37 min)
LOVED IT. Brilliant. Wow, Stephanie Skura's Two Huts at Roulette is just fabulous. Her mix of words and movement—I don't know where it comes from or why it's so engaging, but it is. Cryptic, poetic, a little loony, dreamlike, glamorous, dotty, but somehow saying/acting real things. Debra Wanner, Tom Caylor, & Todd Moore were all wonderfully eccentric too. It was just as funny as when I first saw her at P.S.122 in the 80s. But this was more fully developed, with strange, disconnected yet connected narrative, with words being hung on invisible hangers. Wendy Perron, Editor, Dance Magazine
Two Huts is awesome! What an ouvre! Karen Nelson
it careened from hysterical to somber and many places in between so deftly I was happy just to ride along. Sandi Kurtz, Dance Writer, Seattle Weekly
Vibrant performances…Full of texture, emotion and eventually, transformation. Ms. Skura has a verbal acuity that cuts to the heart of what matters most to her. Deborah Wingert, EYE ON THE ARTS, NY
The work makes me think and laugh hard. Each time I see it a new layer is revealed and my imagination starts flowing. The craft and depth are inspiring. A rare opportunity to see true masters at work. Paige Barnes
What a fabulous production! The performing was terrific, the text stimulating. Kris Wheeler
I could watch Stephanie Skura dance a phone book. In Two Huts, she and her thoroughly gelatinous, pan-disciplined, wackadoodle colleagues dervish, jerk, strut, cuddle and sputter their way through the day-glo confines, rules, and expanses of our huts. Thank you for bringing your remarkable work back east this weekend (but please don't make NYC wait another twenty years to bask in your genius.) Jamie Leo
See this stunning work, I insist! Stephanie Skura's Two Huts, in Brooklyn's gorgeous new version of Roulette, is a world for the mind to break free within -- a deliciously deep experience of being alive, too dear to go unseen by each human in its midst. Audrey Kindred
Your show tonight was fabulous, and you were stunning! I will cherish my love letters! Kate Artibee
You abound with new fresh ideas in form. The frame of the story with the two women and two huts -- within the frame of the men -- was so clear within its absurdest poetic world. This amazing construction of a progression within a non-literal realm is spectacular and very rare. Bravo! I loved it and will carry it with me. I want to study with you again! Laurel Tentindo
Really loved the show. Excellent work. Very successful, highly original, and overall great. Such terrific performances from the entire cast! Lenora Champagne
"Thank you for such access, such wild joy. Your piece churns in me like a dream now. How dearly I love it! I sat next to a stranger and we shared so intimately the sweet thrill of our experiences, because we HAD to, each bursting with our aesthetically rich, emotionally charged journeys, becoming more enlivened in depths of self. Your idiosyncratic specificity spoke to life's great mysteries. Epic." Audrey Kindred
I loved your show, I thought it was clever, humorous and very charming. Lucy Walters-Maneri
Great to see you and Debra in your Two Huts at Roulette. Brings back memories, but definitely more complex, existential and funny. Antonio Petracca
Stephanie Skura -- so great to see her piece at the new fab Roulette space. Mark Russell, Director, Under the Radar Festival
That was my first visit to the new Roulette space, and it was such a blast to see Stephanie Skura's brilliant dance-and-words performance-and-dance piece. Wendy Perron, Editor Dance Magazine
Captivating… the clarity of vision her work provoked in me allowed me to read the NYTimes this morning without adjusting my glasses. Martha Dunham
Four performers’ words and bodies, a musical score, choreography, and love letters envelop Two Huts’ audience in a space of energy and ingeniousness. The performers are almost impossibly open: their rubbery facial expressions and ranging vocal intonations serve to umbrella the many layers of emotionality in humanity. Lauren Kaufman, student, NYU
PRESS
Preview by Elizabeth Zimmer in Metro
Review by Deborah Wingert in Eye on the Arts, NY
Movement Research In-depth interview, Part 1: Critical Correspondence celebrates the return of Skura's work to NY with this two-part interview series; Lana Wilson talks with Stephanie Skura.
Movement Research Interview, Part 2: Skura and Wilson discuss the making of Cranky Destroyers (1987), Skura’s seminal work set to the music of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and Two Huts (2012), an experiment in collaged language and movement.