IDENTIFICATION AND BIO:
John Jasperse began dancing professionally in 1985 and is a prolific choreographer. He attended Sarah Lawrence College to pursue his interest in postmodern choreography and began independent work in 1985. In 1989, he formed the John Jasperse Company. In his Waving to You from Here (1997), described by William Harris in The New York Times, "a false ceiling, which had slowly lowered over the dancers' heads during the hourlong concert, finally collapsed on them. A metaphor, in part, for the shrinking dance world, devastated by AIDS and a declining audience, it was also a literal image of the experimental artist being crushed by the world he has created."
KEY CONTACT PERSON(S)/EXECUTOR OF ESTATE:
John Jasperse
c/o Barbara Bryan
Managing Director
John Jasperse Company
140 Second Ave., Suite 501
New York, NY 10003
212-375-0187 (phone)
212-375-8283 (fax)
jasperse@aol.com
HUMAN REPOSITORIES OF THE WORK
(name and contact info, relationship to the artist and the work, assessment):
John Jasperse.
VIDEO DOCUMENTATION
(location, format, condition, assessment):
Jasperse holds documentation of Waving to You from Here, videotaped in performance at Dance Theater Workshop 24 April 1997.
PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION
(location, format, condition, assessment):
The company has photographs of the piece on file.
MOVEMENT NOTATION
(location, type [including notes taken by dancers], assessment):
None identified.
PRODUCTION MATERIALS
(scores, sound recordings, set/costume designs):
The company holds all production materials.
ORAL HISTORY:
None identified.
PERSONAL PAPERS
(location of newspaper clippings, printed programs, press releases, notes, files, diaries; assessment):
The Dance Collection of the New York Public Library maintains a clippings file for "Jasperse, John," call number MGZR.
IMMEDIATE NEEDS
(archival assistance? storage? other?):
None identified.
OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION:
Jasperse has been commissioned to make new works for the White Oak Dance Project (1999), Batsheva Dance (2000), and the Lyon Opera Ballet (2002). Other works include Excessories (1995), about sexuality and fetishization of the body; the piece won the Prix d'Auteur at Les Rencontres Internationales Chorographiques de Bagnolet in 1996; Madison as I Imagine It, a 55-minute abstract dance for four performers which had its world premiere April 1999 at Spring Dance Festival in Utrecht, the Netherlands; and Giant Empty (2001), an 80-minute work co-produced by Ballet Frankfurt and The Brooklyn Academy of Music, which premiered at the Schauspielhaus in Frankfurt, Germany.
LIST OR OVERVIEW OF WORKS
(title, premiere date, music, production notes, performers):
Waving to You from Here (1997)—Dance Theater Workshop; music by James Lo.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- Anderson, Jack. 1997. "Making the Movements Spring from Thoughts." New York Times (29 April).
- Harris, William. 1999. "Obsessed With a Vision of Existential Despair." New York Times (2 May).
- Jowitt, Deborah. 1997. "Worlds of Difference." Village Voice (13 May).
- Kaufman, Sarah. 1999. "John Jasperse's ‘Waving': The Sky is Falling." Washington Post (25 March).
- Kourlas, Gia. 1997. "Tidal Wave: John Jasperse Addresses the Sudden Crush of Success in his Latest Dance." Time Out/New York (24 April – 1 May).
