Director/Choreography: Silvana Cardell
Dramaturge: Blanka Zizka
October 6–8, 2023
Who is in and who is out of the current circles of compassion? Disposable Bodies is a major multi-disciplinary dance work that unfolds in layers of sound, movement, and images. Made of a series of episodic installations, the performance captures the shared vulnerability and likeness of all species through immense artistry. Choreographer Silvana Cardell’s movement exteriorizes our inner layers of skin, bones, and muscles, and so examines, questions, and reposes the human/non-human hierarchical order of bodies. At turns violent and peaceful, harmonious and destructive, the powerful, precise, interlocking movement is by complimented by vast projections and evocative installations that performers deftly unravel—grass, a giant pig, a wall of water, a reflective floor that evolves from meditative openness to caged silence. Aligning bodies—human and animals—in new relationships, Disposable Bodies questions human identity myths and the categorization of protected versus abandoned lives. Disposable Bodies proposes a new relationship to the natural world that connects to “the other,” the nobodies, the most vulnerable, the forgotten.
Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series is co- presenting Cardell Dance Theater at The Wilma Theater.
Dancers: Merián Soto, William Robinson, Mackenzie Morris, Muyu Yuan Ruba, Tyler Rivera, Ty Crux Jones-Blain
Sound Design: Maria Chavez
Large-scale Sculpture: Daniel Cardell
Prop Sculptures: Paula Meninato
Video Projections and Lighting Design: Collin Sass
Stage Manager: Pat Adams
Trigger Warning: Recommended for mature audiences. Nudity and Sensitive Content.
Q&A with the performers and director after the 7:00pm performance on Saturday, Oct. 7th.
About Silvana Cardell
“I combine dance, theater, and visual art; I layer all these elements. I create moving images,—I move everything in the room.”
Silvana Cardell (choreographer/director) is the Artistic Director of Cardell Dance Theater. A 2022 Guggenheim Fellow in Choreography, Cardell is a choreographer, dancer, and has been and Associate Professor and the program director and Chair at Georgian Court University since 2009-2022. She founded S. Cardell Danza (later Cardell Dance Theater) in 1993 and she has been creating dance ever since. Her previous work Supper: People on the Move (2015) was widely praised and continued to be shown as a film in the United States up to pandemic outbreak. Cardell received the Latin America’s most prestigious choreography award from Fundacion Antorchas. She also directed her own dance company and dance school and created the Sala Ana Itelman, a flexible performing space, which showcased mainstream and avant-garde national and international artists, sponsored by Instituto Nacional del Teatro and Secretaria de Cultura de la Nacion. Ms. Cardell holds a B.F.A. in Dance from The University of the Arts and an M.F.A. in Choreography from Temple University, both in Philadelphia.
About Cardell Dance Theatre
Cardell Dance Theater is a professional ensemble that gathers artists to create innovative and provocative dance performances. The company was founded as S. Cardell Danza in 1992 in Buenos Aires, based at Sala Ana Itelman, and performed at major dance festivals sponsored by Red Latinoamericana de Productores de Danza, Fundacion Antorchas, Instituto Nacional del Teatro and Secretaria de Cultura de la Nacion, among others. Relocated to Philadelphia in 2009, and renamed Cardell Dance Theater, the company has performed at major venues throughout Philadelphia, the US, and internationally. cardelldance.com
About the Bryn Mawr Performing Arts Series
Since 1984 the Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series has presented great artists and performances to Philadelphia-area audiences, creating an environment in which the value of the arts is recognized and celebrated.
