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Assemblage is a multidisciplinary, multimedia work featuring chamber and electronic music by Houston composer Chris Becker, choreographed and improvised movement by New York-based director Rachel Cohen, and real-time collage-making using zip-loc bags of curated materials left behind by Cohen’s mother, a quiet artist who passed away in February 2020. Through intimate videos and live performance, including music for vibraphone, harp, viola, and cello, Assemblage explores impermanence, ancestry, and artist identity, and the human effort to fit the pieces together.
The upcoming Houston performances will feature Rachel Cohen and Racoco company member Masumi Kishimoto, two Houston-based dancers, and Houston musicians Luke Hubley (vibraphone), Naomi Hoffmeyer (harp), Molly Wise (viola), and Patrick Moore (cello).
Chris Becker is a composer whose music is equally inspired by rock and roll language, avant-garde jazz, dub compositional strategies, and musique concrète. Becker’s music for dance includes the score for choreographer Rachel Cohen’s evening-length work If The Shoe Fits (2005), named one of the best dance performances of 2005 by New York Times dance critic John Rockwell. In Houston and Texas, he has premiered collaborative works at Aurora Picture Show, the Silos at Sawyer Yards, and Splendora Gardens.
Rachel Cohen is a creator and performer in New York City. She has a lifelong interest in the symbiosis of humans and things, and the tensions, beauty, and humor therein. After studying dance and choreography with Claire Mallardi while at Harvard University, Rachel moved to NYC in 1997, entering the orbits of the uniquely creative communities of Mary Anthony Dance Theater, Galapagos Art Space, Cave, Norte Maar, The Construction Company, ChaShaMa, Ruth Zaporah’s improvisation form Action Theater, and the Williamsburg Art & Historical (WAH) Center.
As director of Racoco Productions she works closely with performers, visual artists, composers, and musicians, fusing objects and materials with absurdist imagery, quixotic choreography, and inventive improvisation. Her favorite audience response: “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Assemblage is funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.
Dance Source Houston is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering the diverse individuals and organizations working in the field of dance throughout the Greater Houston region by means of advocacy, inclusive community engagement and support services.