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WONDER, 2013

In WONDER, Michelle Boulé mines the depth of information and perceptual patterns she has acquired through a lifetime of dance. Her choreographic drive, pushing her body into new dimensions of exposure, questions the culture of facades embedded in everyday life. In a continuous cycle of costumes and personas, Boulé explores archetypes and definitions of gender, identity, and virtuosity. The dance engages the audience in a purposeful relationship with the performer to mutually explore seeing and being seen. WONDER is an invitation to witness a body in the performance encounter where a shared space of curiosity and possibility is laid bare. Without wonder our eyes are closed.

  • • CHOREOGRAPHY: Michelle Boulé
  • • CHOREOGRAPHIC ADVISOR: Levi Gonzalez
  • • PERFORMANCE: Michelle Boulé
  • • COSTUMES: Michelle Boulé
  • • PHOTOGRAPHY: Ian Douglas
  • • SOUND: Carmine Covelli in collaboration with Michelle Boulé, includes ‘Hazel’ by Junior Boys; ‘Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)’ by Chic; ‘Love Come Down’ by Evelyn Champagne
  • • LIGHTING: Natalie Robin
  • • LENGTH: 45 minutes

PRESS

"When Ms. Boulé is onstage, it’s hard to take your eyes off of her, as anyone who has seen her in the work of Miguel Gutierrez can attest. Lucky for us she has been making a new solo, “WONDER,” presented by Issue Project Room at the Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew…"
SIOBHAN BURKEThe New York Times
"This piece gave me what I go to dance to experience: truth in a way I can’t get anywhere else. Almost ever."
Alyssa Morhardt-GoldsteinLuna Luna Mag 
"I’ve never seen Boulé struggle with a role as a performer, though I don’t mean to say “she makes dancing seem easy” or anything like that. I mean that there’s something more exceptional going on, like an evacuation of the self in order for her body to become most hospitable to the forces of each dance."
Samara Davis Interior Design 
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Michelle Boulé’s affecting solo ‘WONDER’ concurs that, thanks to reality TV, dance has come to represent sweaty aspiration. But, besides falling and stuttering and standing self-consciously still, Boulé really danced, sometimes with outlandish tricksy virtuosity, sometimes with modern-dance inwardness. Dance was no longer just a stand-in for something else. Plus, the shape-shifting, character-sifting solo was driven less by complaint than by deep questions. It asked, for example, what a dancer’s conception of dancing – whether as armour, medium or confessional – had to do with her relationship with the audience. For once, dance was not the enemy. With ‘WONDER’ there was no enemy.
APOLLINAIRE SCHERR Financial Times
Michelle Boulé’s opening to WONDER–her solo, commissioned by Issue Project Room and premiered in the Gallim Dance Studio at Clinton Hill’s Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew–could be remembered as this dance season’s most stunning and certainly most courageous adventure.
EVA YAA ASANTEWAA InfiniteBody
"As a dancer, Michelle Boulé has emerged. But as a choreographer, this enigmatic artist, best known for her grounding yet exhilarating presence in the work of Miguel Gutierrez, still falls into that category known as “emerging.” So it is that Issue Project Room, a Downtown Brooklyn arts center, has invited her to make a new work, “WONDER,” as part of its Emerging Artists Commission Program…"
Siobhan BurkeThe New York Times

FUNDING

WONDER  was commissioned through ISSUE Project Room’s Emerging Artists Commission program, made possible with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Residency support was provided by BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the New York Community Trust (Lila Acheson Wallace Fund for the Arts). Additional support provided by Caitlin Simpson and individual donors listed below.

Dr. Melvin Boulé, Dehlia & Olivia Bernardi, Marie-Claude Schauer, Casper the Dog, Frances McCaughan, Patricia Knowles, Joseph Isler, Ezra Tessler, Craig Bellafiore, Eva Dorman, Ruthie Epstein, Jessica Green, Miguel Gutierrez, John Jasperse, Kim Kort, Michael Lavelle, Mary Ochsenschlager, Ilse Pfeifer, Kevin Sheneberger, Margaret Wallin-Hart, Celia T. Wolters, Toni Yagoda, Jaime Fennelly, Allison Bachmeier, Terryann Nikides, Benjamin Pryor, John Scott, Alan Fleming, Danielle Boulé, Dr. Mel Boulé, Gregory Brackett, Moira Brennan, Alison Clark, Hilary Clark, Lenore Doxsee, Luke George, K.J. Holmes, Sarah Galender Meyer, Katherine Myers, Ruthann M. Rains, Brian Rogers, Todd Shalom, Renée Wadleigh, Sixto Wagan, Jayoung Yoon, Neal Beasley, Juliana May, Carmine Covelli, Alma Lazcano, DeAwna McGinley-Cherney, Paul Langland, Gregory Madden, Tom Creed, Alexey Kokhanov, Vanessa Anspaugh, Peggy Cheng, Crista Cole-Hafezi, Tony Evans, Michael Fleming, Rosie Goldensohn, Lance Gries, Ann Marie Lonsdale, Marissa Perel, Antonio Ramos, Kaneza Schaal, Gemma Shusterman, Mike Skoglund, Donna Uchizono, Matthew Walker, Joseph Waugh, Deke Weaver, Joan Athey, Anna Azrieli, Jill Booth-Clibborn, Ori Flomin, Anders Griffen, Stacey Levine, Sam Miller, Debbie Moran, Gwen Welliver, Rebecca Wender, Lily Baldwin, Oren Barnoy, Talya Epstein, Aiko Kinoshita, Amiti Perry, Natalie Robin, Hahn Rowe, RoseAnne Spradlin, John Stark, Adrienne Truscott, Jules Skloot, Michelle Amador, Emily Baumann, Amy Birnbaum, Lily Bo Shapiro, Michaela Cannon, Yanira Castro, Jessica Conway, Elizabeth Doud, Beth Gill, Lindsay Gilmour, Julian Orduna Guerrero, Leah Hafezi, Mike Inwood, Courtney Krantz, Janice Lancaster Larsen, Christy Loebach, Mark Dendy Dance and Theater Projects, Ingrid Nachstern, Marci Skolnick, Jacob Slominski, Niegel Smith, Zornitsa Stoyanova, Angela Vock, Isabel Watson, Emily Wexler, Kota Yamazaki, Susanna Young, Robert Boole Zatapathique, Rishauna Mari, Hadar Ahuvia, Tricia Albertson, Boru O’Brien O’Connell, Justin Cabrillos, Tony Carlson, Paul Duncan, Christine Elmo, Heather Frazier, Genevieve Beth Grady, Natalia Ariane Hafizi, Jody Oberfelder, Kyli Klevin, Kayt MacMaster, Cori Olinghouse, Tony Orrico, Dave Ratzlow, Tamara Riewe, Elke Rindfleisch, Kathe Robin, Michal Samama, Lauren Snyder, Marti Wolfson, Diana Crum, Neal Thornburn, Richard Becker, William Crosbie, Tina Clark, Terry Michael Gammon, Travis Gonzalez, Geena Hason, Jill Tajiri Jacobs, Daniella Jaeger, Justin Lamb, Stephanie Pereira, Michal Rosenn, Eric Damon Walters, Tomasz Werner, Katherine

HISTORY

  • January 30-31, 2015 – OnEdge Festival at Links Hall (Chicago, IL)
  • April 3, 2014 – Gertrudes ielas teatris (Riga, Latvia)
  • January 8-12 & 18-19, 2014 – American Realness (New York, NY)
  • May 30-31, 2013 Premiere – ISSUE Project Room (Brooklyn, NY)
  • April 15, 2013 – Dancehouse (Dublin, Ireland)
  • March 1, 2013 – Mascher Space Cooperative (Philadelphia, PA)

PRESS

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