Maria Hassabi
TOGETHER (2019)
PAST EVENT
June 26-27, 2021 at 6 pm
Fosun Plaza at 28 Liberty
Over the years, Maria Hassabi has developed a distinct choreographic practice centered on the relation of the live body to the still image - defined by stillness, deceleration and aesthetic precision. Her work draws its strength from the tension between the human subject and the artistic object, the dancer as a performer and as a physical entity. Preoccupied with velocity of deceleration, and the radical corporeality of the body and its elements, her works reveal the body at its most vulnerable, perhaps even in unnatural states, foregrounding both the enormous demands made on the performers, and every last detail of the performing body. Her photographic and video works use her live performances as a departure point, and the use of technology is employed to override the limitations that occur within the format of liveness and realness.
TOGETHER (2019) is an intimate duet between dancer Oisín Monaghan and Maria Hassabi in which the two evoke images of togetherness through minimal movements. TOGETHER (2019) proposes a forceful choreographic meditation on methods of affecting and being affected by each other; on ways of living with and next to another.
Maria Hassabi and Oisín Monaghan, Performers
Stavros Gasparatos and Maria Hassabi, Sound Design
Victoria Bartlett, Outfits
Natasha Katerinopoulos, Management
Maria Hassabi (b. Cyprus) is an artist and choreographer working with live performance, installation, sculpture, photography and video. Her performances and installations have been presented worldwide in theaters, festivals, museums, galleries and public spaces including Gropius Bau, Berlin (2020); Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis (2019); Serralves Museum, Porto (2019, 2015); MUDAM, Luxenberg (2019); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018); K20, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein- Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2017-18); documeta14, Kassel (2017); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2017); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2016); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2015); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2015); The 55th Venice Biennale (2013); Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels (2017, 2016, 2014); ArtSonje, Seoul (2015); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2014); Performa, New York (2019, 2014, 2009); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2019, 2012); The Kitchen, New York (2019, 2016, 2013, 2011, 2006); Crossing the Line Festival, New York (2016, 2011, 2009) amongst others. Hassabi has received the 2019 Performa Malcolm McClaren Award; a 2016 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award; 2015 Herb Alpert Award; 2012 President’s Award for Performing Arts from LMCC; 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship; 2009 Grants to Artists Award from Foundation for Contemporary Arts. She holds a BFA from California Institute of the Arts and is an Onassis Decade Resident 2019-2029. She’s based in New York and Athens, and works internationally.
TOGETHER (2019) was commissioned by the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis and by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, developed as part of LMCC’s Extended Life Dance Development program made possible in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The piece was developed in part through a residency at The Floor.