Future Fish is the latest performance iteration of a multi-year research project by Charli Brissey. Crafted through live cinema techniques and improvisation, the dance follows three performers as they grapple with the slippery reality of being the last fish on Earth. The dance is a siren call through deep time and dark waters, inviting both performer and audience to remember forgotten sensate organs and submerged feral desires.
Direction: Charli Brissey
Performers: Charli Brissey, Sally Butin, and Elisandra Rosario
Sound: Charli Brissey, Marta Finkelstein, and Cindy Lee
Lighting Design: Jess Fialko
Performance Duration: 75 minutes
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Charli Brissey (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and teacher who works choreographically with various technologies and materials. This primarily includes bodies, cameras, objects, genders, desire, instincts, language, and ecosystems. Their work centers choreography as an invaluable method to research social, political, and ecological phenomena, ultimately to illuminate the simultaneousness of “nature” and “culture.” Brissey’s performance and video work has been presented in various galleries, conferences, film festivals, and performance venues nationally and internationally. Their most recent film, Canis Major, toured to nineteen countries and won multiple awards, including Best Experimental Film at OUTFEST and the Richmond International Film Festival. Brissey is an Assistant Professor in Dance at the University of Michigan with affiliations in the Center for World Performance Studies and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. They teach courses in physical practice, video and technology, pedagogy, composition, improvisation, and critical theory.
Elisandra Rosario (they/them) is an artist, activist, and curator of space, vibration, and frequency. Eli was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, which along with their experience as a DJ, influences their attraction to social dance cultures. Eli uses their passion for curating social spaces, community engagement, and ownership of ancestry to fuel their dance and filmmaking.
Jess Fialko (they/them) is a lighting, costume, and scenic designer. Regional credits include: Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Theatreworks Colorado Springs, Penobscot Theatre Company, Promethean Theatre Ensemble, Riverside Theatre, Iowa Summer Repertory, Maples Repertory Theatre, Hollins University, University of Northern Iowa, Birmingham Children's Theatre, Davenport Junior Theatre, and Quad Cities Theatre Workshop. Jess is a clinical assistant professor of Theatre & Drama at the University of Michigan, where they teach lighting design and theatre production. www.jessfialko.weebly.com
Sally Butin (she/her) is a Brooklyn based movement artist from Hastings on Hudson, NY. She graduated in 2020 from the University of Michigan with a BFA in dance. She has performed works by Rosie Herrera, Damien Muñoz and Virginia Garcia, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Doug Varone, Shannon Gillen, Ohad Naharin, and many others. She has trained in multiple venues including the B12 Dance Festival in Berlin, Sidra Bell’s Module, Marcat Sevilla, and San Francisco Conservatory of Dance. As a choreographer, her work has been presented at Triskelion Arts, the Power Center for the Performing Arts, Hill Auditorium, and selected as a finalist in the ACDA East Central Gala. She served as Artistic Director of Dance 2xs Michigan, a sector of the international hip hop crew. She currently teaches Dance Church classes in NYC.
