Doggy Style

A performance at the intersection of dance and sign language with Switzerland-based choreographer Joshua Monten & company.

Free.  Limited seating!  Please RSVP to Leslie Danzig, Curator.

Doggy Style transposes the athletic poetry of spontaneous canine movements onto human bodies, featuring a mixture of dance and sign language. The production has been designed to be accessible to both Deaf and hearing audiences.  Please join us for a studio performance and conversation with the artists and faculty from University of Chicago's Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language.

Presented by the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry in partnership with the Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language.

About the artists

Joshua Monten (choreographer) was born near New York City and studied literature and cultural anthropology at Duke University before beginning his dance studies. As a dancer he has performed with Bern Ballett, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Theater Freiburg, öff öff productions and DA MOTUS! He has worked with choreographers such as Stijn Celis, Hofesh Shechter, Juha Marsalo, Doug Varone, Konstantinos Rigos und Tino Sehgal.  Joshua Monten regularly choreographs for ballet, opera, theater and independent dance productions. He has received numerous choreography commissions from the Stadttheater Bern, the Ballet National du Rhin, the Staatstheater Nürnberg, the Staatstheater Braunschweig, Theater Bonn, Opéra National de Lorraine, The Yard (USA), Theaterhaus Gessnerallee (Zürich), Zentrum Paul Klee and Art Basel.  His work has been broadcast on television stations such as Arte and Mezzo and has been seen live by more than 200,000 audience members. In 2012, Joshua Monten founded his own dance company, for which he created the evening-length works About Strange Lands and People, Delirio Amoroso, and Doggy Style, which have been performed at dozens of festivals and theaters throughout Europe, Asia, and North and South America.  He has never owned a dog.

Derrick Amanatidis (dancer) studied on the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia. He has worked with numerous choreographers and companies in Australia and in Europe, including Miguel Gutierrez and Phillip Adams (BalletLab), Garry Stewart (Australian Dance Theatre), Raewyn Hill (DanceNorth), Opera Australia, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Nico & The Navigators and Modjgan Hashemian. He collaborated with Joshua Monten on Platée, Delirio Amoroso, About Strange Lands and People and Doggy Style.

Karolina Kraczkowska (dancer) studied English and French at the University of Warsaw before joining Polish Dance Theater as a dancer. She then joined the Laban Postgraduate Company Transitions in London. Her work as a freelance dancer includes collaborations with Christoph Winkler, Riccardo Buscarini (in Athletes, which won The Place Prize in 2013), Lost Dog, Allison Brown, Rosemary Butcher, Jasmin Vardimon Company, Fin Walker, Athina Vahla and Kristine KyhlAndersen.

Ariadna Montfort (dancer) studied at the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona before continuing her studies at the École-Atelier Rudra Béjart in Lausanne. She performed for four seasons in the Bern Ballett under the directors Félix Dumériland then Stijn Celis. She then moved to Israel, performing and touring extensively with the Batsheva Ensemble and the Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company. Most recently she has returned to Barcelona, performing with La Veronal and studying psychology.  

Jack Wignall (dancer) completed his studies at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds and moved to Malmö to perform with Skånes Dansteater. He has studied intensively with David Zambrano and presently works as a freelance dancer and teacher. He has performed in Joshua Monten’s productions Doggy Style, Delirio Amoroso, and Freude.