Dance Shows How ‘Messy and Scary’ Things Can Get With #NoFilter

“Everyone has boogers, and everyone takes a shit, and everyone has sex,” said Cori Marquis, co-founder of New York City-based dance company Cori Marquis + the Nines [IX]. “These are things that are not appropriate to do in public, but in private those things become more safe.”

Rest assured, there won’t be any pooping on stage when the company debuts a new piece this Sunday at Triskelion Arts in Greenpoint. But the work, titled #nofilter, is all about human messiness.

“The initial impetus for this was to try to get as close to identifying both the speed and location of our thought as possible,” said Marquis. “In doing so, we kind of stumbled across all these other things that had to do with what we do to cover up our natural reactions and our instincts.”

#nofilter was born from a three-week residency last summer at The Yard on Martha’s Vineyard. Marquis and her company created the first iteration of the piece, and then returned to it recently, to expand and deepen it. Through that process, they became interested in getting as close as possible to what Marquis calls “that unashamed place” that sees beauty in our common, human disgustingness.

The performance, which includes dance, theatricality, speech, and some video, focuses not only on the ways that we filter our body (language, functions, reactions), but also on the ways we filter speech. Text figures prominently in the piece, but most of it is improvised, with an emphasis on speed. “The faster I speak, the less time I have to think about filtering or censoring what I say,” said Marquis, an energetic talker by nature. She recognizes that performing is one of the most filtered experiences possible, so she turned to techniques like improv to help strip that away.

Marquis started the company in 2011, along with Alexander Dones, a dancer based in Portland. Their work primarily explores the physical and psychological elements of humanity, science in our daily lives, and “the formative nature of our relationships,” per their website. They danced in various festivals in New York City before being named an artist in residence at the Duo Multicultural Arts Center in 2012, performing their first full-length work there in 2013. They’ll be taking #nofilter back to The Yard this summer as part of a festival celebrating women in vaudeville. The piece is not intended to be comedic, but Marquis believes there is something inherently funny in doing, or watching people do, uncomfortable things.

“It’s messy and scary,” she said, reflecting on Sunday’s debut. “There is so much [in the performance] that is asking us to be raw, and open-hearted about it. It is a really exciting piece to perform because it does feel really risky.”

#nofilter is debuting at Triskelion Arts’ Muriel Schulman Theater on Sunday, March 29th, at 3pm. Admission is $16, and tickets are available here.