2nd Best Dance Company presents an evening length dance performance on Friday, October 4, 2024. 2nd Best Dance Company blends humor and tragedy while tackling big topics through “rigorous, inventive movement and wit” (Dance Magazine).
The company brings its signature style to Connecticut with a physically rigorous, sometimes virtuosic, almost always slapstick work entitled RED.
This evening-length work walks the fuzzy, shag-carpet line between dance performance and narrative play, leaning into both text and movement to tell an abstracted version of a well known fictional story of survival: Little Red Riding Hood.
Photo courtesy of Ingrid Holmquist of 2nd Best Dance Company
The performers – Courtney Barth, Hannah Garner, Will Noling and Ryan Yamauchi – cycle through distinct characters, either true to the original story or entirely new, to explore how we confront the many-faced “big bads” that lurk on our personal wooded paths.
In RED (choreographed, written, and directed by Hannah Garner), four performers brave the unknown by way of spectacle, sentimentality, glamour, mortality, and answering the phone.
Note: Though this is not a production made for children it is a family friendly performance. This performance was curated by Marcia Brooks.
2nd Best Dance Company presents RED, Friday, October 4, 2024
Performance at 7:00 pm (doors at 6:45 pm)
The Loft @ Christ Church, 254 East Putnam, in Greenwich, CT 06830
Ticket prices: sliding scale $15-50
Tickets are on sale now here.
Cast and Collaborators
Choreography, writing and direction: Hannah Garner
Performance: Courtney Barth, Hannah Garner, Will Noling, Ryan Yamauchi
COVID-19 Safety Policies
Masks are recommended. Proof of vaccination is not required. Nonetheless, we all who are eligible to maintain up-to-date vaccination status in accordance with CDC Guidelines.
About the Company
2nd Best Dance Company creates, performs, and teaches physically rigorous, sometimes virtuosic, almost always slapstick dance plays. We connect to audiences, students, and professionals alike as we share emotionally accessible work that is relatable, honest, and resonant. Led by Hannah Garner, our work…
– believes in art-making that is exploratory, empathetic, and goofy.
– Values feeling over reality and seeks our truest sensations over absolute truth.
– Blends humor and tragedy while tackling big topics, like death and queer identity, through “rigorous, inventive movement and wit” (Dance Magazine).
– Grapples with big ideas in very human ways (aka messy ways).
Since our founding in 2016, we have used our practice and platform to play out absurdist scenes: we move, perform text, sing, utilize props, unconventionally handle proscenium spaces, and ask the audience to play active roles or even perform in the work alongside us.
The unpredictability of live performance excites us, as does building a nexus between dance and text, humor and tragedy, viewer and performer. We dance hard, play very seriously, and lean into hunches that take us to uncertain and often ridiculous places all to ask: what does it mean to be alive?