This spring, KST is presenting its sixth annual newMoves Contemporary Dance Festival! This festival brings young local and national choreographers to the stage to present a medley of four to five short works each night. Read more about the newMoves participants here before you see their new works on stage, May 7-9th!
Jean Paul Weaver
– Jean-Paul’s newMoves piece is entitled Lalin
– Lalin is a piece about navigating the subconscious and the workings of his own inner desires and dreams
– Lalin was inspired by the Rorschach ink blot test
– In addition to dancing, Jean-Paul enjoys drawing. He showcases his art on his Tumblr Selki-Dimanche
– Jean-Paul has trained at Casper College and Alozo King’s Lines Ballet Training Program, Luna Negra Dance Theater, Lou Conte Dance Centre and Deeply Rooted Dance Theater Summer Intensive
– Jean-Paul has also presented work with Texture Ballet Theater and Ruth Page Center in Chicago
You can check out Jean-Paul’s Vimeo before you see Lalin at newMoves! Get your tickets here!
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This spring, KST is presenting its sixth annual newMoves Contemporary Dance Festival! This festival brings young local and national choreographers to the stage to present a medley of four to five short works each night. Read more about the newMoves participants here before you see their new works on stage, May 7-9th!
Brady Sanders, Pittsburgh Choreographer
– Brady Sanders has studied at Point Park University, Illinois State University, Joel Hall Studio, and School of DanceWest Ballet
– Brady had even toured internationally with The Cavaliers World Champion Drum and Bugle Corps
– Brady also served as the Artistic Director of the Pride of Cincinnati Dance Ensemble for one year
– His newMoves piece is titled The Screen Between Us
– The Screen Between Us explores our love affair with technology, and will use modern dance techniques and pose the question, “Are we designing technologies that give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship?
– The Screen Between Us features Vic Damone’s rendition of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You and Connected, but alone? from Sherry Turkle’s TED Talk.
You can watch Brady’s work, Something Unknown on his Vimeo, and get tickets to experience his team live here!
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Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion — Kyle Abraham, professional dancer and choreographer, began his training at the Civic Light Opera Academy and the Creative and Performing Arts High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He continued his dance studies in New York, receiving a BFA from SUNY Purchase and an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Over the past few years, Abraham has received tremendous accolades and awards for his dancing and choreography including Dance Magazine’s coveted 25 to Watch in 2009, a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant 2008, Pennsylvania Council for the Arts Fellowship in 2002. This year, Abraham was heralded by OUT Magazine as one of the “best and brightest creative talent to emerge in New York City in the age of Obama.” His choreography has been presented throughout the United States and abroad, most recently at Dance Theater Workshop, Bates Dance Festival, Jacobs Pillow, The Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum located in Okinawa Japan, Springboard Danse Montreal, Fall for Dance Festival at New York’s City Center, Harlem Stage/Aaron Davis Hall in Harlem, New York and the Internationales Solo-Tanz-Theater Festival in Stuttgart, Germany.
As a performer, Abraham has worked with several acclaimed modern dance companies including David Dorfman Dance, Dance Conduction Continuum, Nathan Trice/Rituals, Mimi Garrard Dance Theater, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Dance Alloy, The Kevin Wynn Collection, and Attack Theatre. In addition to performing and developing new works for his company, abraham.in.motion, Abraham also teaches his unique approach to post-modern dance in various schools and studios throughout the United States.
BLOOM! Dance Collective — Being a truly international collective, BLOOM!’s works are rooted in various cultural backgrounds and disciplines. BLOOM! embraces collaboration as the foundation of its creative process opening up the artistic direction to the whole team. The creative team of each production comprises different members and also guest artists working in the fields of dance, set & costume design, lighting design and film.
Since its foundation in November 2009 BLOOM! has created two pieces, namely CITY and TAME GAME. Most recently BLOOM! has been awarded the Rudolf Laban Award 2010 (Budapest) for best Hungarian dance production(CITY) and it was awarded an artistic residency at the Prix Jardin D’Europe 2010 (iDans04-Istanbul). The collective was also selected for the international touring network Aerowaves in 2010-2011.
BLOOM! is currently working on SuperHeroes (working title), the collective’s third production to be premiered in Spring 2012. Members include: Viktória Dányi(HU), Csaba Molnár (SK), Moreno Solinas (IT), Igor Urzelai (ES), Alberto Ruiz Soler (ES); and manager Anikó Rácz (HU)
Sidra Bell — Sidra Bell (Artistic Director) holds a BA in History from Yale University and an MFA in Choreography from Purchase College Conservatory of Dance. She is currently a Master Lecturer at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Bell has been the recipient of several prestigious awards including a performance prize for her solo work Conductivity in 2009 at the Internationales Solo-Tanz-Theatre Festival in Stuttgart, Germany. At the same festival in 2011, she received First Prize for Choreography for her solo work Grief Point. In 2010, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette said of Bell, “she had her finger on the future of dance where ballet and hip-hop coexist on the same plane.” As a sought after master teacher, Bell has taught her unique and comprehensive approach to creative process, improvisation, and technique at many prestigious institutions for dance and theater.
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko — Philly-based choreographer and dance impresario Jaamil Olawale Kosoko is a busy man these days—creatively, curatorially, and administratively. He recently changed the name of his company from Kosoko Performance Group to The Philadiction Movement to herald in a new era for the company. Kosoko has been performing and touring with his company and with Headlong Dance Theater, and he has just published a book of his poems titled Notes on an Urban Kill-Floor. The recently formed company, The Philadiction Movement, is a Philadelphia-based interdisciplinary ensemble of musicians, dancers, writers, actors, and visual artists. Its artistic mission is to push performance further via the expansion of cultural awareness, the production of live performance, literary publication, youth and community outreach, and teaching.
Sara Crawford Nash — Sara Crawford Nash is the Program Manager of the National Dance Project at the New England Foundation for the Arts. Prior to joining NEFA, Nash managed the USArtists International grant program at the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. She worked as senior producer in programming at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City, at Tanec Praha, an international contemporary dance festival in Prague, and at the British Council in London. She has served as a panelist for a variety of programs and organizations, including the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, Performance Space 122’s Avante-Garde-Arama series, the IN FLUX performance series in Philadelphia, Solar One Green Energy Arts Festival, and the Sazka Award for Choreography. She served as the Northeastern Regional Desk for the National Performance Network in New Orleans in 2009. Nash holds a degree in Theater and Dance from Mary Washington College.
Staycee R. Pearl — Staycee R. Pearl began her dance training at the University of the Arts, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. After ten years of working as a dancer/choreographer based in NYC and Atlanta GA, she relocated to Pittsburgh and immediately began her six-year tenure as Artistic Director of Xpressions Contemporary Dance Company. She premiered numerous original works and experienced working with celebrated national choreographers such as, Rennie Harris and Robert Battle, Kyle Abraham, and Darrell G. Moultrie. Pearl is responsible for the choreography in Nathan Davis’ jazz-opera, Just Above My Head, Carmen Jones, and Lost in the Stars, produced by the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh. Over the past five years, her continued educational experiences include a Choreographic Fellowship at Summer Stages Dance in Concord MA, a scholarship to Urban Bush Women’s Summer Institute/Place Matters, and a performance workshop with Art-UP and La Pocha Nostra. Pearl recently graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with department honors in Studio Arts and a minor in Africana Studies. She continues to produce multi media works with PearlArts: movement and sound, co founded with Herman Pearl, and has served as curatorial advisor for NewMoves Contemporary Dance Festival. Ms Pearl debuted STAYCEE PEARL dance project at Kelly Strayhorn Theater in 2010.
Craig T. Peterson — Craig T. Peterson, Director of the Philly Fringe Festival and Live Arts Brewery (LAB) program, joined the staff of the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival in 2010. Initiated in 2009, the LAB program seeks to support artists in the creative process through integrated, long-term residencies, elective programming, and the facilitation of collaborative artistic exchange between audiences and artists of all disciplines. He is also Director of the annual Philly Fringe Festival, a three week city-wide festival featuring the work of more than 200 performing artists and companies.
For ten years he served in numerous positions at Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts), one of America’s preeminent performing arts institutions based in NYC including that of Artistic Director and Producer for four years. In 2004, Peterson co-founded U-Phonic Records, an independent record label based in New York City. He has served on numerous panels for inter/national arts funding institutions, consulted with various arts and social service organizations as a program sight assessor and lecturer, and has traveled extensively nationally and internationally to identify emerging talent and connect with artists and arts organizations worldwide.
Thomas Benjamin Pryor — Thomas Benjamin Snapp Pryor is an independent arts manager, producer, and curator operating under the moniker tbspMGMT. His current projects include producing and touring the performance works of Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, Trajal Harrell, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Yvonne Meier, Wally Cardona, and Deborah Hay. Pryor is also the Curator and Producer for American Realness, an annual festival of contemporary performance at Abrons Arts Center in New York, NY (Best of Dance 2010, ArtForum). Previously Ben worked as Director of Operations for Center for Performance Research, an Artist Representative at Pentacle, a project manager for Chez Bushwick, and in the Planning and Development department at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Ben served as chair of the Agents Council and Trustee for Dance USA from 2008-2010. He was the recipient of the 2010 Gabriela Tudor Fellowship in Cultural Management. He has served as a panelist/reader for CEC ArtsLink, the Jerome Foundation, Creative Capital, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Kate Watson-Wallace — Kate Watson-Wallace is a choreographer, director, and professional development facilitator who creates site-based performances that re-imagine our everyday spaces. She co-directs anonymous bodies, an art collective based in Philadelphia, with Jaamil Kosoko. Her work includes HOUSE, a performance for 15 audience members inside an abandoned row home; CAR, where four audience members sit inside a moving vehicle; STORE, a performance installation about American greed; and Everywhere, a participatory on-line dance experience and contest. Watson-Wallace is a 2007 Pew Fellow in the Arts in Choreography. She has received two Map Fund Grants, a Doris Duke Exploration Grant through Creative Capital, and four grants from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage’s Dance Advance program, as well as funding from The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Independence Foundation, and PennPAT.
From 1998-2002, Watson-Wallace toured internationally with Group Motion Company, and has toured and performed with Headlong Dance Theater since 2004. She is currently working on Mash Up Body, a performance installation created in collaboration with video artist Ricardo Rivera (klip collective) and musician Chris Powell (ManMan). Mash Up Body explores the idea of a multi-tasking body with an interactive video and sound installation. Mash Up Body was started in a developmental residency at the Yard. The work will continue to be developed through a yearlong residency (supported by the Investing in Professional Artists Grant Program of the Pittsburgh Foundation) at the Kelly Strayhorn premiering in Spring 2013.
Marya Wethers — Marya Wethers has been dancing and working in arts administration in NYC since 1997. As a performer, she has enjoyed working with Yanira Castro + Company, CompanyAmyCox, Palissimo, Faye Driscoll, and Joyce S. Lim. Marya has also performed in independent films and television, including a featured role in the dance film Lez Side Story and hosting Move the Frame on public access television. As an administrator, she has worked at Danspace Project, BRICstudio, Pentacle, and currently New York Live Arts. She curated the Out of Space @ BRICstudio series for Danspace Project from 2003-2007 as well as two evening of Food For Thought programs. Her writing UnCHARTed Legacies: women of color in post-modern dance was published in the 25th Anniversary Movement Research Performance Journal #27/28. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College cum laude with a BA in Dance with High Honors and a minor in African-American Studies.
Reggie Wilson — Reggie Wilson (Artistic Director, choreographer and performer) founded his company, Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group, in 1989. The Brooklyn-based dance company that investigates the intersections of cultural anthropology and movement practices by blending contemporary dance with African traditions. Wilson draws from the movement languages of the blues, slave and spiritual cultures of Africans in the Americas and combines them with post-modern elements and his own personal movement style to create what he calls “post-African/Neo-HooDoo Modern dances.” His latest evening-length work, The Good Dance – dakar/brooklyn had its World premiere at the Walker Art Center in November 2009 and NY premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 2009 followed by a ten city US tour.
SYMPOSIUM DISCUSSIONS WILL TAKE PLACE AT ALLOY STUDIOS (5530 PENN AVENUE)
FRIDAY MAY 12, 2012
9:00AM
WELCOME and INTRODUCTIONS
10:00AM
RESIDENCIES THAT WORK: ARTISTS AND PRESENTERS WORKING TOGETHER Why are residencies important to presenters and what’s the most beneficial model for artists? How do presenters partner to provide long-term support to artists and how can artists take risks to develop great work? Explore new ways presenters and artists are working together to foster innovation in dance.Conversation Starters: Marya Wethers, Craig Peterson, Kyle Abraham
10:45AM
Break
11:00AM
10 OR MORE MEANINGFUL WAYS OF ENGAGING COMMUNITY in CONTEMPORARY DANCEHow do we find new audiences for contemporary dance? Is it important for an audience to be invested in artists and their work and an artist to be invested in an audience and their feedback? Discuss ways audience/artist/presenter work together to engage audiences in meaningful ways. Conversation Starters: Staycee Pearl, Ben Pryor, Sidra Bell
1:00PM
ARTIST TALK WITH REGGIE WILSONReggie Wilson is indisputably one of America’s leading choreographers. He was born and raised in Milwaukee after his family moved north from the Mississippi delta. In 1989, he founded his Brooklyn-based Fist & Heel Performance Group. Drawing from the movement languages of the blues, slave and spiritual cultures of Africans in the Americas, Wilson adds post-modern elements and his own personal movement style to create what he calls “post-African/Neo-HooDoo Modern dances.” At this talk, Wilson discusses his approach to making work, recent projects and sustaining a career as a choreographer.
1:45PM
Break
2:00PM
THE COLLABORATOR: SUSTAINABLE MODELS FOR DANCE COMPANIESHow are dance makers finding new ways to collaborate and build their careers? Explore ways artists blur the lines by working cross genre in collectives, nontraditional companies and project-based collaborations. How do these models encourage sustainability and success? Conversation Starters: Jaamil Kosoko, Kate Watson-Wallace; BLOOM! Dance Collective
SATURDAY, MAY 12, 2012
11:00AM
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? MAKING AND CREATING TOURS FOR NEW WORKLets talk relationships with presenters, presenting and touring new work and some great examples of networks and support structures for touring new work by emerging artists.Conversation Starters: Sara Nash, Reggie Wilson, Sidra Bell
newMoves Dance Symposium Supporting Innovation in Contemporary Dance
(supported by The Heinz Endowments)
Kelly Strayhorn Theater presents the first, newMoves Contemporary Dance Symposium, bringing the contemporary dance world to the city with presentations from leading presenters and practitioners focusing on supporting innovation in dance.
The two- day symposium includes panel discussions, performances and artist talks that represent diverse perspectives on dance activity in the region. The event takes place May 10 -11, 2012 during the Kelly Strayhorn Theater’s newMoves Contemporary Dance Festival.
The symposium convenes regional and national dance makers, presenters and audiences for a conversation on the trends in contemporary performance and the ways in which institutions can foster a healthy ecology for innovation in dance performance.
As a dance presenter, we believe programming that better connects Pittsburgh to the nationally scene stimulates excitement that benefits artists and audiences.
The Symposium, organized by KST, was established to provide an opportunity for us to be part of national conversations and bring national presenters to the city during newMoves Festival. We hope the conversations will bring our efforts to stimulate a scene for new work into focus. As a dance presenter, we believe the symposium and festival gives an opportunity to be part of the national scene and be at the forefront of supporting new work and innovation in contemporary dance.
KST spoke with Staycee Pearl of Staycee Pearl dance project (SPdp), about the development of “interim one: b sides”, an evening length performance composed of several short works that re-imagine ideas and from previous SPdp projects and weave in new concepts.
KST: What inspired you to create this performance?
SP: I have wanted to return to themes that we worked on in circlePOP and other ideas we haven’t been able to work on. It’s wonderful to delve into material we didn’t get to focus on in larger works. In addition, it’s practical to have shorter pieces. At festivals, we’ll be able to showcase something complete rather than work that has been edited down.
KST: Where did the inspiration for the title come from and why is it significant?
SP: The inspiration for the title “interim one: b sides” comes from our theme of re-working ideas from past performances. This piece is analogous to the b-sides of old records.
KST: How long have you been working on this piece?
SP: We have been working on circlePOP for about a year and Octavia since March. I’m going to start work on the new pieces the beginning of June.
KST: Are you using any music, props, set pieces, or special lighting and if so how will it enhance this work?
SP: We’re going to have live editing and live sound music, but no instruments. I’m still working through the details. My plan is for it to sound really funky!
The set will be very simple, with no props, simple lighting, and no video. We’re going for “Staycee Pearl dance project Unplugged.”
KST: What do you want the audience to gain this performance?
SP: I would really like the audience to understand our artistic process. They’re going to see the outtakes and the previews of our work, in addition to concepts that we’ve never explored before.
KST: Are you working with any other artists/collaborators and if so what is their role in this work?
SP: Nothing has been confirmed, but I hope to collaborate Vanessa German, Gwen Ritchie, and Ayanah Moor.
KST: If you had unlimited time and resources what would you choose to create and perform, and why?
SP: I go into every project with a vision that eventually requires me to make compromises because of financial limitations. So there’s nothing in particular, but our projects would definitely be different.
KST: What inspires you?
SP: My students and broad concepts.
Staycee Pearl dance project performs “interim one: b sides” August 12 at 11AM & 7PM.
TICKETS | $15 General | $10 Artists, Students, & Zip Code 15206
It’s a busy week here at KST, and we’re getting geared up for four days of innovative dance performances. All this week we will be posting interviews and features from behind the scenes at the 2011 newMoves Contemporary Dance Festival.
Emerging Choreographer Keila Cordova spoke briefly with KST about her experience as a dance-maker and about what’s driving her piece, “We Want Something for Everyone.”
Keila Cordova
KST: You’re a choreographer, but you also received your MFA in Creative Writing. Can you talk a little bit about being both a writer and choreographer, and how your work in one affects your work in the other?
KC: I’ve always danced and I’ve always written, so there’s always been this consistent weaving back and forth between the two. One thing that interests me is telling stories, and how that can happen in movement as well as in the written word. If a piece is written, it’s between the reader and the writer, but if it’s a performance, it’s between the viewer and performer. So much of a work is what the audience brings to it, and how they connect to the story and what they see.
The human connection to music was a really big break for dance. For example, if you have a favorite song and you see someone create a performance to it, maybe that’s the song that was playing while you met your husband… that memory affects what you see.
KST: For your piece, “We Want Something From Everyone,” you looked for Pittsburgh community members to join your ensemble. What led you to such a community-based approach?
KC: When you travel around as a performer that focuses mostly on dance-making, often in a more traditional dance context, maybe you do a master class and get to meet a couple local students and that’s it. There’s sometimes not a direct exchange between you and the people you’re performing for.
But dance has a history of being based in an active community. If you look at the formation of dancers in folk cultures, it’s often in the context of people getting together to celebrate a harvest or a birth. It’s about people getting together in movement, you know, in celebrating.
I’m interested in this question of performer and community, and opportunities for people to connect to works in a much more intimate way. There are a lot of layers to the question I’m trying to explore. Even just looking at the role of the performing arts in America right now, I would say that many people feel disconnected from it. Their local baseball team may have as little direct relevance in their day to day life as a performing arts company, but somehow they feel more socially connected to the players on that team. If they’re walking down the street wearing a jersey with the name of someone who makes a million dollars on it, they don’t get a cut from wearing that jersey, but for some reason they still feel a personal connection to that player and that team.
How can performing arts and the performers have a conversation with the communities? I want performers and viewers to have a greater conversation about what performing is, and what better way to do that than to bring them into the mix itself?
KST: Can you talk a little bit about the experience of being a part of a dance festival, about performing with so many different choreographers and dancers?
KC: First of all, I would say that it’s extremely stimulating and extremely exciting to have the luxury, the privilege, to be with artists you respect, whether or not you know their work. And to be able to see their latest ideas and latest explorations. Whether talking about a group of scientists or any sort of group that works as a collective, to share work in a sense creates more ideas, more conversations; I think it moves the whole field forward. That’s one of the most exciting parts of getting to work and create in a festival setting.
KST: Who’s piece are you most looking forward to seeing in the festival?
KC: That’s a tough one because I’m a performance junkie. Honestly, if I could, I would see everything. I get something out of everything I see. I love the performing arts and seeing what other people are doing; it gets my mind going.
KST: In three words, what’s inspiring you right now?
KC: People, bodies, and stories.
Look for Keila’s work on Friday May 13 at 7PM during newMoves Contemporary Dance Festival at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater. To purchase tickets, visit our website or call 800.838.3006!
Writing grants, it turns out, can be good for more than raising money. The process of putting creative concepts into words can be a clarifying process for the artists.
That’s what choreographer Nichole Canuso discovered when she and Lars Jan, who does media installations, sought funding for a big project they wanted to do together. The grant, from the Pew Center for Art and Heritage, supported the research and development of her new piece “Takes,” which lasts just under an hour.
“Takes” will be performed three times on Friday and Saturday at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, East Liberty.
Canuso and Jan started out wanting to explore the good working relationship they had when he provided a small amount of video for her earlier project “Wandering Alice.” They exchanged a lot of e-mails and phone calls as they dreamed up general concepts for the new project, looking to blend their sensibilities and current interests.
“Takes” is a thoroughly multimedia piece, with complex technical and coordination issues that needed to be carefully developed. Its two dancers perform inside a box of video projections.
“A big goal for us was to create something the audience could navigate on their own terms, the way you do at an art gallery,” she says. “The film is pre-edited for you, but the live dance performance is a fleeting visceral experience that will never happen again. The screen is at times almost a barrier between you and me as a performer.”
Creating such a work required careful structural thinking.
“It’s about two people and bits and pieces of their time together,” she says. “It has a lot of emotional content in fragments and scenes, with photos that wash ashore out of order — some in clear focus and some so battered by the elements they’re barely recognizable. We have to fill in the blanks. Some are intimate interactions that are seemingly insignificant, some intense, some abstracted.”
Canuso, 37, is a Philadelphia native who lives and works in her hometown.
“I’ve always danced,” she says. “That’s through my childhood. I was in many sports clubs and had many after-school activities, but I always looked forward to dance. I also choreographed for anyone who came over to my house.”
Husband Michael Kiley is her sound designer. A singer and songwriter, he writes for and performs with the band the Mural and the Mint, which also is based in Philadelphia.
“I’ve always worked very collaboratively,” Canuso says. “When there’s no designer, just dancers, they’re co-creating. Their voices and intellect are part of the process.”
For “Takes,” “the set, lighting and sound designers were all in the room starting the process together,” she says. “The set was evolving along with the work.”
Staycee Pearl, artistic director and founder of Staycee Pearl dance project, was featured at KST’s newMoves Contemporary Dance festival in May 2010. Soon after, she and her new company began a year-long residency in the theater. Staycee returns to perform at KST on November 19 & 20, 2010 to debut “Circle POP,” a multimedia dance experience. Staycee took some time to speak with KST’s education director, Maritza Mosquera, about the show and her experience in the theater.
MM: I’ve been watching some clips, reading your bio and thinking about our meeting last week and I think what I keep coming back to is circle POP..the name, great name.. where did it come from?
SP: circle POP came from the broad idea of wanting to add my voice to the many artist who make some sort of commentary on our culture – our popular culture. At least that’s the POP part. circle refers to the cyclical nature of culture – and cycles in nature, etc.
I’ve seen several artists respond to our world today from a mostly negative perspective; I understand that, but I wanted to be more neutral and lean towards what is good and maybe not so serious.
I often deal with that serious place. circle POP is also trying to express some of that complexity.. Our world – our American culture, it’s complex.
MM: Your voice; I am very interested in talking about it, interested in hearing it and seeing it, especially knowing that your input is one of nature and positive, human thinking? How did it get choreograph some of these ideas into the work, what happened?
SP: Well, for me, it’s mostly about the thought – the over-all feeling I’m going for when I get into the studio to make the work. Occasionally, I’ll turn on music that takes me to that place – that positively yummy place – and work some things out before meeting with the dancers. But usually, I have descriptions, feelings of what I want to communicate, and the movement comes out of that place. The dancer’s personalities also inform the actual movement choices.
For circle POP, I’ve worked a bit differently..as far as the collaborators are concerned. I’ve let go of some of my control freakishness and let these fabulous artists do what they do. But with the dance, I am now at the point of clarifying by getting rid of what isn’t absolutely necessary and making what’s left tighter. It’s important to me that the concept is there, although it may become extremely abstract.
MM: for circle POP you collaborated with Artist, husband, friend Herman Pearl; can tell us what attracted you to collaborate with him and an insight into that process
SP:Wow
MM: wow, great? or wow bad?
SP:Wow GREAT!! Great question. I don’t even know where to start! OK, Herman is one of the most thorough artist I’ve ever met. He gets my aesthetic. We both have a tendency to over work things at first – but then we know how to pull back, or when to simply indulge in the lushness. When he’s the lead, he can be so clear about what he is looking for. When I lead, sometimes he is the final component, after choreography, video, etc. He has usually been present throughout and has ideas about what he wants to hear happen, then he consults me to get the specifics of what I may want. Finally, he gives it all back to me complete, and the highest quality possible. No short cuts. No questioning the level of artistry or clarity of sound.
I envy his energy – which is what attracted me to him in the first place. He’s such a challenge. It pushes me to do more and better in everything, especially my art. The man can run day in and out! It’s just CRAZY! He makes appointments for 8 am, 10 – 11 pm, and every hour in between!
I feel very fortunate to have him as a partner in life and art.
MM: You’ve worked with KST for several years, tell me about the energy it brings to your work and where you see the relationship leading to?
SP:I’ve done so much work at the Kelly-Strayhorn and I’m very fortunate to have the chance to begin my work with Staycee Pearl dance project there. They’ve afforded me the time and resources to really get things off the ground. To explore concepts and movement – to just play.
To answer your question more specifically, I feel at home in the Kelly-Strayhorn.
It’s warm, the staff is passionate and hard working. When my collaborators, dancers and I are there, we get that energy.
I remember when I first walked in the theater back in 2001, I was planning an evening-length show. This was before I knew anyone! Before working with any other dance company here in town – fresh off the plane from NYC. I was so excited about the space, and remember telling the director, I think it was Bob Neu, that the stage was “perfect for dance”.
Staycee’s Collaborators:
Carolina Loyola-Garcia – Video design
Herman Pearl – Sound
Kelly Simpson-Scupelli / Kelly Lane Designs – costumes
Bob Stineck – lighting design
Mitchel Addlespurger – set development
Dancers:
Kerra Alexander
Cassie Shafer
Jamie Murphy
Amanda Varva
Renee Smith
Laura Warren
Daphne Driscoll
Guest Performers:
Lisa Belcher
Gwen Ritchie
Guest Youth Performers (ATC Members):
Shakira Stephens
Micheal Curry
Robert Almond
DeVaughn Robinson
The Kelly-Strayhorn Theater is proud to support Staycee Pearl as an artist-in-residence. To purchase tickets, visit www.kelly-strayhorn.org.
You have to check this out. It’s gorgeous choreography by Philly-based choreographer Meredith Rainey. Or this one. A 3 x 5 inch youtube video has never held my attention so well. I didn’t even need to watch it full screen!
What you need to know– now that you’ve watched the choreography– is that Meredith Rainey is coming here! To Pittsburgh. To KST. And that’s not even the best news. FIVE NATIONAL CHOREOGRAPHERS are joining us for the second annual newMoves Contemporary Dance Festival. Camille A. Brown (NYC), Luke Murphy (NYC), Nichole Canuso (Philadelphia), <fidget>/Megan Bridge (Philadelphia), and of course, Mr. Rainey.
In case you were wondering, <fidget>/Megan Bridge is not an HTML mistake. <fidget> is the name of Bridge’s collaborative company with media artist Peter Price. Here’s some of their latest work– a process project.
This last video I embedded because I really want you to watch it. It’s Camille A. Brown’s work. Brown is dynamic, vibrant, exciting, and I love the site-specific aspects of what she does. And you’ll find her at newMoves!
– In addition to dancing, Jean-Paul enjoys drawing. He showcases his art on his Tumblr Selki-Dimanche
Brady Sanders, Pittsburgh Choreographer
