Solo: A Festival of Dance Oct 4–7, 2018 Thu, Oct 4 Dani Tirrell (Seattle) Robert Adam Moore (Seattle) Kiruthika Rathanaswami (Edmonton, AB) Wade Madsen (featuring Chloe Albin) (Seattle) Vanessa Goodman (Vancouver, BC) Fri, Oct 5 Dani Tirrell (with Aquilla Bell) (Seattle) Tyisha Nedd (Seattle/NYC) Alyza DelPan-Monley (featuring Liv Fauver) (Seattle) Namii (Seattle) Nora Sharp (Chicago) Sat, Oct 6 Dani Tirrell (with Aquilla Bell) (Seattle) Emily Gastineau (pt 1) (Minneapolis) Alyza DelPan-Monley (Seattle) Syniva Whitney/Gender Tender (featuring Will Courtney) (Seattle) Emily Gastineau (pt 2) (Minneapolis) Troy Ogilvie (NYC) Sun, Oct 7 NIC Kay (NYC) (offsite) Dani Tirrell (with Aquilla Bell) (Seattle) Alyza DelPan-Monley (featuring Nabilah Ahmed) (Seattle) Bruno Roque (featuring Noelani Pantastico) (Seattle) Orlando Hernández (Providence) Naomi Macalalad Bragin (Seattle) Wade Madsen (featuring Chloe Albin) (Seattle)
We begin by acknowledging this land is the ancestral home of the Suquamish, Duwamish, Muckleshoot, and many other Indigenous peoples recorded and unrecorded, who have been the custodians of this land since time immemorial. As guests and — in many of our cases — as settlers on this land, we extend our deepest gratitude and respect to their ancestors and elders past, present, and future.
This festival is curated by Artistic Director, Rachel Cook; Associate Producer, Clare Hatlo; and Director of Program Management, Charles Smith. Solo: A Festival of Dance is made possible this season with the generosity of lead donors Case Van Rij, John Robinson and Maya Sonenberg, Tim Tomlinson, and many others.
Special thanks to Jessica Jones (Sound/Video Operator) and Ryan Dunn (Lighting Programmer)
Please note there will flashing lights for a few moments during the performance of MELTED RIOT by Syniva Whitney/Gender Tender on Saturday, October 6.
Filming and photography during the performance are not permitted.
2
Solo: A Festival of Dance A solo is something done alone or a performance with a single voice or instrument, a performer with no associates, or a thing done by one person. Making art and writing can sometimes be solo practices. They both require certain parts of the process to be done alone. Artist Agnes Martin embraced being alone in her studio in order to create sublime canvases of minimalist lines and soft colors.
of representing various movements, and a notation system. Knowledge of one artistic discipline or one point of view can be broadened, stretched, or pushed by viewing it through another lens and perspective. The fundamental building blocks of making art is particularly critical at this moment when so many cultural gestures are being misunderstood. How can a solo artistic practice point to larger issues outside of the frame of the artist who made them? Can a self-portrait be both personal and simultaneously talk about something more than what is going on in one physical body?
This curatorial project began with an interest in investigating the solo by way of examining the inherent structures of teaching art and the methodologies of knowledge transmission. The self-portrait is typically a beginning assignment that is tasked to most art school students, and in dance the choreographic solo is consistently taught to dancers. There is a craft to composing a dance, a specificity to the arrangement of movement, a technique
*** In 1991, FĂŠlix GonzĂĄlez-Torres made an exhibition at Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York titled Every Week There 3
Félix González-Torres Untitled (Go-Go Dancing Platform), 1991
4
psychologically embody a sense of longing, connection, and to disrupt the precious object-ness of the art world. González-Torres made these works alone and in conversation with his community of artists, friends, and his partner.
is Something Different. This was shortly after his longtime partner, Ross, died of AIDS. González-Torres decided to create a four-part narrative that got presented and disentangled each week through the mounting and shifting of works in the gallery space. During the first week, he displayed a series of subtle black and white photographs of carved monument inscriptions, taken from the Roosevelt statue outside the Museum of Natural History. What followed was a powder blue square neatly placed on the floor lined with light bulbs and on occasion a male go-go dancer in a silver lamé bathing suit dancing to music on his headphones and three of the remaining photos whose inscriptions read: soldier, humanitarian, and explorer.
Solo voices in our culture are currently being forced to perform testimony about what has happened to them and their bodies. The solo performance is particularly relevant during a political moment when so many lone voices have been silent and are being pushed to come forward in order to be heard and seen. A single voice, a solo instrument, has the capacity to create a deafening gesture that is a lifting reminder of the critical importance of artist’s voices being visible and audible to the public.
González-Torres only made two delegated performance works in his career, Untitled (Go-Go Dancing Platform), 1991, and Untitled (Arena), 1993. Both include dancing with headphones on for a short duration, one is a lone go-go dancer on a platform and the other is a couple, and each include a string of lights that becomes the light source for the performance. An audience member could say these works are 15-minute dance performances, but their beauty lies in the use of objects; the platform and the lights are the conceptual vehicle for the movement language.
Rachel Cook artistic director
The thingness and ephemeral nature of González-Torres works creates a conversation between visual art and dance; objects and gestures; weighted-ness and disappearing. Other works of González-Torres use simple materials—candies, stacks of paper, vinyl text, two clocks sitting side by side—in order to visualize and
5
Thu, Oct 4 DANI TIRRELL THE TIES THAT BIND
Robert Moore (Seattle) began dancing at New England Ballet and continued at Dee Dee’s Dance Center and New Haven Ballet. He is an alumnus of Ailey Summer Intensive, Cunningham Trust Workshop, Jacob’s Pillow’s Commercial Dance Program, among others. He graduated magna cum laude from the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program and has danced with Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre, The Steps Repertory Ensemble, and AATMA Performing Arts. Robert is currently a Spectrum Dance Theater company member.
We have not performed together in over 10 years, but we have a friendship that has lasted close to 20. How does time and distance still connect us? This piece, these solos, explore an emotional connection. It is taking dance to its most human level....LOVE! Dani Tirrell (Seattle) creates movement pieces inspired by Dani’s queer, gender non-conforming, and black experience. Dani has danced with Jazz and Spirit Dance Theater of Detroit, Monroe Ballet Company and Dani Tirrell Dance Theater. Dani has performed and shown work at Black Choreographers Festival (San Francisco), Gay City Arts (Seattle), Bumbershoot: Velocity Dance Center Showcase, Showing Out: Black Contemporary Choreographers (Seattle), Young Tanz Sommer (Austria), Northwest New Works Festival: On the Boards (Seattle), Risk/Reward (Portland), Seattle Art Museum, and Erased (Color Lines Dance Ensemble) as part of Nights at the Neptune (Neptune Theater, Seattle).
KIRUTHIKA RATHANASWAMI: PUSHPANJALI AND SHRINGARA LAHARI Pushpanjali is an introductory item in the bharata natyam repertoire and essentially means offering of flowers. There is also a small shlokam in the middle of work in praise of Bhudda. This work showcases the technical/abstract movements (nritta) of bharata natyam. Shringara Lahari will showcase more interpretive dance/facial expressions (nritya) of bharata natyam. This work demonstrates the attractive qualities of the feminine goddess — the delicate limbs, long wavy hair, and shapely hips that captive her lover Shiva who is the destroyer of cupid. The choreography reflects this mood with soft movements, long poses, and facial expressions. Even the abstract movements in two sequences are choreographed with feminine beauty in mind.
ROBERT ADAM MOORE BEING Being started out as an exploration of emotion inspired by music. Longing, Mystery, and Mystical were the ideas that sparked the movement. The piece is about giving in to the idea of a higher calling. It explores the confusion and uncertainty around the idea of life having a purpose and takes a journey through the acceptance of the choice to give yourself a higher purpose and then finding freedom in living life generously because of that choice.
Kiruthika Rathanaswami (Edmonton, AB)is currently based in Edmonton, Alberta, and a bharata natyam dancer, 6
which is an Indian classical dance that originated in Tamil Nadu. For the past 22 years she has been under the guidance of Jai Govinda, the Artistic Director of Mandala Arts and Culture in Vancouver. She has performed extensively in Vancouver and has also been presented at notable festivals including Canada Dance Festival, Gait to the Spirit Festival, Horizon Series, Feats Festival, HH11 Dance Festival, Nextfest, Baltimore Dance Invitational, and New Works Dance All Sorts.
in dance from Chapman University, and has performed in the works of many local artists such as Wade Madsen, BenDeLaCreme, Cameo Lethem, Markeith Wiley, Sleep Nod/Dylan Ward, Paige Barnes, Daniel Costa, Jeffrey Frace, and The Three Yells/Veronica Lee-Baik. VANESSA GOODMAN IN FICTION Blurring the lines between what is real and what is imagined, In Fiction explores the sensation of the body through cognitive understanding and phantasmal imagination. Goodman’s priority is to foster work that reflects the human condition, using dance to decode contemporary experience. The artist’s goal is to create immersive environments, working towards facilitating an engrossing experience for those who witness the work.
WADE MADSEN BETWEEN KNOWING AND BELIEVING Directed by Wade Madsen In collaboration with dancer Chloe Albin and musician/composer Julian Martlew What is isolation as a state of being? When do we witness ourselves, and when do we find true authenticity in ourselves? Can the dancer, within a split-second, move from experiencing the self, to being seen? This solo (a workin-progress) is a structured investigation of gesture and impulse, built within the abstraction and development of space. The soloist re-evaluates place in space and performance of space through this investigation. There is no social commentary, just the animation of a solo dancer through movement invention, structure and spatial relationship, and finding the fine line between showing an action/experience and feeling that action/ experience. This is a collaboration with the dancer, as well as a musician for an original soundscape.
Vanessa Goodman (Vancouver, BC) respectfully acknowledges that she lives and works on the ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh people. She is the artistic director of Action at a Distance Dance Society. Goodman is attracted to art that has a weight and meaning beyond the purely aesthetic and uses her choreography as an opportunity to explore the human condition. She was the recipient of the 2013 Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award and the 2017 Yulanda M. Faris Program from the Scotiabank Dance Centre.
Wade Madsen (Seattle) is a seasoned choreographer with over 180 works to his credit. He has been a professor of dance at Cornish College of the Arts since 1984. Chloe Albin (Seattle) is a dancer, performer, and teaching artist based in Seattle. She holds a degree 7
Fri, Oct 5 DANI TIRRELL THE TIES THAT BIND with Aquilla Bell
TYISHA NEDD
We have not performed together in over 10 years, we have friendship that has lasted over close to 20 years. How does time and distance still connect us? This piece, these solos, explore an emotional connection. It is taking dance to its most human level....LOVE!
Is a “strong black woman” still strong if she’s terrified of bubble wrap? Yes, bubble wrap. This piece is about giving myself permission to be afraid. This work examines resistance to vulnerability by looking at what it means to reserve judgment of another’s fear so that we, ourselves, may be vulnerable with them. We take you through curiosity, terror, vulnerability, levity, and triumph. The variety of movement styles create a visceral tour while the live musical score paints a fluid landscape that morphs around you. Viewed through the absurd lens of my rare phobia this dark, yet comedic and tender stage work blends contemporary forms incorporating text, live music/ soundscape, and comedy.
Composer/Collaborator: Nico Tower
Dani Tirrell (Seattle) creates movement pieces inspired by Dani’s queer, gender non-conforming, and black experience. Dani has danced with Jazz and Spirit Dance Theater of Detroit, Monroe Ballet Company and Dani Tirrell Dance Theater. Dani has performed and shown work at Black Choreographers Festival (San Francisco), Gay City Arts (Seattle), Bumbershoot: Velocity Dance Center Showcase, Showing Out: Black Contemporary Choreographers (Seattle), Young Tanz Sommer (Austria), Northwest New Works Festival: On the Boards (Seattle), Risk/Reward (Portland), Seattle Art Museum, and Erased (Color Lines Dance Ensemble) as part of Nights at the Neptune (Neptune Theater, Seattle).
Tyisha Nedd (Seattle/NYC) is a performer, choreographer, and activist. With a background in dance focused on social work, Nedd has worked with inmate populations across the U.S. to bring movement into their rehabilitation practices. Nedd is currently a Master of Science candidate at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Her collaborator, Nico Tower, is an award-winning composer, director, performer, and multimedia artist. She has released ten albums, toured nationally, and collaborated with dozens of artists. Nedd and Tower share an interest in community revitalization through the arts.
Aquilla Bell (Detroit) was introduced and began studying dance at the tender age of five under the direction of Ms. Betty Fuller at the Fuller School of Dance. Bell studied in high school as well as at Western Michigan University, where they received a BA in Political Science with a dance minor. Bell currently teaches Dance education at Voyageur Middle School in Southwest Detroit, while still finding time to develop and pursue dance as a professional dancer, teacher/choreographer for the Jazz and Spirit Dance Theater of Detroit. 8
ALYZA DELPAN-MONLEY featuring Liv Fauver
Pearl Collective at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center. Namii's performances have taken the form of one-timeonly acts that weave the fun of a drag king with the glamour of a drag queen and the passion of a civil rights activist.
This solo explores the word “fall.” I would like to invite a different soloist to perform this piece each night. In doing this, I hope to show how the form of a solo can exist in the movement's content, and can also be embodied anew by different performers, similar to how a monologue or song maintains its form and yet completely transforms with a different subject.
NORA SHARP SMALL BOOBS Small Boobs started from a recognition that my solo experiments for many years had consistently processed intertwined anxiety around gender and relationship. As I have worked with these persistent concerns in rehearsal, surprising and tangled topics and tools have emerged for unraveling: childhood, transhood, a looper station, a mini synthesizer, a pile of blue and yellow clothing, daddy issues, repetitive spiraling melodies and song, and a lot of funny stories about bodies and sex (and a donut shop).
Alyza DelPan-Monley (Seattle) seeks to humanize their surroundings with splashes of whimsy, genuine intimate connection, and expansive possibilities. Alyza is eager to find the unexpected ways that dance can synthesize the human experience. Known for quirky nonsensical non-sequiturs and character-ridden theatrics, Alyza believes that dance can burst bubbles and repurpose awkward into awesome.
Housed within contemporary dance and performance, Nora Sharp (Chicago) makes work that is genre-fluid, incorporating choreography, improvisation, standup, stories, and sound. Following years of studying classical music, reading avidly, and training capoeira angola, their dancemaking practice shifted to incorporate other performance tools whose forms afford their own specific opportunities for discovery and mutual exchange with audiences.
NAMII RUN! Run! is a solo exploring the ways in which fight or flight show up as life or death for a cultural and gender ambiguous black woman in today’s America. When is it safe to be yourself, and when should you hide, live in disguise, or simply flee your perceived existence. The even more pressing question is, if you choose to run, where do you go? With a mix of live singing, multiple dance genres, and some intriguing, yet uncomfortable audience participation, Run! challenges the audience to witness this exhausting journey and not get winded themselves. Trained in various styles of dance since the age six, Namii (Seattle) is most inspired by spontaneous dance breaks with her sister Alia Kache, and recent collaborator on Tail Feather, a boi-lesque ballet recently presented by Earth 9
Sat, Oct 6 DANI TIRRELL THE TIES THAT BIND with Aquilla Bell
EMILY GASTINEAU JUST AN ARGUMENT and ALL RIGHT GIVE IT UP
We have not performed together in over 10 years, we have friendship that has lasted over close to 20 years. How does time and distance still connect us? This piece, these solos, explore an emotional connection. It is taking dance to its most human level....LOVE!
Just an Argument is born out of a desire for control, a desire to know everything, and desire without object at all. Knowledge is a weapon, and hubris is swiftly followed by humiliation. This work measures the gap between perfection and reality, wildness and contrivance, the tactile and the quantifiable.
Dani Tirrell (Seattle) creates movement pieces inspired by Dani’s queer, gender non-conforming, and black experience. Dani has danced with Jazz and Spirit Dance Theater of Detroit, Monroe Ballet Company and Dani Tirrell Dance Theater. Dani has performed and shown work at Black Choreographers Festival (San Francisco), Gay City Arts (Seattle), Bumbershoot: Velocity Dance Center Showcase, Showing Out: Black Contemporary Choreographers (Seattle), Young Tanz Sommer (Austria), Northwest New Works Festival: On the Boards (Seattle), Risk/Reward (Portland), Seattle Art Museum, and Erased (Color Lines Dance Ensemble) as part of Nights at the Neptune (Neptune Theater, Seattle).
all right give it up is a study in the generic mood, the manufacture of feeling in contemporary performance and contemporary capitalism. I activate generic expression (sorrow, joy) and generic dancing (opening port de bras, the step-touch)—to create choreographic surfaces for the spectator to project their own beliefs, speculation, and desires. The generic is a singularity that is in circulation—a way to inhabit the compulsory self-performance of dance and neoliberalism, yet still leaving an absence at its center. Is dancing in first person (a mode of authentic self-expression) or in third person (a desire for universality)? Or is this address actually in second person (a love letter, a command)?
Aquilla Bell (Detroit) was introduced and began studying dance at the tender age of five under the direction of Ms. Betty Fuller at the Fuller School of Dance. Bell studied in high school as well as at Western Michigan University, where they received a BA in Political Science with a dance minor. Bell currently teaches Dance education at Voyageur Middle School in Southwest Detroit, while still finding time to develop and pursue dance as a professional dancer, teacher/choreographer for the Jazz and Spirit Dance Theater of Detroit.
Emily Gastineau (Minneapolis) is a choreographer, performer, and writer, currently based between Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Emily is the recipient of grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and her work-in-progress with Vilma Pitrinaite (LT/BE), has been developed in Vienna, Minneapolis, Prague, and Brussels. Emily co-founded the reciprocal performance writing platform Criticism Exchange, and she produces programs and publications at the Walker Art Center as Program Manager of 10
Mn Artists. She is pursuing a master’s at DAS Choreography, Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten.
Stormé DeLarverie and Sylvia Rivera.
ALYZA DELPAN-MONLEY
Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The 5th Dimension) / My Way (Frank Sinatra) / Love Theme from “Romeo and Juliet” (Henry Mancini and his Orchestra and Chorus Additional sound design by Syniva Whitney
MUSIC (All songs were on the Stonewall jukebox in 1969)
This solo explores the word “fall.” I would like to invite a different soloist to perform this piece each night. In doing this, I hope to show how the form of a solo can exist in the movement's content, and can also be embodied anew by different performers, similar to how a monologue or song maintains its form and yet completely transforms with a different subject.
Syniva Whitney (Seattle) is a trans-disciplinary choreographer. Gender Tender is the name of their dream of a queercentric performance project featuring ideas inspired by their nonbinary gender and multiracial identity. Will Courtney (Seattle) is Gender Tender’s lead performer, in addition to Whitney’s partner and muse. Their methods value the surreal, the sculptural, and the embodied.
Alyza DelPan-Monley (Seattle) seeks to humanize their surroundings with splashes of whimsy, genuine intimate connection, and expansive possibilities. Alyza is eager to find the unexpected ways that dance can synthesize the human experience. Known for quirky nonsensical non-sequiturs and character-ridden theatrics, Alyza believes that dance can burst bubbles and repurpose awkward into awesome.
TROY OGILVIE BITE Choreography & Performance: Troy Ogilvie Sound Design: Curtis Macdonald Special Thanks: Sophie Bortolussi, Márion Talán, and Sean Gannet Productions.
SYNIVA WHITNEY/GENDER TENDER MELTED RIOT featuring Will Courtney
I am researching texts from Susan Sontag, bell hooks, as well as poetry from Audre Lorde and Meghann Plunkett. These writers and thinkers produce rhythms and forces with their words, their passion threatens to burst off of the page, abandoning form, but these authors fight to form articulation. In dance, I am equally fascinated by the tension of wild humanness and abstract form. In this new solo, I’m exploring the tensions between structure and form, challenging assumptions about where form and content connect, and how far desire can push structure. I want to follow this path in order to find more inclusive form.
Please note there will flashing lights for a few moments during the performance MELTED RIOT began with me meditating on images by photojournalists of anonymous protesters, bystanders and riot police taken during the Stonewall Riots. I wondered if the information I desired to learn about my queer history and my transgender ancestors was somehow coded in these images. I distrust the majority of recorded histories of the riots that center white cis-gendered perspectives. I wanted to focus on imagining the experiences and actions of the transgender people of color who actually led the riot, specifically Marsha P Johnson,
Troy Ogilvie (NYC) has danced for and collaborated with various choreographers including Roy Assaf, Sidra 11
Sun, Oct 7 NIC KAY PUSHIT! [EXERCISE 1 IN GETTING WELL SOON]
DANI TIRRELL THE TIES THAT BIND with Aquilla Bell
This work is a continuation of the exercises in getting well soon, a project / meditation based on the loose and often used phrase indicating a hope of recovery. But if “Hope is a Discipline” as Mariame Kaba writes, what are the methods of hope in a performance practice? Or does hope have to be abandoned in order to get well, as Calvin Warren proposes in his essay “Black Nihilism and the Politics of Hope"? Can resistance be choreographed? The exercises have been articulated as movement, installation, games, endurance, ritual, poetry, and collective action. A site-responsive work, pushit! is a performance largely sculpted around the unique architecture of the venue and the social/ political landscapes of the city/space/ presenting body.
We have not performed together in over 10 years, we have friendship that has lasted over close to 20 years. How does time and distance still connect us? This piece, these solos, explore an emotional connection. It is taking dance to its most human level....LOVE! Dani Tirrell (Seattle) creates movement pieces inspired by Dani’s queer, gender non-conforming, and black experience. Dani has danced with Jazz and Spirit Dance Theater of Detroit, Monroe Ballet Company and Dani Tirrell Dance Theater. Dani has performed and shown work at Black Choreographers Festival (San Francisco), Gay City Arts (Seattle), Bumbershoot: Velocity Dance Center Showcase, Showing Out: Black Contemporary Choreographers (Seattle), Young Tanz Sommer (Austria), Northwest New Works Festival: On the Boards (Seattle), Risk/Reward (Portland), Seattle Art Museum, and Erased (Color Lines Dance Ensemble) as part of Nights at the Neptune (Neptune Theater, Seattle).
NIC Kay is a post disciplinary artist working with and through performance. Their work has been presented in Europe and the United States. NIC attended Professional Performing Artist School in (2007) and NYU Hemispheric Institute EMERGENYC (2009). NIC has been a Chances Dances - Marc Aguhar Memorial Grant awardee (2015), Movement Research Van Lier Fellow (2017), and a performance artist-in-residence at the Museum of Art Design (2017). Their solo work lil BLK was presented in American Realness (2018). NIC is currently a Spring/Summer AIR at Pioneer Works (NY) (2018).
Aquilla Bell (Detroit) was introduced and began studying dance at the tender age of five under the direction of Ms. Betty Fuller at the Fuller School of Dance. Bell studied in high school as well as at Western Michigan University, where they received a BA in Political Science with a dance minor. Bell currently teaches Dance education at Voyageur Middle School in Southwest Detroit, while still finding time to develop and pursue dance as a professional dancer, teacher/choreographer for the Jazz and Spirit Dance Theater of Detroit. 12
ALYZA DELPAN-MONLEY
Portugal, currently based in Seattle. He graduated from the National Conservatory in Portugal and trained at the Vaganova Ballet Academy in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He has been part of the National Ballet of Portugal and the Royal Ballet of Flanders in Antwerp, and was a first soloist with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo from 2004-2016. Since 2007 he has choreographed over 20 works, most recently for Whim W’him. Since 2015 Bruno has directed and choreographed a project co-produced by Les Ballets de Monte Carlo and the Monaco Ministry of Education to bring dance, music, and theatre to children.
featuring Nabilah Ahmed This solo explores the word “fall.” I would like to invite a different soloist to perform this piece each night. In doing this, I hope to show how the form of a solo can exist in the movement's content, and can also be embodied anew by different performers, similar to how a monologue or song maintains its form and yet completely transforms with a different subject. Alyza DelPan-Monley (Seattle) seeks to humanize their surroundings with splashes of whimsy, genuine intimate connection, and expansive possibilities. Alyza is eager to find the unexpected ways that dance can synthesize the human experience. Known for quirky nonsensical non-sequiturs and character-ridden theatrics, Alyza believes that dance can burst bubbles and repurpose awkward into awesome.
ORLANDO HERNÁNDEZ SI ASÍ LO HICIESEIS, HARÉIS BIEN… (IF YOU DO SO, YOU WILL DO WELL…) Si así lo hicieseis, haréis bien… utilizes a historical text from El Requerimiento of 1513, a legal and religious contract that conquering Spaniards were required to read to native peoples, to explore historical and ongoing experiences of colonialism and racial violence in the US and the Caribbean. This work uses tap dance as an engine for encountering histories and generating rhythms of reflection. The piece, with its tracks and sites of address, responds to the particular orientation and topography of the performance space.
BRUNO ROQUE ANAMNESIS featuring Noelani Pantastico Certain moments in our lives have dramatic consequences on our personality and can shape what we become. Losing our ingenuousness is sometimes gradual and sometimes sudden, but either way, there are key moments and memories that define a whole life. Noelani Pantastico, principal dancer at Pacific Northwest Ballet and my beloved wife, wrote personal memory snippets that will serve as the base and inspiration for this piece that speaks of loss of innocence, loss of loved ones, personal growth, and ultimately the delicate fabric that shapes us.
Orlando Hernández (Providence) is a tap dancer and theater-maker based in Providence, Rhode Island. He has shared his solo work at the Granoff Center at Brown University (Providence), the SPACE Gallery (Portland, ME), the Provincetown Dance Festival (Provincetown, MA), and La Casa de Cultura Ruth
Bruno Roque (Seattle) is a dancer and choreographer from Lisbon, 13
direction by Fernando Luna.
Hernández Torres (Río Piedras, Puerto Rico).
Naomi Macalalad Bragin (Seattle) is a student, teacher, researcher, and choreographer of dance, with 25 years of experience in streetdance culture. Bragin is a former founding artistic director of awardwinning Oakland-based streetdance company DREAM. In 2008, Bragin won New York City Hip-Hop Theater Festival’s Ford Foundation Award for Future Aesthetics Artist to pursue graduate work in dance at UC Berkeley, where she received a Masters in Anthropology and PhD in Performance Studies. Bragin currently teaches streetdance, performance study, and critical race theory at the University of Washington Bothell. She is creating a group work based on her book-in-progress, Black Power of Hip Hop Dance.
NAOMI MACALALAD BRAGIN Director: Fernando Luna This piece explores the relationship between improvised movement and the broken line. I draw on Africanderived lexicons of house and hip-hop that operate on principles of polycentrism, flexed-feet, angularity, and the rhythmic break, refusing the position of “neutral” or moreso, suggesting neutral is always flexible, fluid, and open to change—not position but relationship of bending to the physical capacities of whoever’s dancing. I work within a set of imposed physical restrictions of space, position, repetition, and stillness, to evoke practices of being-broken, off-center, not-straight. Traditionally created in the collective improvisatory culture of ciphering, streetdance blurs the soloist/group divide. By using solo form, I’m interested in deconstructing these “set” technical vocabularies to expand their possibilities for meaning-making, already embraced in their radically inclusionary aesthetics. As a soloist I break form, posing the idea we’re always who we are in relation to others. Stage
14
Up Next
Join us for two mind-bending performances by acclaimed New York-based theatre artist ANDREW SCHNEIDER. YOUARENOWHERE (Oct 18-20) is fast-paced existential meditation that shuttles between quantum mechanics, pop culture, and personal revelation. AFTER (Oct 25-27) combines hallucinatory light and sound effects with physical performance to explore what constitutes a single life and the endless possible outcomes at the precise moment of death. Tickets on sale now at ontheboards.org
% 5 1 ! off
Show your OtB ticket stubs for 15% off all regular priced items on show nights at the Sitting Room!
15
THANK YOU, OtB DONORS! INSTITUTIONAL & COMMUNITY PARTNERS 100,000+ | The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation 50,000+ | New England Foundation for the Arts (National Dance Project and National Theater Project) 25,000+ | ArtsFund, The National Endowment for the Arts, National Performance Network
INDIVIDUAL DONORS Note: An asterisk (*) indicates a member of On the Boards’ 3 Year Club, who have made a multi-year commitment to support OtB. A carat (^) indicates consistent giving over for at least a 10 year period. $20,000+ John & Shari Behnke*^, Merrill Wright $10,000+ Anonymous^, Case van Rij, Chi Chi Wyman^, Davora M. Lindner & Ro Yoon*, John Robinson & Maya Sonenberg*^, Josef Vascovitz & Lisa Goodman*^, Ruth & Tony Lockwood*, William & Ruth True $5,000+ Andrew Adamyk & Caroline Renard, Annette Toutonghi*, Barbara Lewis*, Bill Way & Erica Tiedemann*, Carlo & Eulalie Scandiuzzi, Chap & Eve Alvord^, David & Dana Taft, Dionysus Giving*, Jason Starkie & Heather Kravas, Jimmy Rogers*, Kirby Kallas-Lewis & KT Niehoff^, Maggie Hooks & Justin Ferrari, Marge Levy & Larry Lancaster*^, Nancy & Joe Guppy^, Ric Peterson & Darren Dewse*, Spafford Robbins*, Timothy Tomlinson & Vu Pham, Tyler Engle*^ $2,500+ Alfred Lee & Alison Heald*, Ariel Glassman & Kareem Missoumi*, Caroline Dodge, Chiyo Ishikawa & Mark Calderon, Emily Tanner-McLean & Chauncey McLean*, Greg Bishop, James &
10,000+ | 4Culture, Kreielsheimer Remainder Foundation, Microsoft, GarneauNicon Family Foundation, The Norcliffe Foundation, Prairie Underground, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture 5,000+ | Aesop, Robert Chinn Foundation, Tyler Engle Architects PS, The Nesholm Family Foundation, WESTAF 2,500+ | ArtsWA (Washington State Arts Commission), Nordstrom, Olson Kundig
Christina Lockwood, Jill & Wayne Donnelly, John Hoedemaker*, Kim Brillhart^, Kristen & Saul Becker, Mari London, Mark Malamud & Susan Hautala*, Matthew Echert*, Maureen & Joe Brotherton, Nikola Litven*, Norie Sato & Ralph Berry^, Robert R. McGinley*^, Sara Dickerman & Andrew Shuman 3YC*^, Sarah Rudinoff*, Steve Hoedemaker & Tommy Swenson*, Timothy Pfeiffer & Matt Carvahlo, Tom & Cyndy Israel^, Virginia & Bagley Wright $1,000+ Aaron & Karen Grady-Brown*, Annick Garcia Rooney*, Anonymous*^, Boyd Post & Tina La Padula, Brian Albright & Sandy Dial-Albright, Carol Young, Cathy & Max Sarkowsky, Cecilia Paul & Harry Reinert*, Chad & Tina Urso McDaniel*, Craig Blackmon & Tiffany McDermott, Dave Holt, Diana Knauf & Bjorn Levidow*, Doug Mora*, Duane Schuler & Sylvia Wolf*, Florangela Davila & Glenn Nelson, Gail Gibson & Claudia Vernia*, George & Kim Suyama, Gina Broze*, Ginny Ruffner^, Grace Nordhoff & Jonathan Beard, Helen Anderson & Howard Goodfriend, Holly Arsenault & Matthew Richter*, Jackie Roberts, Jennifer Salk & David Ehrich*^, John Branch, Karena & Ian Birk*, Kate Wallich, Lanny French, Lesa A. Sroufe & Matt Barnes, Mark Foltz*, Mary Ann Peters, Maryika Byskiniewicz, Matt & Maren Robertson*, Monique Courcy*, Mort & Sara Richter*, Moya Vazquez*, Nicholas Walls, Nicole Stellner &
16
Architects, The Ostara Group, Tulalip Tribes Charitable Fund 1,000+ | 501 Commons, Baby & Company, Jean T. Fukuda Memorial Fund for the Performing Arts, Herbivore, Lane Powell, Mutuus Studio, The Pink Door, The Seattle Foundation, Tomlinson Linen Service, Wyman Youth Trust 400+ | Charles Smith Wines
Peter Eberhardy*^, Paul Watts & Misty Weaver*, Pierre Lenhardt & Mariane Ibrahim-Lenhardt, Robert Stumberger^, Shelley McIntyre & Bradley Serbus, Susan R. Den*, Susan Weihrich*, Timothy & Jayne Keating, Tom & Jeannie Kundig^, Toni & Peter Haley, Victoria Hardy $500+ Andy Fife, Anonymous, Betsey Brock & Eric Fredericksen*^, C.L.Roxin*, Carl Williams, Crispin Spaeth & Dale Sather, Curtis Bonney & Sonnet Retman, Deehan Wyman, Gene Gentry McMahon & Bill McMahon, Gus & Connie Kravas, Holly Jacobson, Jeffrey Frace, Jessica Massart, Joanne Sugura & William Massey, Judy Tobin & Michael Baker, Katherine Bourbonais, Linda Derschang, Lorrie Doriza, Malek Chalabi, Marriam Leve, Marylyn Ward & Jay Johnston, Michael Lockman, Mike McCracken & Keely Isaak Meehan, Mike Samoya & Sharman Haley, Sara Jinks, Sarah Harlett & Dan Tierney, Stephen & Marie Heil, Stewart Parker, Tara Wefers, Tova Elise Cubert $250+ Adrianne Hersrud, Andrea Wagner, Ben Goosman, Britt Karhoff & David Stern Levitt, Brooke Zimmers, Carmel & James Drage, Christopher & Rebecca Prosser, Courtney Sheehan, Dana Miller & Griffin Whitney, David & Juliette Delfs, David Karp & Deborah Woodard^, Dorit Ely, Doug & Mary Bayley, Elizabeth Brown^, Elizabeth Lowry, Erika Nesholm,
Erin Boberg-Doughton, Erin Weible, Heather & Mark Barbieri, Huong Vu & Bill Bozarth, Igor Zaika, James Holt & Rose Bellini, Jay Hamilton, Jeffrey Smollen, Jenny Abrams, John DeShazo & Susannah Anderson, Kathryn Rathke & Barry Wright, Kathy Savory, Keith Wagner & Doug Calvert^, Kira Burge, Leilani Lewis, Nikolai Lesnikov, Nisha Kelen & Amir Klein, P. E. & Anna McKee, Paige Mulvey, Pam Fredericksen, Paula Riggert, Peg Murphy & Steve McCarthy, Peggy Piacenza, Rachel Kessler & Michael Seiwerath, Sean Kennedy, Sharon & Brian Ainsworth, The Robinsons, Thomas Van Doren, Vallejo Gantner, Virginia Wyman, Wally & Julie Bivins, Wier Harman & Barbara Sauermann, Yonnas Getahun, Zoe Scofield, Zoltan Pekic $100+ Ale Madera, Allison Arth, Amelia Reeber-Meade, Anne Focke, Annie Han, Anonymous, Audrey Lew, Barbara E. Bower, Bryan Lineberry, Calandra Childers, Calie Swedberg, Carol Brinster, Carolyn Butler, Catherine Hillenbrand & Joseph Hudson, Charles Smith, Chris Bennion, CJ Brockway, Claudia Bach & Philip Smart, Colton Winger, Dan & Debbie Raas, Dan Mihalyo, Dani Tirrell & Marlon Brown, David J. Roberts, David Rue, Dawn Monet, Dawna Holloway, Elizabeth Herlevi, Elizabeth Rudinoff, Ella Mahler, Ellen Sollod, Emily Geballe, Emily Zimmerman, Ezra Cooper, Frances Wolfe, Guy Merrill, Ingrid Lahti Eisenman, Jack McLarnan, Jake Keating, Jan E. Roddy, Janet Upjohn, Jayme Yen, Jessica Gallucci, Jessica Powers, Jim Kent, John Gilbreath, John Kerr, Joshua Eterfield, Karen Guzak & Warner Blake^, Kathy Fridstein & Mark Manley, Kris Patton, Kris Wheeler, Kurt A. Schlatter, Landry Kloesel, Lauren Davis, Leslie Reisfeld, Lindsay Hastings, Marcia R. Douglas, Maria Giammona, Mark Fleming & Drindy Gier, Mark Shea, Martha's sister Diane^, Mary Metastasio, Mary Pat DiLeva, Maureen Kamali, Maximilian Press, Michael Eddington, Michael Hamm, Michael Katell, Michael L. Furst, Michael Thompson^, Michelle Dunn Marsh, Michelle Wang, Miles Burnett, Nicole Ramirez, Patricia Scott, Pete Rush, Roya
Amirsoleymani, Ryan Diaz, Sandy & Tim Marsden, Sean JensenGray, Sherry Prowda, Suzanne Kosmas, Tim Farrell, Tracy Middlebrook, Vy Duong, Wade Madsen & Eric Pitsenbarger 50+ Alethea Alexander, Alex Hyman, Alexandra Harding, Alison & Doug Jennings, Andy & Nancy Jensen, Anonymous, Ariel Glassman & Kareem Missoumi, Belinda Vicars, Catherine Cabeen, Cristiano Carugati, David P. Miller, DL Salo, Elissa Favero, Ellen Ziegler, Erin Culbertson, Garnett Hundley, Glenna Martin, Helene Kaplan, Helene Ruri Yampolsky, Ian Butcher & Carol Chapman, ilvs strauss, Jackie Roberts, Jeffrey Azevedo, Jesse Milden, Jordan Rahne MacIntosh-Hougham, Joyce Liao, Julia Maslach, Julie Tomita, Kairu Yao, Karla Schickele, Kate Murphy, Kathryn Lew, Kellee Bryan, Kimberly Brauer, Kyle Loven, Laura Valiente, Liz Cortez Bates, Nathan Dors, Nina Bozicnik & Jessica Henske, Pamala Mijatov, Petra Zanki, Priya Frank, Rachael Ludwick, Rebecca Cummins, Ron Berry, Rose McLendon, Sara Ann Davidson, Shasti Walsh, Steven Kasparek, The Hatlos, Thomas Johnston, Tonya Lockyer & BC Campbell, W. Scott Davis, Wendy Jackson, Wesley Nicholson $10+ A McColl, Alex Pasternack, Alexander Dones, Alexandra Colley, Alexandra Kendall, Alexis Odell, Allison Manch, Amanda Hamp, Amberlynn Pauley, Amy Poisson & Patrick Sheehy, Amy Sorensen, Ana Deboo & Douglas Ende, Anjali Grant, Ann Lindsey, Antoine Defoort, Antoinette Wizenberg, Ashraf Hasham, Barbara Swain, Ben McCarthy, Blaze Ferrer, Brian Rogers, Bruce Shoup, Camille Baldwin-Bonney & Matt Beaulieu, Can Gulan, Carl Thomson, Carly Searles, Carlyn Orians & Richard Swann, Carol Buchter, Carol Chapman, Caroline Myers, Carolyn Law, Casey Cochran Pflieger, Colby Bradley, Colleen Borst, Connie Ballmer, Corey Gutch, Darcy Drysdale, David Robinson, Deborah Frausto, Deborah Magallanes, Deborah Roberts, Deborah Tofil, Don Jackson, Doreen Sayegh, Edie Cutler, Elizabeth Duffell, Elizabeth
17
Schiffler, Elizabeth Uselton, Eric Olson, Erica Reich, Erin Langner, Evan Lawrence-Hurt, Fidelma McGinn, Filiz Efe McKinney, Grace Funk, Greg Kucera & Larry Yocom, Hannah Kris, Henry Walker, Hope Goldman, Howard Kuo, Jake Knapp, James Groh, Jan Jacobs, Jane Carter, Jean Rowlands-Tarbox, Jennifer Taylor, Jennifer Towner, Jenny Gerber, Jess Smith, Jessica Perino, Jocelyn Phillips, Jose Sanchez, Josh Hornbaker, Judi DeCicco, Juliet McMains, Juliet Waller-Pruzan & Alan Pruzan, Kaitlin McCarthy, Karen Bystrom, Kay Wilson, Kevin & Jana Witt, Kim Lusk, Krina Turner, Krissy Whiski, Kristina Goetz, Kuba Holuj, Kyle Nunes, Lars America Jan, Laura Reynolds, Laura Utterback, Lauri Watkins, Lea Anne Ottinger, Lee Bradley, Lena Lauer, Liana Kegley, Linda Brown, Lise Friedman & Maia Wechsler, Lois Patterson, Lou Koehler, Luis Rosado, Lyra (Hannah Goldberg), Manja Sachet, Margaret Livingston, Maria Glanz, Marlow Harris, Mary Holscher, Meghan Moe Beitiks, Melissa Huther, Michael & Linda Madigan, Michael Davis, Michelle Tobin, Molly Michal, Mona Ching, Mory Maia, Nancy Gibson, Natalie Miller, Olivier Wevers, Peter Donnelly, Peter Ruhm, Pol Rosenthal, Rachel Perlot, Rebecca Wear, Robert Wigton, Rosa Vissers, Sandra & Tim Marsden, Sarah Jane Gunter, Seth Pacleb, Shane Leaman, Strack-Grose, Sue Dodson, Susan Chun, Susan Tesch, Theodore Strack-Grose, Theresa Barreras, Thomas & Stephanie Shafer, Todd Campbell, Tonya Peck & Alex Dunne, Travis Roderick, Val Brunetto, Vana Ingram, Warren Pease, Wendy LeBlanc, Ximena Narvaja, Yvonne Lam This list shows donors to On the Boards from Sep 1, 2017 through Oct 1, 2018 and includes pledged gifts. If we’ve made an error to your listing or if you would like to make a gift to support OtB, please contact Beth Raas-Bergquist, Director of Development, at 206-217-9886 or beth@ontheboards.org.
THANK YOU
We’re grateful for the generous support of the following organizations
KREIELSHEIMER REMAINDER FOUNDATION
THE NORCLIFFE FOUNDATION
NESHOLM FAMILY FOUNDATION
TOMLINSON LINEN SERVICE
WYMAN YOUTH TRUST
GARNEAUNICON FOUNDATION
IN KIND & MEDIA SPONSORS DAVE HOLT
18
Founded by artists in 1978, On the Boards invests in leading contemporary performing artists near and far, and connects them to a diverse range of communities interested in forward-thinking art and ideas. We believe if we are successful in our work that we can grow our field, enrich peoples’ lives, and contribute to civic and global dialogues. We value: artistic risks while being fiscally responsible; leadership in our field and the multiple communities we serve to strategically advance the role contemporary artists play in society; racial and social equity, and accountability, to ensure our organization includes multiple viewpoints; provocative art as a vehicle to connect people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives; our local creative community as we engage with international artists and peers; and professional and transparent management. Betsey Brock, Executive Director Rachel Cook, Artistic Director
BOARD Ruth Lockwood, Board President Tyler Engle, Past President Davora Lindner, Vice President John Robinson, Treasurer Michaela Hutfles, Secretary Tom Israel, Member at Large Norie Sato, Member at Large
Rich Bresnahan, Technical Director Sara Ann Davidson, Operations Manager and Office Witch Jenny Gerber, Finance Manager Clare Hatlo, Associate Producer Alexandra Harding, Assistant Technical Manager Kim Lusk, Bookkeeper Pamala Mijatov, Director of Audience Services Kiera O'Brien, Communications Associate Eze-Basil Oluo, House Manager Beth Raas-Bergquist, Director of Development Erica Bower Reich, Patron Relations Specialist Charles Smith, Director of Program Management
Kristen Becker, John Behnke, Kim Brillhart, Maryika Byskiniewicz, Jeanie Chunn, Florangela Davila, Caroline Dodge, Jeffrey FracĂŠ, Rodney Hines, John Hoedemaker, Zack Hutson, Chiyo Ishikawa, Tina LaPadula, Mari London, Lance Neely, Emily TannerMcLean, Kate Murphy, Mary Ann Peters, Spafford Robbins, Jimmy Rogers, Ginny Ruffner, Robert Stumberger, Annette Toutonghi, Josef Vascovitz, Bill Way
19
COMING SOON OCT 18–20 ANDREW SCHNEIDER: YOUARENOWHERE OCT 25–27 ANDREW SCHNEIDER: AFTER NOV 1–3 INUA ELLAMS: BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES Presented by Seattle Theatre Group at The Moore Theatre, in association with On the Boards DEC 6–9 OKWUI OKPOKWASILI: POOR PEOPLE’S TV ROOM
MORE AT ONTHEBOARDS.ORG
Behnke Center for Contemporary Performance 100 West Roy St ontheboards.org | 206-217-9886