MINNEAPOLIS-- Close on the heels of their recent success at the 2011 TEDx Brussels, Twin Cities-based Black Label Movement (BLM) and close collaborator and Science Magazine correspondent John Bohannon will create a new presentation called The Facts of Life for the 2012 TED: Full Spectrum on March 2, 2012 in Long Beach, CA. The 2012 TED includes presenters such as Bill Nye, a.k.a The Science Guy, and 2011 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Leymah Gbowee, among many other notables.

Bohannon recently said of the expanding collaboration with BLM, I continue to be amazed that this process never becomes formulaic. Carl [Flink, BLM Artistic Director,] has me standing and falling from BLM movers shoulders and diving into their arms. Im not just a presenter supported by dancers but a BLM mover who happens to speak onstage! Flink adds, The chance to keep exploring this relationship and develop a sincere and honest dialogue with a writer and scientist like John is opening unique and dynamic new doors for BLM that brings us to entirely new audiences and creative approaches. Its also just damn fun!

In addition, BLM will present its 5^th Minnesota Season February 10-12, 2012 at the new Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts. The concert, entitled Visceral, will open each night with the North American live premiere of BLM & Bohannons viral Internet hit A Modest Proposal, created for the recent 2011 TEDx Brussels. A loose play on 18^th century satirist Jonathan Swifts famous essay of the same name, the presentation makes the call for greater collaboration between dance artists and scientists while taking some well aimed shots at the ubiquitous use of Powerpoint presentations, United States funding priorities, and the low social value generally placed on dancers by our society. Conservative estimates indicate that A Modest Proposal has already been viewed over 950,000 times and counting, since it was posted in early December 2011 on the main TED website. This is a unique opportunity for Twin Cities, indeed American, audiences to see the piece live.

Dance Magazine recently described BLM as combining intense physicality with sophisticated structuring. January 2012 Issue. BLMs 5^th Minnesota season, Visceral, exemplifies that description. It will include the world premiere of Flinks Canary, a surreal view of a dance hall in the bottomline of a mine shaft and the Twin Cities premiere of his quartet HIT, a powerful exploration of the technique of actual impact between BLM movers. Both new works feature original music by Twin Cities composer Greg Brosofske. Premiered by Chicago dance company Same Planet Different World on March 10, 2011, the Chicago Tribune described HIT as a work with a combative edge intermingled with a wealth of feats of acrobatic oomph. March 11, 2011. Flink says that HIT is the true fusion of the physical intensity of my years as a soccer player with the daring artistry of BLM.

The program will also present Flinks 2010 solo For She, performed by McKnight Dancer Fellow Laura Selle Virtucio, his 2005 A Duet for Wreck performed by McKnight Dancer Fellow Emilie Plauché Flink and Flink, and the first BLM performance of audience favorite This Bleeding Heart . . ., since BLMs first Minnesota season in 2006.

BLM is a professional movement theater company based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN dedicated to exploring Carl Flinks uniquely athletic and ballistic approach to choreography and the pursuit of new applications of dance to the human experience.

Cowles Center Performance Information:

February 10 & 11 at 8 pm & February 12 at 7 pm

Tickets: $22 plus $4 service fee

Available Online @ thecowlescenter.org or by Phone at 612-206-3600

Contact Information:

Carl Flink, BLM Artistic Director 612-812-3260

Sharon Fischlowitz, BLM Executive Director - 612-382-3300

Website: www.blacklabelmovement.com

Email: carllindsayflink@gmail.com or blacklabelmovement@gmail.com

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