Carrie Ahern Dance

June 14,2013 —92nd Street Y Dance Talk about the diptych Borrowed Prey. Dance and the American Sacred Cows: Meat and Money With: Carrie Ahern and Zefrey Throwell.
June 14,2013 8pm Tickets $15
www.92y.org

* more on Borrowed Prey

Conceived, researched, directed and performed by Carrie Ahern
Original score by Anne Hege
Featuring text by Temple Grandin and Carrie Ahern
Dramaturgy by Vanessa DeWolf
Set and Lighting Design by Jay Ryan
Costume by Naoko Nagata

Borrowed Prey is an investigation of our relationship to the animals that most of us consume. Bringing together 4 strands of research: hunting, butchering, and slaughtering of animals, plus the work of animal behavior scientist and autistic Dr. Temple Grandin, I am attempting to illuminate more about the true “farm to table” process and our human capacity for empathy.

Borrowed Prey is made possible, in part, through Project: Space Available, a residency program in Seattle and The Field’s Artist Residency program, supported by the Lambent Foundation Fund of the Tides Foundation. Carrie Ahern Dance is a 2011 NYFA BUILD grant. BUILD is made possible through the generous support of the Booth Ferris Foundation, the JP Morgan Chase Foundation, the Lambent Foundation and the Harkness Foundation for Dance. Temple Grandin text used with her permission

“The (Borrowed Prey/butcher) demonstration has been spectacular.”
—Jack Berkowitz
“Fascinating. I think it is really important for people to see where their food comes from and not just see a piece of bacon on a plate.”
—Manhattan resident Sarah Chiapetta
“You are the voice of the animal.”
—Jennifer Hilton
“ Anyone who believes there are no meaty roles for dancers should check out “Borrowed Prey,” starting Thursday. Performed for just 20 people at a time, it’s the rare dance piece that takes place in a butcher shop. “Butchering is not all that bloody,” says Ahern, who’ll take orders for lamb chops to go, “but decomposing flesh, blood and bone does have a special smell..”
—Leigh Witchel, NY Post
“ Borrowed Prey ….brought me to my knees. An engaging, boundary-pushing, and highly personal work…Ahern is a clever and highly emotive performer. Her confidence, kind calm, and earthiness fortify the inherent authority that enables her to guide the audience through the unexpected, invasive, and sometimes unpleasant elements of her show. Borrowed Prey is an ambitious, thoughtful, site-specific performance art experience. It’s a must-see …. but is not for the faint of heart.”
—Joseph Samuel Wright /Theateronline.com
“ That was one of the most provocative pieces i've seen in a long time. It made me completely rethink what it means to be human…your channeling of Temple Grandin was pitch perfect; i desperately wanted to be swaddled and your cradling of the lamb at the end was an image i will never forget”
—Bob Stein
“ Yet in very sensitively and skillfully absorbing and physicalizing the animal’s responses, isn’t Ahern making the animal seem humanized simply because a human is portraying it? (She must know that there’s no easy answer to that.) Her final image brings the ambiguity into sharp focus. She doesn’t rise and bow as we clap and get up to leave. She’s sitting on a stool at the rear of the workspace, holding the dead, carved-up lamb in her lap and looking down at it. Madonna and Child. The Lamb of God. Life as death. If you look behind the obvious sentimentality of the picture, it can keep you awake and thinking hard for some time”
—Deborah Jowitt—Arts Journal
“ (Ahern’s) roles as researcher and dancer became fascinatingly intertwined…The result is a stunning work in which Ahern embodies both predator and prey”
—Erin Cassin, Brooklyn Bugle