Natalie Metzer, Los Angeles, CA U.S.A.

Website: www.metzart.orgBio:Natalie Metzger is a Los Angeles-based choreographer and filmmaker whose work has been selected for various festivals including the American Dance Festival’s International Screendance Festival at Duke University, CalArts Plays Itself (part of the Ruhrtrienalle Festival) in Germany, the Frameworks Dance Film Series in New York City, the Park City Film Music Festival in Utah, the MixMatch Dance Festival in Los Angeles, the New Choreography Spotlight in Santa Monica, and the Fresh Squeezed Juice Festival at CalArts. Metzger’s work has also been commissioned for various filmmakers including Sandra Powers of Masque Films and Dutch experimental filmmaker Natascha Riemsma. Metzger holds a Master of Fine Arts in Dance: Choreography from California Institute of the Arts.. She is also a graduate of CalArts’ Center for Integrated Media. Metzger earned her Bachelor of Arts at Emory University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude in three years with a double major in Theater and Dance and a minor in English. At Emory, Metzger received the Sudler Award in the Arts for demonstrating the “highest standard of proficiency in the performing arts”, the Pioneer Award for “breaking new ground”, and Highest Honors for her choreography thesis, Mindscape of the Pre-Dead.

Artist Statement:

I am an artist, fusing together movement, sound, video, text, and image into hybrid performance work that is intimate, but erratic, vacillating between violence, tenderness, and amusement. I have a natural inclination toward dark absurdity, but I also appreciate humor, wit, and the innate theatricality of life. As a choreographer, I am intrigued by movement that has awkward beauty, strange sexuality, flung extensions, flowing and thrashing momentum, and body distortion/perversion. I adore the human body, and I love observing it from every possible angle. This is one of the reasons why I often approach the audience in unconventional ways; I want them to feel the proximity of the living flesh of the performers.

Beauty comes into play in all of my work. I am intrigued by beauty, and all of the issues that are associated with the idea of beauty. I like to discover the beautiful and the sexy in the ugly, the grotesque, and the bizarre.

I find power in blurring the boundary between artistic disciplines, and in so doing, transcending the traditional concept of dance. To me, the artistic disciplines are complementary and necessary to each other, and so collaboration plays an important role in my process and my work. I actively seek out collaborations with artists who can layer ideas with me until our contributions can no longer be separated from one another.

Each of my works develops its own aesthetic, and the nature of the piece is the decisive factor in the choosing of mediums through which the work will be expressed. I create work for the stage, work for film, and work for the gallery, but I approach each with a focus on an abstracted and fragmented narrative often told through imagery that creates a strong emotional response in the viewer.

What Natalie is bringing to the Festival.

Choreographer Natalie Metzer will present Tryst at the Electric Lodge studio showing. Tryst is a work for six performers that examines the impermanence of touch. Natalie Metzger's choreography was initially inspired by a poem "Tryst" by Lan Pham. The music in the work "And The Night Illuminated The Night" is a string quartet composed by Metzger's partner Robert Allaire and performed by the Formalist Quartet (Mark Menzies, Andrew Tholl, Andrew McIntosh, and Ashley Walters). The dance is performed by Marcus Braggs, Carina Couture, Jay Jackson, Princess Romero, Kerrie Schroeder, and Princess Grace recipient, Andrew Wojtal. The costumes are a creation of Katie DeHombre.