Yoggs Family Newsletter, 2014–present
Created and performed by Chris Yon and Taryn Griggs, featuring Bea Yon
Sound collage by Chris Yon
This piece is a collection of moments we have been crafting through interactions since we left Minneapolis in 2014. The following people’s fingerprints can be found in this dance: Heidi Wiren Bartlett, Rae Cozart, Tyler Clark, Faith Fidgeon, Gerri Houlihan, Nicholas Leichter, Nic Lincoln, Helena Maghalaes, Nina Morrison, Maddy O’Brien, Kendall Ramirez, Caitlyn Swett, and students at Appalachian State University. Cindy Gendrich’s direction and dramaturgy were instrumental in integrating Bea’s presence and voice into this dance. Parts of this dance began as sketches in works commissioned by the American Dance Festival, Modes of Capture Symposium in Limerick, Arena Dance’s Candy Box Festival in Minneapolis, North Carolina Dance Festival, On Site/In Sight Dance Festival, our Interstitial series at Southeastern Center for the Arts in Winston Salem, and at La MaMa Moves in New York. This version, here at the Nasher, was developed through a 2024 North Carolina Choreographic Fellowship Residency from Trillium Arts in Mars Hill, NC. Many thanks to Jodee Nimerichter, everyone at ADF, and everyone at the Nasher for supporting this work and making it possible!
The Yoggs are Taryn Griggs, Bea Yon, and Chris Yon. They create original dance works that are deadpan slapstick, understated melodrama, autobiographical science fiction, cubist vaudeville, and asymmetrically consonant explorations of magic and virtuosity in everyday movement. They say, “Dance, for our family, is a parenthesis for life experience. Periods of our lives that we spent working on choreography coincide with periods of major things happening in our lives and in the world. The ephemerality of our performance is informed by the ephemerality of childhood and parenthood. While the dances we make look 'abstract' or non-narrative, this collection of dances addresses how we capture experiences, create memories, and attach significance to when and where we dance together and who we meet along the way as part of our family story.” The Yoggs are based in Boone, NC. Chris and Taryn teach at Appalachian State University. Bea is in 7th grade at Hardin Park Elementary. For more information: https://chrisandtaryn.com/