Why All This Music?
Friday, January 10 | 8PM
Saturday, January 11 | 8PM
Velocity Dance Center 1621 12th Ave, Seattle
Karin Stevens Dance is delighted to present Why All This Music?, an evening of four new dance works exploring the human body in relationship to the outer world, January 10 + 11 at Velocity Dance Center. These works mark a return to Artistic Director and Choreographer Karin Stevens’ roots as a dance-maker interested in the pure expression and design of the body in movement.
“Following the belief that all of life is movement––inherent with moving shapes; rhythmic changes that include felt tempo and meter––I was interested in how the animate, “more than human”* world would influence my improvisational voice in four different outdoor locations,” says Stevens.
These locations include her backyard during winter and summer where the grass has grown wild, the cliffs, beaches, and forests of Kauai Island, Seattle’s Llandover Woods, and Cortes Island, British Columbia.
Utilizing video recordings of Stevens’ improvisational practices as source material, each dance, although reflective of her unique movement signature, has revealed its own design, rhythm, texture, and feel.
To capture even more of the magic of the animacy arising in all of life, the performance features live spontaneous sound creation played in real time response. Small ensembles of some of Seattle’s finest improvisational musicians have been curated by beloved collaborators Kin of the Moon. While the musicians will be given a video tape of the dances prior to the performance, they will not actually perform with the dancers until the premiere event on January 10 + 11th.
*Term coined by the Philosopher and Cultural Ecologist David Abram.
Featuring Seattle Dancers:
Robert Moore (he/him)
Maeve Haselton (they/them)
Ben Swenson-Klatt (they/them)
Hazel Morris (she/her)
Micaela Gonzales (she/her)
Emma Klein (she/her)
Anja Kellner-Rogers (she/her)
Small Ensembles of Seattle Improvisational Musicians, Curated by Kin of the Moon:
Crows at a Crosswalk:
Leanna Keith, flutes; Daniel Husser, bouzouki, guitar
CHA:
Carol J. Levin, electric harp; Heather Bentley, electric 7 string violin; Amelia Love Clearheart, spontaneous poet, vocals, percussion, electronics
Heather/Dio Duo:
Heather Bentley, viola; Dio Jean-Baptiste, drums
Kin of the Moon:
Leanna Keith, flutes; Heather Bentley, viola; Kaley Lane Eaton, keyboard
……………………………………………………………………………………………...
To Be Alive
By Gregory Orr
To be alive: not just the carcass
But the spark.
That's crudely put, but…
If we're not supposed to dance,
Why all this music?
From Concerning the Book That Is the Body Of the Beloved
(Copper Canyon Press, 2005)
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