W O R K S
As We All Stood Blindly
As we all stood blindly, is a solo work that revisits and builds upon Madison’s earlier research of loss. Using space as a force of opposition and resistance, the work navigates anger, tension, grief, and ultimately surrender.
Choreography and Performance: Madison McGain
Music: “Displaced” by Dirty Beaches, “Reborn” by Colin Stetson
Middleground
Premiering in April of 2022 (Santa Cruz, CA), Middleground is a site-specific, improvised, work centered around creating a physical vocabulary inextricable from its environment. Over the course of two months, Madison formed a practice on-site at the Evergreen Cemetery, exploring the particularities of moving throughout a silent landscape, following solely the emotional and physical response of her own body, with sound only becoming a component of the work during the performance. This will culminate in a series of six performances, all unique improvisations, as part of Beyond the Grave by the Museum of Art History, curated by Indexical.
Choreography and Performance: Madison McGain
Live Sound: ordinary blood
Dramaturgy: Lisa Brenner
VOID
“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” —Seneca
VOID is an interdisciplinary, full-length, duet, featuring Chloe Rosen and Lisa Brenner, which premiered in June, 2021. Part of a larger, research project taken on by Madison in 2019, VOID is inspired by a desire to reconcile the culture of separation and avoidance of mortality prevalent in our society today through the application of Stoicism. The concept was birthed out of research regarding the integration of Stoic thought into modern psychology and, moreover, the codification of ideas found in the ancient philosophy.
Choreography: Madison McGain in collaboration with the artists
Dance Artists: Chloe Rosen, Lisa Brenner
Live Sound: ordinary blood
Funding/Support: Santa Cruz Arts Council, SC County Parks & Friends
Re/Fraction
Re/Fraction is an experimental dance film created for the Post/Future Performance Festival in 2020, featuring original music by ordinary blood. The film is the first finished work to come out of Madison’s long-term research endeavor of examining loss through the lens of stoicism. The film is a cathartic, raw response to both the research and the personal process of accepting ephemerality. Additionally, the film was presented at the Museum of Art History (Santa Cruz, CA).
Choreography and Performance: Madison McGain
Music: ordinary blood
Film and Editing: Madison McGain
High Exposure
High Exposure is a two part solo using movement as a catalyst to confront certain ideas surrounding women that perpetuate an oppressive dynamic; specifically, emotional outwardness being seen as weakness. The work is an introspective, process that creates a space for the artist to reframe her own misconceptions of herself, thus attempting to reconcile with falsehoods imposed by an oppressive ideology. It is a manifestation of that struggle. High Exposure has been presented at 7MPR (NY), the New Work Series (NY), Small Plates Dance Festival (NJ), and The Craft NY.
Choreography and Performance: Madison McGain
Music: Elvis Presley & Franz Schubert (edited by Madison McGain)