The Gauntlet

“An intimate experience bathing audiences in waves of harmony, poetry, and gesture, as they are led through musical corridors of sonic architecture created by the human voice.”

The Gauntlet is an immersive, site specific choral and movement piece by composer Sxip Shirey and choreographer Coco Karol.

Each performance of The Gauntlet is unique, reflecting the site, community and performers it is created with. Through a series of workshops, Sxip Shirey and Coco Karol work with choirs and wider community members to develop gestures, and generate the text for The Gauntlet. Workshops include “movement interviews”, which are inquiries into each participant’s phenomenological experience of “home” and belonging, and can be tailored to wider social and curatorial themes.

The Gauntlet was performed at National Sawdust in FERUS Festival 2018 and has since been performed at Cleveland Art Museum; The Sydney Opera House’s Antidote Festival; and at Rockefeller Center, NY, produced by National Sawdust Projects.

Read more about the Rockefeller Center performance – Making Personal Art in a Public Space

 

TEAM

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Coco Karol
Coco Karol

Coco Karol is a dancer and choreographer who creates cross-disciplinary performance works about how we make meaning of personal experience and communicate through gesture, touch, and effort. She has had an expansive dance career in New York and has choreographed works for stage and film as well as for art galleries and public art. (For full bio and CV please visit www.findingcoco.net)

Sxip Shirey
Sxip Shirey

Sxip Shirey is an avant-garde composer specializing in populist music that is often used for circus, dance, and theater. He has released seven albums including three solo albums, toured internationally, and been recognized by press worldwide. He is known for innovative instrumentation and object oriented compositions which he often performs and presents to audiences with stories, dialog, and delight.

 

Past Performances

- Fisher Center with Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard, 2021

- NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center virtual 3D spatial audio Gauntlet, 2021

- Rockefeller Center with 200 singers produced by National Sawdust, 2019

-The Sydney Opera House, Antidote Festival, with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs 2018

-Cleveland Museum of Art, Solstice Celebration, choir members from different local choirs, 2018

- Central Park, Make Music New York, with Choral Chameleon, 2017

-450 year anniversary of Fredrickstad, Norway, with students from the Norwegian Theater Academy, 2016

-The Highline, NYC, Make Music New York & Friends of the Highline, with Choral Chameleon, 2016

-Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Let Light In festival, with members of Brooklyn Contemporary Chorus, 2016