Studio Stories: CANDY BOX Dance Festival special with Chris Yon + Taryn Griggs - Season 6, Episode 86

Taryn Griggs and Chris Yon create original dance works that are deadpan slapstick, understated melodrama, autobiographical science fiction, cubist vaudeville, asymmetrically consonant explorations of magic and virtuosity in everyday movement. They met at the Bessie Schönberg Artist Residency at The Yard in 2002 and have been working together ever since. They were participants in the dance communities of New York City, Minneapolis, and Iowa City, before moving to Winston-Salem. Chris and Taryn’s choreographies have been presented across the US, Canada, Ireland, and France. In New York, in addition to the presentation of their work at La MaMa, Dance Theater Workshop, PS122, The Kitchen,and Danspace Project, they appeared together in the work of David Neumann, Yoshiko Chuma, Karinne Keithley Syers, and Sara Rudner. During their years in the Twin Cities, they were both McKnight Fellows,co-curators for Choreographer’s Evening at the Walker Art Center, and their work was presented as part of the Walker’s Momentum Dance Series at The Southern, Red Eye Theater’s Isolated Acts, Jaime Carrera’s Outlet Performance Festival, and 9x22 at the Bryant Lake Bowl. Since moving to Winston-Salem, their work has been commissioned by the North Carolina Dance Festival (NCDF), American Dance Festival (ADF), and they have been developing a platform for new work and collaborations through the ongoing project, Interstitial: A site specific dance during the changeovers between art exhibits at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art. Griggs teaches at UNCSA, Yon at Appalachian State University. During COVID, their work temporarily moved to the screen. Check out these short screendances commissioned by ADF: Glimmer by Chris Yon; and Chris, Bea, and me by Taryn Griggs; and this one commissioned by NCDF: Untitled (Smoke Stacks) by Chris and Taryn.