Jess Curtis died unexpectedly on Monday, March 11, in San Francisco.  

Gravity creates exceptionally engaging body-based art that physically addresses issues and ideas of relevance to anyone with a body. The company was founded in 2000 by choreographer-director Jess Curtis, whose work ranges from the underground extremes of San Francisco warehouse performances with such iconic companies as Contraband and CORE in the 1980s, to the exuberance of French circus tents with Compagnie Cahin-Caha, and the refinement of state theaters in Berlin, London, Glasgow, and other major cultural centers. Gravity’s innovative, accessible, and experimental work consistently engages with issues of embodied diversity including gender, sexuality, and disability.

Gerald Pirner – after studying theatre and philosophy – works as an art critic, editor for the Kreuzberg publishing house Schwarze Risse and wrote articles on factory work and social struggles for various magazines. After going blind in 1989 due to retinitis pigmentosa, he trained as a media documentarian at the Sächsische Zeitung in Dresden in 1992 and subsequently began writing as an essayist for the online magazine kultura-extra in 2006. In 2014, he founded "Gerald Pirner - Texte zu Kunst", a website on which he publishes essays on visual arts, theatre, music and film from the perspective of a blind person. Since 2019 he has been working with Gravity Access Services as a consultant and co-author of audio descriptions. He also works on various dance performances and installations in audio description for Sophiensäle. In 2015, he began to work with photography and in 2017 founded the Fotostudio für Blinde Fotograf*innen (Photo Studio for Blind Photographers) in Berlin with the photographer Karsten Hein, among others.  He works primarily in the technique of light painting. His photographic works have been shown in various exhibitions, most recently in June 2021 in the forum edition of f/stop, the festival for photography in Leipzig. www.geraldpirner.com