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Cave Dogs ~ Liquid States
July 19 - July 20
Showtimes:
Fri Jul 19 at 7 PM
Sat Jul 20 at 7 PM
Experience something you’ve NEVER seen before! Cave Dogs presents a startlingly original way of telling a story. Fluid shadows and images dance in wild imagination across the screen (performed live from behind it). Each performance promises a healthy dose of the sublime, the exciting, the absurd, and the downright fun that results in something infinitely compelling.
Want to have a in-depth understanding of what goes on behind the scenes and learn how they create their amazing imagery? Join us for the Cave Dogs Workshop! Click here for info!
Liquid States explores water as substance, metaphorical allusion, and engage debates relating to the geographies and socio-politics of water. Through the divergent lenses of micro and macro perspectives, we examine mankind’s complicated relationship to this essential natural resource. Water is the lifeblood of our bodies, our economy, our nation, and our well-being. Our goal is to explore and raise awareness about the finite nature of this precious resource. It is also to produce work that is thought provoking, inclusive and entertaining.
Cave Dogs brings together visual artists, musicians, dancers, and storytellers in the spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration. The performances consist of innovative, large-scale shadow projections cast onto a screen from sculptures, props, costuming and the human body, in concert with projected video imagery, spoken narrative, and an original soundtrack. The mobility of the light source allows Cave Dogs to create multiple, richly layered visual tableaus and effects that conjure both the dreamlike quality of early experimental film and the humor of contemporary animation. The imagery and sound weave together to create a rich multi-media artifact that documents, celebrates and preserves important cultural voices, social identities and environmental perspectives.
We use scale to create complex dynamics and images to enhance meaning in sound. We coax trees to grow and teach whales to sing. It’s magical, like watching dreams cross into the conscious world.
We attract a diverse audience with varying levels of experience with art and performance. Our interdisciplinary approach to combining visual images, movement, light, sound, and voice crosses cultural and language barriers ensuring that the work is accessible to all audiences. The dialog between audience and artist is one that we nourish. Our performances include a Q & A where we invite the audience to become more knowledgeable and involved in our collective processes, and perhaps to spark interest in telling their own stories.
Cave Dogs Company Bio
Cave Dogs principal members are Suzanne Stokes, James Fossett, Adam Mastropaolo, Dillon Paul, Ted Conway, Felipa Gaudet and Alchemy Mastropaolo. Grammy Award winner Dean Jones creates the soundtracks, with additional audio by Emerson Fossett.
We embrace the collaborative process, possess a strong work ethic and are invested in creating and sustaining community. We are dedicated to expanding and strengthening our technical and conceptual skills to produce innovative work. While each member brings specific strengths to the collective. Each routinely alternates between performing, puppeteering, lighting, gripping, running tech and crewing during a performance. Together, we acknowledge the unexpected, celebrate the surprise, and allow the work to take shape from it.
Cave Dogs performances include: Liquid States (2019), Sure-Minded Uncertainties (2013), Archaeology of a Storm (2008), Ferrous City (2002), How to Build a Raft (1998), Emily’s Circus (1994), Sustenance (1993), Fall of Perception (1992), and Shadows of Doubt and Other Precarious Truths (1991).
Our name, Cave Dogs, originated from performing in the Widow Jane Mine; a cavernous cement mine in Rosendale, New York. Cave Dogs performs in the Hudson Valley, nationally, and internationally in a variety of venues: from pristine 16th century cathedrals in Scandinavia to William Kentridge’s The Center for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg, South Africa.
International performances include; Reykjavik Fringe Festival, (Iceland), Sibikwa Arts Centre (Benoni, S.Africa), The Centre for The Less Good Idea (Johannesburg, South Africa), The Skissernas Museum (Lund, Sweden), The Academy for Untamed Creativity (Copenhagen, Denmark),The Malmo (Sweden) Cultural Festival. US performances include: Rochester Fringe (Rochester, NY), The Brooklyn Children’s Museum (NY), Fringe NYC (New York, NY), New Orleans Fringe (New Orleans, LA), Alfred University (Alfred, NY), PortFringe (Portland, ME), Womens Studio Workshop (Rosendale, NY), The Woodstock Fringe Festival (Woodstock, NY), P.S. 122 (NYC), Henry Street Settlement (NYC), HERE (NYC), McKenna Theatre, (New Paltz, NY), The New Orleans Fringe Festival, Mobius (Boston), SMFA (Boston, MA), MassArt (Boston, MA), and The Center for Contemporary Art (Santa Fe, NM).
We have received multiple grants from Franklin Furnace (NYC), The Jim Henson Foundation (NYC), The NLT Foundation (Boston, MA).
For more information on Cave Dogs, click here!
Members
Suzanne Stokes
(founder, artistic director, co-writer, lighting design, choreographer, performer, props, costumes, grip, and promotions)
James Fossett
(co-founder, writer, producer, video and sound design, lighting design, performer, props, tech design, grip)
Adam Mastropaolo
(co-writer, lighting design, choreographer, performer, props, grip, web design and promotions)
Dillon Paul
(co-writer, lighting design, choreographer, performer, props, grip)
Ted Conway
(audio engineer, technical support, co-writer, lighting design, choreographer, performer prop design, puppeteer, costumes, grip)
Felipa Gaudet
(performer, grip)
Alchemy Mastropaolo
(choreographer, performer, grip)
Dean Jones
(musical director, musical composition, sound design)
Emerson Fossett
(musical composition, sound design)
All ticket sales are final – Nonrefundable and Nonexchangeable.
Tickets are available for purchase at the door beginning 30 minutes before showtime, or in advance* through our online box office.
*Advance tickets or confirmation emails may be printed for admission OR you may check in with your email address at the theater box office when you arrive.