Just Love Program and Information
Just Love, photo by Jim Coleman. Dancers from bottom to top: Sara Caplan, Ellie van Bever, Michael Walton, Anja Kellner-Rogers
JUST LOVE
OCTOBER 18 & 19 | 8pm & 20 | 5pm
NOD THEATER
Artistic Director & Choreographer - Karin Stevens*
Dancers - Sara Caplan, Anja Kellner-Rogers, Ellie van Bever, Michael Walton
*Thank you to the dancers for their rich collaborative moments throughout the creation of this work!
Music -
Prelude - A Sea of Love, by Huerco S.
Ensemble Section 1 - Beat, by Tingvall Trio
Solo for Ellie - Screaming Quietly, by Kerry Hart
Ensemble Section 2 - Love, by Adam Baldych & Helge Lien Trio
Solo for Sara - Holm, by Emel
Intermission 15’
Ensemble Section 3 - Lovely Sky Boat, by Alice Coltrane
Solo for Mikey - Birds In Warped Time II, by Somei Satoh, Anne Akiko Meyers, Li Jian
Solo for Anja - Journey to the Stars, by Tom Harrell
Ensemble Section 4 - Passacaglia, by Adam Baldych, Leszek Możdżer
Lighting Design & Stage Manager - Locke Landis
Technical Director & Sound - Mikayla Villa-Howells
House Manager - Jay Shepard
KSD Production & Promotional Assistant - Taylor Abbay
Concession & Costume Support - Aidyn Stevens
Special thanks to -
Volunteers
KSD Board Members
KSD Joy Train, Monthly, One-time Supporters
Christin Olyano, Nod/Exit Space Theater & Rentals Manager
Glenn Kawasaki Foundation
Abundant Blessing Foundation
4Culture
ArtsFund Community Accelerator Grant
Timber City Ginger Beer
Adi Rozga
Stevens 5
This organization is supported in part by 4Culture Sustained Support
Biographies:
Karin Stevens
Karin Stevens is a Seattle-based choreographer, performer, and facilitator in somatic and spiritual healing. Through her dance company, Karin Stevens Dance (2009-present), she creates at the interchange of movement, art, ecology, spirit and humanity. She believes we must commune, collaborate and converse through movement, sound and ideas for co-creating visionary art beyond our current crises, as healing spaces performatively entangled in a transformational process with the world around us. Since 1999, Karin has created over ninety professional concert dance, theater, and education-based movement-art works, and produced twenty evening-length concerts, including Record of the Anthropocene Movement (2017), named a 'must see performance' by City Arts Magazine.
Sara Caplan
Sara Caplan (she/her) is a performer, choreographer and teacher based in Seattle. She has performed in works choreographed by Kendra Portier, Mariah Maloney, Beth Gill, Elise Beers AachixQaaduug, Bri Wilson, Shenandoah Harris, Madeleine Gregor and Anja Kellner-Rogers. This is her second season with dancing with Karin Stevens Dance.
Anja Kellner-Rogers
Anja Kellner-Rogers is a freelance dance artist and yoga teacher who was raised on the East Coast but now calls Seattle home. Since moving to Seattle in 2013, she has had the opportunity to dance works by KT Niehoff, Alyza Delpan-Monley, Shannon Stewart, Noelle Chun, Kimberly Holloway, Alice Gosti and Adriana Hernandez, among others. Anja has been collaborating and performing with Karin Stevens Dance since 2015.
Ellie van Bever
Ellie van Bever is originally from Portland, OR and graduated from American University with a B.S. in Political Science. After graduation she joined Christopher K. Morgan & Artists in Washington D.C. While dancing with CKM&A she had the privilege of performing at the Kennedy Center, The American Dance Institute, and in the Velocity Dance Festival. In New York she has worked with Jillian Peña, AnA Collaborations, The Equus Projects, Thea Little, and Undertow Dance, among others. In 2018 she returned to Portland to join Katie Scherman + Artists for the world premiere of "To Have it All" at Bodyvox Dance Center, where her performance was noted as “strong and mysterious” (Oregon ArtsWatch). As an artist, Ellie is attracted to work that distorts the traditional performer to audience relationship; whether that be through site-specific work, immersive dance-theater, or audience engagement. In Seattle she has produced and danced in the improvised performance series "Fuck it! We'll Do it LIVE" and the immersive dance-theater experience, "DRAGONSLAYER". She joined Karin Stevens Dance in 2023 and is delighted to be dancing with this group of artists.
Michael Walton
Michael Walton is a Seattle based performer and teaching artist. He began his performance journey at the age of six with Christian Arts and Theater (CAT) of Corona, performing in musicals that sparked a lifelong passion for the arts. His formal dance training took off at Fullerton City College, where he was introduced to ballet and modern dance. He then completed his associate's coursework at Riverside City College, performing in touring groups, participating in "Trolley Dances," and choreographing for the school's annual student showcases. Michael moved to Seattle to further his dance education and earned his BFA from Cornish College of the Arts. Since then, he has performed in notable venues such as Broadway Performance Hall, the Moore Theater, Fisher’s Pavilion Seattle Center and Cornish Playhouse, working with renowned local and national choreographers including Wade Madsen, Deb Wolf, Lucie Baker, Anouk Van Djik, and Charlie Slender-White. Currently, he is a company member of Karin Stevens Dance (KSD) and performs freelance in various movement projects like Men In Dance. Outside of performance, Michael enjoys teaching fitness classes at retirement communities, practicing yoga as he works toward his RYT-200 certification, and hunting for Seattle’s best by-the-slice pizza spot.
Locke Landis
Locke Landis is a lighting designer and dance performance artist. Locke studied dance at Cornish College of the Arts, and obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance in 2023. As a lifelong dancer, Locke is passionate about the connection between movement and lighting. His aim is to work with choreographers to create a fully-immersive artistic experience.
Karin Stevens Dance
Founded in 2009, Seattle-based Karin Stevens Dance has produced over twenty concerts and dance-activism community events, toured inter/nationally and collaborated with award winning composers and music groups. KSD captures the breadth of the moving human experience through the creation of diverse performance works. Collaborating with music, theater, and visual artists, KSD investigates the complex layers of our cultural spaces, time, and relationship to Earth and the spiritual. Striving to make beauty out of the human transformational process, KSD celebrates the power of movement to help us evolve and connect more deeply to ourselves, each other, and to the inner/outer landscapes of our interdependent existence.
Just What I Love: The creative process for "Just Love"
A year ago, summer 2023, I was preparing to embark on a new project with two returning dancers and two new dancers to the company. For the first time in my creative life I had no idea what to do next! In my morning spiritual practice, I heard the words to “just do what you love.” What? No grand idea to capture the attention of an elusive big audience or media authority? No original, newly commissioned local music to elevate my choreographic intentions? Just do what I love?!? Just follow my heart. And that is just what I began to do. The creative process transformed me. And I am now quite proud of the work and excited to share it with the audiences in October. See the Press Release below to hear how the director of the Seattle International Dance Festival responded to an excerpt of the work we presented in June.
Stayed tuned for more reflections on the creative process…—Karin, July 2024
In 2023, I began training and working toward full certification in Hakomi, a psycho-somatic therapy for self-discovery and transformation. The most essential part of Hakomi is Loving Presence. It is a practice and a way of being with another. When we are with a client, or practicing with someone, we aim to be in Loving Presence with them. From this state, we seek to be with what is nourishing and inspiring about the other person. As I began the rehearsal process in September 2023, with only the words, “just what I love,” to follow along the unfolding creative process, I was curious to begin with a Loving Presence practice with the dancers.
The practice is verbal. One person shares anything meaningful to them, while the other (in this case, all of us, as we did this as a group) listens in Loving Presence. After the person shares, we reflected back what was nourishing and inspiring about the person speaking or things that they shared. It was a wonderful way to begin a new rehearsal process with two new dancers to the group!
Next, I took this practice into an improvisational session that I filmed. (There are four videos you can view.) The dancers were divided into groups of two. Instead of speaking, this time the sharing was done through movement. I strongly suggested to the dancers to not make an attempt to perform, but to follow impulses to move that felt natural and comforting to their bodies. One person moved, the other watched in Loving Presence, seeking to experience what was nourishing and inspiring about the person speaking in movement. Instead of verbally reflecting what was nourishing, the witnessing/listening dancer expressed their experience in movement as well. And so we went back and forth four times. From these improvised sesssions I began to build the work. In the second section of the work—which was the first section I created—you can see movement from this first day of rehearsal.
I was also inspired by Doug Varone’s Possession that UW’s Chamber Dance company was about to present that fall 2023. In particular, I was interested in the choreographic idea of duets in quartet form—that you can see in this clip of Varone’s work. I believe it was from here that the ideas of friendship, the communal and loving presence took shape for the overall intention of the larger work that unfolded over the next year. As I created the work, I practiced following Loving Presence with the material rather than analysis and mental calculation for what I “thought” I should do. I kept with the heart of the process and extended the Loving Presence even toward myself! Eventually the title of the work distilled into “Just Love”.
I have a strong manager part, especially loud as I drive to rehearsal, “Stay on top of time! How much have you gotten done and should get done today?! Are you doing enough?! Is it working?! Are the dancers happy and like working with you?! etc! etc! etc!” Instead, I practiced feeling into what was nourishing and inspiring me from the process, but most especially, what was nourishing about these moving humans I get to be in the room with every week! I have always had a drive to foster a culture of care for the dancers needs in the rehearsal process. Practicing Loving Presence enriched this culture of care even more. My relationship with the dancers began to feel more grounded and mutually supportive in new ways. (Also, extremely important during a year I was pulled away multiple times to Montana to help my dad care for my severely ailing mother with Alzheimer’s. She fell twice with devastating bone breaks and then almost died from a viral infection. I will be out there again two weeks before our show in October! So grateful for this group of dancers right now.) To say the least, this last year was creatively and personally transformative. I have way less fear and stress (Yes, as much as one loves making work, fear and stress can be an ongoing challenge to well-being for creatives.) and a deep gratitude for the journey this last year. I can’t wait to work on the next project and move with Loving Presence in the process. —Karin, September 2024
Here is a link to my Youtube channel for more videos from our creative process beginning in September 2023: https://www.youtube.com/@karinstevens/videos
Our Press Release:
KARIN STEVENS DANCE PRESENTS
Just Love
October 18 & 19 | 8PM
October 20 | 5PM
NOD Theater | 1621 12th AVE SEATTLE 98122
Tickets: $15-$35 (available online and at the door)
http://universe.com/justloveksd
https://www.karinstevensdance.com/
https://www.instagram.com/karinstevensdance/
An evening-length dance for quartet by Karin Stevens
“…like watching time-lapse photography of an ornate flower going through its process of opening and closing, twisting and turning to catch the brilliance and radiance of the sun as it moves through the sky.” - Cyrus Khambatta, Artistic Director/Founder of Seattle International Dance Festival and Khambatta Dance Company
“Karin’s works are a magnificent blend of innovation, elegance, and flowing power. Please keep them coming.” - James Leonard, KSD board member
Photo by Jim Coleman, Seattle International Dance Festival 2024, Just Love
Dancers Anja Kellner-Rogers (Bottom-Left), Micheal Walton (Top-Left), Sara Caplan (Top-Right) & Ellie van Bever (Bottom-Right)
(Seattle) – A fixture of the Seattle dance scene, Karin Stevens Dance presents Just Love, a 60' evening-length work for four dancers by Karin Stevens, October 18 & 19, 8pm and 20th, 5pm at NOD Theater on Capitol Hill.
Just Love is an intricately shifting journey in friendship, the communal and loving presence between four dancers, underlined by groovy music. Featuring predominately jazz and new classical sounds, the stage is set for an abundance of unique movement and spatial design where solos and duets interact in a quartet form. The partnering work between dancers is skillfully crafted by Stevens’ signature aim for an organic feel, which resonates with the ecological interdependence of a wild forest.
Just Love, premiered as a 20’ excerpt at the Seattle International Dance Festival 2024 Inter|National Series.
SIDF dance photographer, Jim Coleman, had these words to say about the work: “Beautiful new quartet, so interestingly musical in the ebbs and flows of its action, and such a sweetly harmonious group of dancers.”
Cyrus Khambatta, Artistic Director/Founder of Seattle International Dance Festival and Khambatta Dance Company, shared the following thoughts on the performance: “…the work felt complex and rich, with intricate patterns, that were at once simple but full of depth, like watching time-lapse photography of an ornate flower going through its process of opening and closing, twisting and turning to catch the brilliance and radiance of the sun as it moves through the sky. The work felt harmonious yet full of vibrance, and the dancers seemed to move as if inhabited by a larger purpose or power. It was simultaneously satisfying and fulfilling while bestowing a sense of peace and ease. The work seems a rare specimen indeed.”
Photo by Jim Coleman, Seattle International Dance Festival 2024, Just Love
Dancers Sara Caplan (Left) & Ellie van Bever (Right)
Karin Stevens Dance believes that dance is a radical, vital art, key to our future in this 21st century. KSD aims to re/connect us to our bodily selves, to each other and to the greater ecologies of our collective dance. Encapsulating the breadth of the moving human experience, our contemporary dance artworks strive for beauty through richly textured patterns that embody the complex, turbulent layers of our time, our cultural spaces, and our relationship to environments. Our work embraces the mystery, suffering, wonder, and bewilderment in our interdependent existence through re/imagination, transformation, and healing for our collective well-being.
Karin Stevens Dance and Just Love is funded by 4Culture Sustained Support, Glenn Kawasaki Foundation, Abundant Blessing Foundation, Artsfund Accelerator Grant and KSD community supporters.
Karin Stevens Dance at Nod Theater, October 18, 19 & 20, 2024. Tickets are available at https://universe.com/justloveksd
Visit karinstevensdance.com for more information.
Photo by Jim Coleman, Seattle International Dance Festival 2024, Just Love
Dancers Anja Kellner-Rogers (Left) & Michael Walton (Right)
ABOUT KARIN STEVENS
KARIN STEVENS is a Seattle-based Choreographer, Movement Artist, Educator, Writer, Transformationalist and Facilitator in The Art & Practice of Movement. Through her dance company, Karin Stevens Dance (2009-present), she creates imaginative and immersive performer and audience experiences at the interchange of movement, art, ecology and social issues. She believes we must commune, collaborate and converse through movement, sound and ideas for re/imagining life and relationships beyond our current crises. Since 1999, Karin has created over ninety professional concert dance, theater, and education-based movement-art works, and produced twenty evening-length concerts, including Record of the Anthropocene Movement (2017), named a 'must see performance' by City Arts Magazine. Since the inception of KSD she has been committed to live, local music; commissioning new scores from Seattle composers, particularly advocating for women in music.
For years she has been assisting professional and student movers. With over forty years of dance education, exploration, and research, Karin teaches that the body is THE source of knowledge and creativity. She is driven by the power of movement to bring us back into health and spiritual ecology within ourselves, with each other, and through our natural and built environments. In spite of being a life-long vocational dancer, Karin had to learn to move in new ways to overcome cultural mind-over body training, personal pain and life-challenges. She believes that if every individual journeyed back into and through the body, each one of us would become a great force for collective healing and transformation, particularly in the area of white supremacy and harmful human impacts on the Earth.
Karin is an ambassador for National Water Dance (2019-present), producing four large-scale dance-activism, community events for National Water Dance and Global Water Dances since 2018. She has an MFA in Choreography and Performance from Mills College and a BA in dance from The University of Washington.
Karin is immensely grateful for her husband of 25 years, and her three powerhouse daughters (14, 16, 23).
Being in relationship with her devoted family has gifted Karin invaluable lessons in her personal journey and vocational mission.
ABOUT KARIN STEVENS DANCE
Founded in 2009, Seattle-based Karin Stevens Dance has produced over twenty concerts, toured inter/nationally and collaborated with award winning composers and music groups. KSD captures the breadth of the moving human experience through the creation of diverse performance works. Collaborating with music, theater and visual artists, KSD investigates the complex layers of our cultural spaces, time, and relationship to Earth and the spiritual. Striving to make beauty out of the human transformational process, KSD celebrates the power of movement to help us evolve, love, and re/connect more deeply to ourselves, each other, and to the inner/outer landscapes of our interdependent existence.
Through performance works and dance-activism community events, KSD creates space for building connections. As a radical and vital art, dance can act as a key to our future sustainability. We commune, collaborate and converse through dance to remember that to be fully human we must move and create.
Prioritizing live and original sound, KSD has collaborated with Kin of the Moon, Sam Boshnack Quintet, Michael Owcharuk, Crystal Beth, Common Tone Arts, Glacier Symphony and Chorale, String Orchestra of the Rockies, Northwest Symphony Orchestra, Simple Measures, UW Chamber Singers, Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble and many more Seattle composers, visual artists and designers.
KSD has received support from the Office of Arts and Culture | Seattle, 4Culture, Artist Trust, Seattle International Dance Festival | James Ray Residency, WA Commerce Covid recovery, Glenn H. Kawasaki Foundation, Abundant Blessing Foundation, Case van Rij, and through Velocity’s Creative Residency Program.
LEARN MORE AT KARINSTEVENSDANCE.COM
Photo by Jim Coleman, Seattle International Dance Festival 2024, Just Love
Dancers Anja Kellner-Rogers (Bottom-Left), Micheal Walton (Top-Left), Ellie van Bever (Top-Right) &
Sara Caplan (Bottom-Right)