Lyons and Tigers presents Proceed with Caution, a new evening length dance theater piece in the 2018 Philadelphia Fringe Festival September 7-9, 2018 at 8 PM at the Iron Factory
Proceed with Caution grapples with personal, social, and global security and trust in the present day. A group of dancers explore security in a time of global violence, the Trump presidency, police brutality, mass shootings, and the #MeToo movement.
The piece is largely inspired by security specialist Bruce Schneier. He writes: “Security is both a reality and a feeling and they’re not the same thing…The foundation of security is trust, both personal trust and global trust”. The piece begins to address these questions: How do humans build trust in dance? How do we build trust with each other? How do we build trust in the world at large? How do we address and assess our fears about personal safety? How do our personal feelings of security intersect with global security? How is our security affected by news media? How do we make an impact on security through art and activism? How does the feeling and reality of security change across different countries and cultures? Four performers, three women and one man, take over The Iron Factory floor as they explore different variations of trust. Alongside spoken and recorded words, they tell stories through their bodies about their own real life experiences of feeling safe, feeling scared, and being truly endangered. Projected video throughout the piece helps tell the stories of security. The work continues to evolve as it moves from the personal to the global, addressing modern issues and how they affect our individual and collective associations and understandings of safety within an increasingly turbulent humanity. Proceed with Caution does not claim to have all the answers, but it’s worth seeing because the work takes a brave step into exploring one of today’s greatest challenges that everyone can relate to: security.
This project is supported in part with funding from Small But Mighty Arts, donors at FringeArts Scratch Night, LaPeg Brasserie and sponsor, Figure53.
Directed by Darcy Lyons Created in collaboration with the performers: Carlos Campillo Rubio, Emma Elsmo, Olivia Naegele, and Sammi Rosenfeld Understudy: Gabriela Montoya. Video projection created by Darcy Lyons Recorded and spoken text by Bruce Schneier, Darcy Lyons, and all performers. Past performers who made contributions to this work include Amalia Colón-Nava, Stuart Meyers, Mason Rosenthal, Lisa Rothstein, and Grace Stern.