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RECENT PROJECTS

Síntoma/Symptom |
Play Translation & Performance
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For my Comparative Literature Capstone at Oberlin College, I translated a contemporary Argentine play called "Síntoma." I cast an ensemble to perform the play in a staged reading/workshop at Oberlin College. The work is a glimpse into the inner life of a man who struggles to accept the news that his birth parents were disappeared during the last military dictatorship. Click on photos to the left to read more about the play in the program notes.

Sounds of the Southern Cone |
91.5 Oberlin College and Community Radio
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This is a recording of a radio show played by Rebecca Cohen in Oberlin, Ohio in January, 2016. The show featured music from the Southern Cone countries (Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay), curated and presented using a thematic lens. The show covered a wide range of styles, yet focused week-by-week on a certain historical period or genre. Sessions have centered around themes such as the Nueva Canción and neo-folklore movements from the 1960s onward, the musical metamorphosis of Luis Alberto Spinetta, and this episode featured here features Tango and the Samba as well as their spheres of influence. Check it out to discover a refreshing set of both new and familiar styles in Portuguese and Spanish, accompanied by an enlightening dose of South American music history.

Memory Work Meets Contact Improvisation
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Having participated in community dance settings that can be radically inclusive and empowering both in US and abroad, I have explored how movement-based storytelling can help transcend the barriers that language can present. While investigating ways in which artists in post-dictatorship societies (specifically in Latin America) have used performance to memorialize a violent past, I facilitated a group exercise exploring the psychological effects of recalling traumatic events through movement and personal narrative with students at my college, who said they felt supported enough to confront painful memories in a liberating setting.

Síntoma

WOBC

Dance Therapy

Workshop

Sound Collage

Trayectoría de Sonido/Sound Etchings​

I created this sonic collage from recordings I made in various environments where I found myself while living in Buenos Aires in the spring of 2015. I captured soundscapes in public streets and buses, my living space, museums, a university history class, and while I reflected through vocal improvisation on my surroundings and experiences. The segments were recorded over the course of six months and overlapped in a nonlinear, multilayered aural journal.

Sound Etchings - Rebecca Cohen
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Terra Incognita | 
Dance Performance

In Spring 2016 I was a performing and choreographing member of Oberlin Dance Company's "Terra Incognita," directed by Alysia Ramos. The piece incorporated movement inspired by traditional African diasporic dances and original compositions developed by Ramos and dancers. Movement was informed and accompanied by live music and spoken text from Rebecca Solnit's "A Field Guide to Getting Lost," as well as personal narratives from the cast on the themes of the color blue, getting lost, and pivotal moments in our growth as dancers. (Becca can be seen in preview at left at 29 secs, or in pictures here).

Oberlin Dance Company

While studying abroad in Argentina, I documented my days, realizations, and travels on this blog. From galleries to 20-hour bus rides, mountain treks to dance rehearsals on a repurposed breadstick factory floor, I shared just a few of the notable experiences of my incredible trip to the Southern Cone. Warning: it's in Spanglish.

Enjoy!

Premiered at the Living Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, March 23, 2017

Co-created and performed with Stella Hoft

Music by Procol Haram and Wulfpeck
 

This interactive dance piece is about finding presence amidst the chaos of life. In our current society, striking a balance between overstimulation and ignorant bliss is an everyday challenge. Against a whimsical sound-score, the performers use comedic movement and physical partnership to attain personal equilibrium within their social setting.

Capas

Premiered at Dance Place in Washington, DC in December 2016. “Capas” was performed with original recorded text, sound design and choreography by Rebecca Cohen.

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This solo mixed-media dance piece is a bilingual and corporeal inquiry into the layered cultural narratives woven into urban space. The structure of a grid underlies the spatial imaginary, forming a metaphorical framework for finding parallels across time, feeling closeness across distance, and isolation amidst a crowded metropolis. The artist draws inspiration from bilingual poetry crafted in the Argentine countryside as well as soundscapes gathered in Buenos Aires, New York and Washington, DC. 

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