G^2: Beth Graczyk & John Gutierrez

Improvisation

Biography:

Beth Graczyk is a body-based artist based in Brooklyn/Lenapehoking whose 20-year career as a creative-maker and bench scientist has allowed her to cultivate a unique perspective that reaches actively within and between the forms of art and science. Graczyk seeks to work with populations whose experiences are often ignored including female-identified, neurodiverse, and LGBTQIA+ bodies. Since 2002, Graczyk has performed throughout the US and in Japan, Ecuador, France, China and India and in NYC has been presented by Gibney, La Mama, Jack, CPR, and Movement Research amongst others. In 2019, Graczyk directed a new work in collaboration with Aaron Gabriel examining the experiences of LGBTQIA+ artists with disabilities that was workshopped at the Walker Arts Center and featured in Critical Correspondence. She has a collaborative partnership with John Maria Gutierrez (G^2), and is on Faculty for the Peridance Certification Program. Concurrently, Graczyk is an author on 10 science publications and received a 2020 Pilot Award from Rockefeller University with collaborator Guadalupe Astorga for research on visual perception and neurodiversity. Graczyk co-directed the performance company Salt Horse in Seattle from 2008-2016 where they received funding from 4 Culture, Artist Trust, Washington State Arts Commission, NEA and commissions including City of Seattle, Northwest Film Forum and Cornish. As a performer she has worked with many artists including Mark Haim, Sara Shelton Mann, Raja Kelly, Amy Chavasse, and K.J. Holmes. @bethgraczyk

John Maria Gutierrez is a multidisciplinary actor, mover, maker, and educator originally from Washington Heights, NY also known as “Little Dominican Republic”. As the first person in his family born in the US, John is carving out and balancing their own identity within his family, cultural history, and artistic expression. Since finishing their BFA (in theater/drama) at NYU Tisch’s Experimental Theater Wing, John has ventured into various worlds of performance - working with directors and choreographers from around the world such as Big Dance Theater, Full Circle Souljahs, The Ridiculous Theater Company, Andrew Schneider, the feath3r theory, MOTUS of Italy, Ivica Buljan of Croatia, Jesse Phillips-Fein, Martha Tornay, Culture Hub NYC, and many more, performing in venues all over the East Coast and Europe such as BAM, The Kennedy Center, La Mama, Dixon Place, Danspace, Dance Place DC, BAX, and many more. John’s personal work combines theater, movement, and original music ranging from artistic expressions based in everything from hip hop to postmodern and has been presented at The Rubin Museum, Gibney, Theater for The New City, HERE Arts, TADA Theater to name a few. His work, typically collaborative based, often deals with current and historical interpersonal and systemic sociopolitical issues. John is currently faculty at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio which offers a two year acting conservatory in the Meisner technique/method, and Peridance Contemporary Dance Center where he co-teaches improvisation with Beth Graczyk, from which has stemmed a new collaboration project known as G^2! The duo has presented work and/or been invited to teach at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, The Shanghai Tower in Shanghai, China, Triskelion Arts, Judson Church, La Mama in NYC. This year their work and teaching practice will head to the west coast and be featured in Seattle’s Summer Velocity/SFDI Festival.

Recent credits. 1001, Focus Features/Warner Bros., Law & Order: SVU, NBC Universal, King Lear In The Forest, Center at West Park (presented as part of g^2 Spring 2021 Residency), New York Live Arts (2021 Fresh Tracks Artist), La Mama ETC. (2020 Artist In Residence)