Kinesis Project Seattle to Present CAPACITY, OR: THE WORK OF CRACKLING

Kinesis Project Seattle, the Seattle side of the New York City large-scale, outdoor dance company, in partnership with King County Parks Department/Vashon Island, will present Capacity, or: the Work of Crackling on Saturday July 13 at 7pm and Sunday July 14, 2024 at 1pm at Maury Island Natural Area, 7911 SW 260th St., Vashon, WA. Experience dance, opera and geology along the stunning shoreline of Vashon Island.

Audiences will be treated to an extraordinary performance by the wise and gorgeous dancers of Kinesis Project Seattle in a vast, industrial space with incredible views on Vashon Island with music written by Anti-Social Music composers Diane Woolner and David Friend, floating fabric costumes by Rebecca Kanach and live music performances by fantastic Seattle musicians including saxophonist Fred Winkler, violinist Lin Chen and vocalists Karen Dunstan and Tammi Lee.

Melissa Riker says "The gravel mine remains are utterly perfect for this piece. We are honored that King County Parks is partnering with us to make this performance happen and we cannot wait to bring this work to life in this incredibly beautiful and appropriate site!"

Join the adventure for a unique experience of Capacity, or: The Work of Crackling, a large-scale, outdoor, yet immersive performance work created by Kinesis Project dance theatre, Opera on Tap and AntiSocial Music with the research and collaboration of geoscientist, Dr. Martha (Missy) Cary-Eppes.

PERFORMERS

Kinesis Project Seattle: Hendri Walujo, Kimberly Holloway, Margaret Behm, Melissa Riker, Prasti Purdum, Kara Beadle

Vocalists: Karen Dunstan, Tammi Lee

Violin: Lin Chen

Saxophone: Fred Winkler

Guests should plan to arrive 30 minutes early and follow signs to parking for Dockton State Park and get guidance from park staff.

Arrive an hour early to take a hike in and along the cliff-side, or drive in 30 minutes before to meet up to take the guided walk to the performance. Everyone should be prepared to move on uneven terrain, gravel and down gentle hills.

RSVP for a location map, and to get all of the information about this stunning performance, including ferry schedules and all parking details.

All audiences are welcome to stop by to see our friends at Vashon Center for the Arts 7/13 before 5pm or 7/14 after 12 noon to take in the art gallery, get some tea and rest for a short moment before coming to the show.

Anti-Social Music, Inc., is a non-profit collective of composers and performers created for the purpose of presenting new music by emerging, primarily New York-based musicians. We came together in November 2000 for what was originally intended only as a one-off concert called "An Afternoon of Anti-Social Chamber Music". ASM performs concerts of premieres, twice yearly, of new compositions written and performed by ASM members and associates. The programs for these concerts are intended to feature exclusively premiere performances of new work, written in most cases specifically for the ensemble and the concerts, and feature the art of local artists.

David Friend is taking piano performance in new directions. As chamber musician, soloist, and in interdisciplinary projects, he is dedicated to projects that push boundaries and explore new ideas about what contemporary pianism can be in the twenty-first century. A fearless performer and Grammy-winning recording artist, critics have described his performances as "astonishingly compelling" (Washington Post), "magical" (New York Concert Review), and The New York Times calls him one "of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York's contemporary-classical scene."

He has performed at major venues around the world including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, BAM Opera Hall, Royal Festival Hall (London), and the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing), and in major festivals including the Lincoln Center, Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Gilmore, and Beijing Modern Music Festival. He has performed regularly with respected ensembles including Bent Duo, Ensemble Signal, Talea Ensemble, Grand Band, Alarm Will Sound, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

As a soloist, David Friend is noted for his charismatic performances and his thoughtful programming. By developing compelling solo programming and engaging meaningfully with the audience, he brings a twenty-first century approach to the nineteenth-century concept of the piano recital format.

Diana Woolner loves to involve herself in any project that calls for high-quality and thoughtful performance and/or leadership-as composer, director, conductor, consultant, arranger-the list continues to grow. Her range as a composer varies from writing for vocal ensembles, to electronic soundscapes, film scores, choreographed dances, podcasts, and more. Her music often has a magical quality, playing with connotation and expectation, and her vocal works are known to utilize unconventional texts. Diana embraces all forms of style, genre, instrumentation, and medium, and loves to collaborate across art forms. In 2014 Diana won the Morton Feldman Composition Award for special excellence in composition upon receiving her Masters degree from the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, where she studied under the direction of composers Doug Geers, Wang Jie, and Tania León. Diana holds a B.A. from Vassar College, where she studied music composition under Suzanne Sorkin, Harold Meltzer, and Richard Wilson. She currently lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Rebecca Kanach is a Barrymore Award-winning costume designer. In New York, her work has been seen in at The Lincoln Center, The Guggenheim, Ars Nova's ANT Fest, La MaMa, The New Ohio, Joe's Pub and outdoors in Riverside Park with Kinesis Project dance theatre. Regionally, her work has been seen at companies including The Arden Theatre Company, Opera Philadelphia,and People's Light and Theater Co. Academic work includes Bryn Mawr College, Drexel University, Temple University, Swarthmore College, and University of the Arts. As a skilled draper, many of her builds can also be seen throughout numerous productions in the region.

Rebecca is a co-founder and the resident costume designer of The Bearded Ladies Cabaret, and a company member of Lightning Rod Special, whose performance of The Appointment was listed as one of the New York Times' Best Theater of 2019. She is a MFA graduate from NYU Tisch, USA 829.

Saxophonist and educator Fred Winkler has been a part of the musical community in the Pacific Northwest for the last three decades. "Gorgeous playing" - Seattle Times. Mr. Winkler has performed with the grammy winning Seattle Symphony Orchestra under the baton of world renowned conductors and also recording on the Seattle Symphony label. Aside from playing on stage at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, he has performed under the stage as well with the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, and Seattle Opera. Mr. Winkler has also been a featured artist with Symphony Tacoma, Bellingham Music Festival, Auburn Symphony Orchestra, Federal Way Symphony, Spokane Symphony, and Northwest Sinfonietta.

Lin Chen, a violinist and vocalist, is a freelance musician and Violin coach in the Pacific Northwest area. She is a regular member of the Federal Way Symphony and performs with various classical ensembles large and small throughout the year. You may also bump into her singing Jazz at a bar or performing operatic arias at a recital hall.

Karen Dunstan is a soprano hailing from Ypsilanti, Michigan. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music and in 2023 completed a Master of Music in Vocal Performance at the University of Washington. Dunstan has performed in many opera productions, including La Boheme, Dido and Aeneas and L'Elisir d'Amore. She is most proud of her performance of Grimgerde in a production of the "Flight of the Valkyries" scene from Die Walküre.

Tammi Lee is a Korean-American mezzo-soprano from Bellevue, WA. Lee graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University where they studied with internationally renowned mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves and highly respected singing voice specialist Margaret Baroody. At Peabody, Tammi received the Rosa Ponselle Scholarship and George Woodhead Prize in Voice.

Tammi has performed in various operas such as Le Nozze di Figaro, Chérubin, Hänsel und Gretel, and The Magic Flute. I've also performed solos of Handel's Messiah and Aaron Copland's In the Beginning. This is Tammi's fourth performance with Kinesis Project's Capacity or, the Work of Crackling.

Opera on Tap (OOT) was born in 2005 at Freddy's Bar and Backroom in Brooklyn and incorporated in 2007 to promote opera as a viable, living and progressive art form and to support the developing artists who continue to keep the art form alive. What began as a small monthly gathering of ambitious, classically trained singers looking for more performance opportunities, has grown into a producing organization that has gained a loyal audience base and national recognition as an innovative force on the classical music scene. Through its Chapter program, which now has over twenty vibrant national (and international!) chapters, OOT has created a large network of performers, creators, and supporters. OOT's mission is to expose new audiences to opera and classical music by taking opera and classical music out of the concert hall and performing it in alternative venues, to aid young performers in their development by giving them the opportunity to perform and to promote and support them through our organization and to help promote new classical works of contemporary classical and operatic composers.

Martha Cary (Missy) Eppes, PhD, is a professor of earth sciences at UNC Charlotte. Her research interests center on natural rock fracture, soils, and landscape evolution on Earth and other planetary bodies. Dr. Eppes is a fellow of the Geological Society of America (GSA) and a US Fulbright Research Scholar. She is a recipient of GSA's Kirk Bryan award - their highest honor awarded for quaternary geology and geomorphology - and the American Geophysical Union Earth and Planetary Surface Processes group's Marguerite T. Williams Award given for her "groundbreaking, interdisciplinary research linking rock fracture mechanics and surface processes."

Melissa Riker is Artistic Director / Choreographer of Kinesis Project dance theatre. She is a dancer and choreographer who emerged as a strong creative voice in the mid 2000's NYC performance world. Riker is the Executive Producer of the EstroGenius Festival, Founder and Co-Director of Women in Motion and Founder and Collective Member of Dance Rising. Riker's dances and aesthetic layer her training in ballet, modern dance, martial arts, theatre and circus. She invents large-scale out-door performances and spontaneous moments of dance for public spaces.

In 2022 Riker was the Artist in Residence for the Progressive Failure of Brittle Rocks Conference (PRF22) an international conference of Geologists, Geomorphologists and Mechanical Engineers, convened by Dr. Missy Eppes and her colleagues. In 2023, Riker's work as a dance advocate is through Dance Rising and Dance/NYC as a community organizer and master facilitator of the Dance Industry Census Roundtables.

Kinesis Project is a dance organization led by choreographer Melissa Riker that creates dance as public art, facilitates educational programs and produces site-specific performances with diverse communities. A company at the forefront of the international discussion of placemaking, art engagement and the cultural imperative of art in public space, Kinesis Project dance theatre invents large scale, space-changing, breath-taking experiences.

In 2023, Kinesis Project and Opera on Tap toured Capacity, or the Work of Crackling to Los Angeles, Strasbourg France, Seattle and New York City.

Even during 2020 Riker kept Kinesis Project working and creating consistently on both coasts thanks in part to COVID Relief Grants from Dance/NYC, the Indie Theatre Fund and generous donors. The company live-streamed multiple performances from Riverside Park South presented by Summer on the Hudson and continued creating and developing new work on both coasts in person throughout 2021 and into 2022, from Vashon Island, to Seattle to NY's Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Since 2005, Kinesis Project's work has been experienced in San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Vermont, Florida and in New York City at such venerable venues as Danspace Project, Judson Church, Joyce Soho, The Minskoff Theatre, The Cunningham Studio, West End Theatre and Dixon Place. In 2019-2020, the company's work was experienced in Seattle, Brooklyn, NY, Riverside Park, supported by New York City Parks, and in Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island. The company dances outside in sculpture gardens, universities, and annually since 2006 in Battery Park's Bosque Gardens and The Cloisters Lawn as well as hosting more than 30 surprise performances all over New York City and the tri-state area as an element of the company's earned income and outreach programming with volunteer populated flash mobs. Residencies include: Earthdance 2006, Omi International Arts Center 2008, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center 2011, TheaterLab 2014, Adelphi University 2014. Ms. Riker is a 2016, 2017 and 2019 CUNY Dance Initiative Residency Fellow, 2015 LMCC Community Arts Fund grantee, 2019 Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Grantee. In 2020 Riker and Kinesis Project received a Dance/NYC COVID Recovery Grant and Indie Theatre Fund Recovery Grant. She has been commissioned by The Brooklyn Botanic Garden for a surprise large-scale work and performances of her work Secrets and Seawalls at Omi International Arts Center, Long House Reserve, Gateway National Park in partnership with Rockaways Artist Alliance. Ms. Riker has received commissions from Carson Fox and the Ephemeral Festival in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 for large-scale outdoor events, NYU in 1998, for a pop-up outdoor work long before "flash mob" was coined, 2006 and 2008 grants from the Puffin Foundation for her work Community Movements, a dance work with community volunteers, Fellowships from the Dodge Foundation, Space Grant Residencies from 92nd St Y, The New 42nd St Studio, Gibney Dance Center, and The Joyce Theatre Foundation, and grants from The New York State Council on the Arts, The Bowick Family Trust, John C. Robinson and Amerigo Falciani and Melissa Graule to support the continued work of Kinesis Project dance theatre.

For more information and to RSVP, visit https://www.kinesisproject.com/events/capacityortheworkofcracklingvashon2024.

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