ripple place

Directed by sam wentz
With Abriel Gardner and Chenhui Mao
Saturday August 24 at 8pm
Doors at 7:30
FREE!

PRESS RELEASE

AA|LA is pleased to present ripple place, a performance directed by sam wentz. This ongoing generative project utilizes and manipulates rhythmic gesture to develop a collage of physical dynamics and textures. The emerging environment is ephemeral – improvised gestural scores evoke fleeting imagery that vacillates between Rube Goldberg machines, pseudo-somatic exercises, and natural landscapes. Highlighting the spaces between people, body-to-body contact reveals a gyrating layering of physical, mental, and relational gymnastics.

sam wentz is a movement and dance artist based in Los Angeles. He graduated from Idyllwild Arts Academy in 2006, completed his BFA in Dance at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2009, and received his MFA in Dance and Choreography as a Teaching Fellow at Bennington College in 2016. He has performed with the Trisha Brown Company (2009 – 2014), Wally Cardona + Jennifer Lacey, Jay Carlon, Gerald Casel, Dimitri Chamblas, the Merce Cunningham Trust, Katherine Helen Fisher, Levi Gonzalez, Jmy James Kidd, Mark Morris Dance Group, Abigail Levine, Annie B. Parson, and Susan Sgorbati. In the Spring of 2019, he was one of 75 performers selected by the Merce Cunningham Trust to perform in “Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event”. His own work has been presented at the Bennington Museum (VT), the Geffen Contemporary at MoCA, Pieter Performance Space, REDCAT, and The Tank NYC. Since 2013, he has been a returning, guest artist teacher at P.A.R.T.S., based in Brussels, Belgium. He has taught company class for the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s ROSAS, the Lyon Opera Ballet, and Katherine Helen Fisher/Safety Third Productions. As a teacher of Trisha Brown’s work, he assisted in the re-staging of “L’Amour au théâtre” (2009) on the Trisha Brown Company. In the Winter of 2019, he and fellow alumni remounted Trisha Brown’s “Foray Forêt” (1990) and “Newark” (1987) on the Lyon Opera Ballet in Lyon, France. Commercial credits include appearances on “The Colbert Report” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live”. He has worked with music artists including Chris Garneau, Helado Negro, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Rufus Wainwright. Currently, he is on faculty at the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California.