THE CENTER AT WEST PARK PRESENTS
Created and Performed by G^2
(John Maria Gutierrez & Beth Graczyk)
JUNE 23 - 25 | 7:30 PM | $20
King Lear In The Forest is a multi-disciplinary performance piece that unravels the perceived, known, and yet to be known identities of the duo-ship G^2 through the lens of race, gender, age, and sexuality, as they traverse a metaphoric forest that generates a chimera of kinetically contemplative and visually-rich psychological territories.
ABOUT KING LEAR IN THE FOREST
King Lear In The Forest (KLIF) is a multi-disciplinary performance piece created and performed by G^2, a collaborative partnership between John Maria Gutierrez & Beth Graczyk. KLIF unravels the perceived, known, and yet to be known identities of the duo-ship through the lens of race, gender, age, and sexuality, as they traverse a metaphoric forest that generates a chimera of kinetically contemplative and visually-rich psychological territories.
The text of Shakespeare's King Lear and Jim Jarmusch’s “Champagne” from his film Coffee & Cigarettes, a seemingly unlikely pair similar to Beth & John, acts as a lens to explore identity and perception. Connections arise from an expectation of difference and provide a view into a unique friendship that undergoes a morphing quest to find greater freedom amidst internal and external dissonances.
KLIF features sound design by Aaron Gabriel, lighting design by Liz Schweitzer, and three 12’ original drawings created by visual artist Cristina De Miguel.
MEET THE ARTISTS
G^2 stems from artistic dialogue between John Maria Gutierrez, a NYC-born, 1st generation Dominican-American, and Beth Graczyk, a Seattle-born 3rd generation Polish-American. Their unique connection celebrates their diverse backgrounds and through a cultivated trust, have found ways to share their intimate struggles, hopes, and dreams with each other in a space that honors their differences while seeking to find empathetic understanding of each other.
G^2 manifests material by collaging diverse improvisational concepts, post-modern, modern, hip-hop, and contemporary dance, theater, acting, poetry, and music into a multi-dimensional and imaginative worlds. G^2 have primarily independent performance histories, and met doing a series of projects with the feath3r theory from 2014-2016. They have launched G^2 as a collaborative platform for them to explore co-teaching, and co-generating performance work together. They aim to generate practices together that speak to ways in which their rigorous physical expressions can counter, challenge and blend with one another. In the more subtle and complex space of their bodies, John and Beth explore both identity and post-identity, where the individual labels that are afforded or placed on either of them, have the potential to become blurred with each other and the audience, even for a moment.
BETH GRACZYK is a body-based artist based in Brooklyn/Lenapehoking whose 20-year career as a creative-maker and bench scientist has allowed her to cultivate a unique perspective that reaches actively within and between the forms of art and science. Graczyk seeks to work with populations whose experiences are often ignored including female-identified, neurodiverse, and LGBTQIA+ bodies. Since 2002, Graczyk has performed throughout the US and in Japan, Ecuador, France, China and India and in NYC has been presented by Gibney, La Mama, Jack, CPR, and Movement Research amongst others. In 2019, Graczyk directed a new work in collaboration with Aaron Gabriel examining the experiences of LGBTQIA+ artists with disabilities that was workshopped at the Walker Arts Center and featured in Critical Correspondence. She has a collaborative partnership with John Maria Gutierrez (G^2), and is on Faculty for the Peridance Certification Program. Concurrently, Graczyk is an author on 10 science publications and received a 2020 Pilot Award from Rockefeller University with collaborator Guadalupe Astorga for research on visual perception and neurodiversity. Graczyk co-directed the performance company Salt Horse in Seattle from 2008-2016 where they received funding from 4 Culture, Artist Trust, Washington State Arts Commission, NEA and commissions including City of Seattle, Northwest Film Forum and Cornish. As a performer she has worked with many artists including Torben Ulrich, Mark Haim, Sara Shelton Mann, Raja Kelly, Amy Chavasse, and K.J. Holmes. @bethgraczyk
JOHN MARIA GUTIERREZ is an actor, dancer, creator who performs on screen and stage nationally and internationally. Originally from a small island presently called NYC, John was raised in the Northern region of the island in a hood commonly known as "Little Dominican Republic" or Washington Heights. His works combine bboy and postmodern aesthetics, original music, singing, and experimental theater to unwind a complex urban disparity brought on by social and systemic failings. As the first person in his family born in the US, John is carving out and balancing his own identity within his family, cultural history, and an artistic landscape that doesn’t often highlight the experiences of lower income, multilingual, and queer expressions. Since graduating from NYU Tisch’s Experimental Theater Wing John has ventured into various landscapes of performance with choreographer/directors and companies such as Miguel Gutierrez, Big Dance Theater, Pilobolus, Gesel Mason, Raja Feather Kelly, BAIRA, Full Circle Souljahs, Jeanette Stoner and Dancers, performing in venues such as BAM, The Chocolate Factory, Dancespace, Joes Pub, La Mama, JACK, Dixon Place. He is a graduate of the Terry Knickerbocker Studio and faculty at Peridance Center. John is a proud member of the Great Jones Rep Company of La Mama and G^2, an ongoing collaboration with Beth Graczyk which recently presented work at Judson Church and the Shanghai Tower in China. John is also a 2020-21 Artist in Residence at La Mama as well as a BAAD/Pepatian Dance Your Futures artist.
COVID-19 SAFETY GUIDELINES
All attendees will be required to wear a face-covering while inside The Center at West Park building and throughout the performance. Click here to read our full Safety Guidelines.