Under The Skin, the duet form explodes into a magically populated stage as Bridgman and Packer interchange with their ever-multiplying virtual selves. The performers' bodies and costumes become projection screens, creating a morphing and redefinition of identities and revealing psychological depths. The original score of layered saxophones and driving rhythms was created by composer/saxophonist Ken Field.

Under The Skin is a co-commissioning project by Contemporary Dance Theater of Cincinnati in partnership with The Dance Place of Washington, D.C. and the National Performance Network Creation Fund. The NPN Creation Fund is sponsored by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, Altria, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The creation of Under The Skin was supported by funds from the 92nd Street Y New Works in Dance Fund.

Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer, artistic directors of Bridgman|Packer Dance, have collaborated as performers and choreographers since 1978. Their innovative work developing "video partnering" - the integration of live performance and video technology - has been celebrated for its highly visual and visceral alchemy of the live and the virtual. 

The 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to Bridgman and Packer was the first in the history of the Guggenheim Foundation to be given to two individuals for their collaborative work. Bridgman and Packer are the recipients of nine consecutive National Endowment for the Arts grants from 2007-2015, as well as grants from the New England Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council for the Arts, the National Dance Project, USArtists International, the Performing Americas Project, and La Red.

They have received two Choreography Fellowships and a BUILD Grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts, four Creation Fund Awards and a Forth Fund Award from the National Performance Network, and choreographic commissions from Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts), Portland Ovations, Danspace Project, the 92nd Street Y New Works in Dance Fund, and Dance New Amsterdam.

Based in New York City, they have been presented by City Center Fall For Dance Festival, Lincoln Center, The Baryshnikov Arts Center, The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Performance Space 122, Dance New Amsterdam, and Central Park's Summerstage.

They have toured throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Central America, performing at festivals, arts centers, and universities. These include Spoleto Festival USA, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Munich International Dance Festival, The Institute for Contemporary Art/Boston, The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts (St. Paul), Festival Internacional de Artes Escenicas (Panama), Aronoff Center for the Arts (Cincinnati), Bates Dance Festival, Kintetsu Theater (Osaka, Japan), Festival Internacional Chihuahua, Encuentro en la Cultura (Mexico), and Tancforum (Budapest).

Bridgman and Packer have been guest artists at over one hundred universities, including New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and California Institute of the Arts. They were featured in Dance Magazine's "Great Partnerships" issue. Their work is featured in the book Gegen Welten, Zwischen Differenz und Reflexion by Jürgen Schlader and Franziska Weber, published in Munich in 2009.

Artistic Directors Myrna Packer and Art Bridgman

REMEMBER WHAT NEVER HAPPENED

Choreography, Performance, and Video Myrna Packer and Art Bridgman

Music John Guth, A Hawk And A Hacksaw, Etta Baker, Beats Antique, Ljova, Zoë Keating, Glen Velez, Maurice Ravel 

Technology Design Phillip Gulley

Lighting Design Frank DenDanto III

Sound Design John Guth

Technology Engineer John Erickson

UNDER THE SKIN

Choreography and Performance Myrna Packer and Art Bridgman

Video Peter Bobrow and Jim Monroe

Music Ken Field

Lighting Design Frank DenDanto III

Costume Consultant Margaret Auer

"The most thrilling dance work this reviewer has seen in recent memory... flat-out exhilarating."

The Boston Globe 

"Dynamic, stunning, provocative...each piece teetering between moment and memory, body and illusion."

Anchorage Daily News

"In an age overrun with virtual dancing, the team of Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer stands out...by turns, witty, sexy, and surreal."

The New Yorker

"An ingenious trompe l'oeil fusion of physical and video-image bodies...merged and then disappeared with magical and fascinating suddenness."

The New York Times

"Gorgeous, and deeply moving."

Jeremy Gerard, Huffington Post

"Each aesthetic shift, unobtrusively accompanied by different optical illusions and soundscapes … becomes a new question, a new story, and an increasingly more absorbing moment in time…We are compelled to pay attention."

Nicole Duffy Robertson, Eye On Dance

"Their finest illusions raise haunting questions about perception and reality, about shifting perspectives of time and space, and about human relations."

Deborah Jowitt, DanceBeat

"The two dancers were never eclipsed by the set and projections, their emotional states always in flux and always crystal clear. The effect was often breathtakingly and movingly beautiful."

Joel Benjamin, Theaterscene.net

"What makes them special is their sexy wit and intelligent design. Let's have more of this in the dance world, please."

Juan Michael Porter, Broadwayworld.com

"The boundary between reality and imagination is brilliantly blurred…Welcome to the future of dance."

Star Tribune, Minneapolis