Currency of Evolution | October 2015

Karin Stevens Dance with the Sam Boshnack Quintet
October 23 – 25
Velocity Dance Center
Seattle, WA

An evening of cross-continental contemporary dance – set to high-octane original jazz and part of the UW Dance Program’s 50th Anniversary celebrations.

Choreography by Karin Stevens
Music by Sam Boshnack
Lighting Design by Sara Torres
Costumes by Ali Rose Panzarella

Press for Karin Stevens Dance & Sam Boshnack Quintet
Karin Stevens Dance: Visual Jazz – Megan Stevenson, Seattle Dances
Fall Dance Preview – Seattle Magazine

Currency of Evolution, Choreography by Karin Stevens

I created Currency of Evolution as part of my Velocity Creative Residency with Philippa, a core KSD dancer, and 7 dancers from the Seattle community.  I chose Sam’s music Divergency and Alchemical as much for the titles as for the grooves! I researched images of and information about divergent and convergent evolution.  I set up phrases and had the dancers generate phrases as well that were within the vein of my phrases. I then created patterns and relationships within structures of the dance through rules and chance. Hoping for some magic I had the dancers continue to explore certain parts of the dance experiementing with timing choices and connecting visually with others to discover further development of the movement and their relationship to each other. The work moves from a machine like feel to an organic ending that suggests the convergence of a multiplicity of diversity, connections and ongoing directions.  It was a really rewarding choreographic process allowing new ideas to emerge and be set beyond what I would control.

I am also inspired by the chapter, To Dance Is To Evolve, in Why We Dance, by Kimerer LaMothe.  The title of this work came from LaMothe’s writing. The following quotes are taken from the opening to the chapter: “The dance of the future will be a new movement, a consequence of the entire evolution which mankind has passed through.” -Isadora Duncan   “Evolution…a wheeling motion in dance.” -American Heritage Dictionary. I had an intuition to set the begining in the circle and move out from there before I came to reading this chapter! -KS