Comme Toujours Here I Stand re-invents Agnes Varda’s classic New Wave film, CLEO FROM 5 TO 7, for the stage. Shot in Paris in 1961, the film tracks the early evening hours in the life of a marginally talented pop singer, as she waits to hear if she has terminal cancer. The Company uses the script as a found object to create an intimate portrait of a woman shadowed by death, while still caught up in the breezy pleasures of the day: shopping, visiting, strolling. The piece serves also as a critique of the flexible and facile nature of the medium of film, when set against the hand made qualities of live dance and theater.


PREMIERE:
April 23, 2009 | Les Subsistances (Lyon, France)

CREDITS:
Direction and Choreography by Annie-B Parson
Co-Direction by Paul Lazar

Original Songs by Robyn Hitchcock

Lights by Joe Levasseur
Sound by Jane Shaw
Set by Joanne Howard
Costumes by Claudia Stephens
Video by Jeff Larson
Executive Project Producer Barbara Hogue

Performers
Tymberly Canale, Chris Giarmo, Molly Hickok, Kourtney Rutherford and Ryutaro Mishima

HISTORY:
May 16 – 19, 2012
New York Live Arts | New York, NY

November 4 – 7, 2010
Museum of Contemporary Art | Chicago, IL

June 23 – 26, 2010
Internat’l Festival of Arts and Ideas | New Haven, CT

April 27 – 29, 2010
Fusebox Festival | Austin, TX

March 16 – 19, 2010
Théâtre National de Bretagne | Rennes, France

March 10 – 13, 2010
Le Lieu Unique | Nantes, France

March 5 – 6, 2010
Le Quartz | Brest, France

October 1 – 10, 2009
The Kitchen | New York, NY

April 23 – 26, 2009
Les Subsistances | Lyon, France

“A brilliantly entertaining hall of mirrors…and a fun-house meditation on theater, its workings and its dazzling results.” – New York Times

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“There are no end of strange and wonderful images and moments. As with all of Parson and Lazar’s rich works, writing this has made me want to see it again.” – Village Voice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flRVra5Kq8w

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Comme Toujours Here I Stand was commissioned by FIAF (the French Institute Alliance Française), New York City, with co-production, production and residency support by Les Subsistances 2008/09 (Lyon, France). Additional support has been provided by Altria Group, Mental Insight Foundation, the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award, the Starry Night Fund of the Tides Foundation, the LMCC Swing Space Program, the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation at Alliance of Resident Theaters/NY, and public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
Comme Toujours was also developed, in part, in residence at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Big Dance Theater’s residency at Les Subsistances was supported by FUSED, a program of the French US Exchange in Dance, in partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., Culturesfrance, and the New England Foundation for the Arts/National Dance Project (NEFA/NDP).
Big Dance Theater’s engagement at Les Subsistances’ La Tchatche Festival in Lyon was supported by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through US Artists International with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
United States Touring for Comme Toujours Here I Stand in the 2009-2010 season was supported by a Touring Grant from NEFA/NDP.