STRICTLY SEATTLE Features Six New Works by Local Choreographers This Weekend

Super-charged Strictly Seattle performances feature six new works by some of Seattle's most celebrated choreographers: 2013 Stranger Genius awardee zoe | juniper, Pat Graney, Bennyroyce Royon, Jody Kuehner, Shannon Stewart, Rosa Vissers and Byron Carr at Broadway Performance Hall. To accommodate sold-out crowds Velocity has added a third performance-a Saturday matinee at 2pm.

A total immersion into the Seattle dance scene, the Strictly Seattle Summer Dance Festival is Velocity's world-class festival located in one of the most culturally vibrant neighborhoods in the country. Five adult programs draw dancers from across the country, inspiring beginning through professional dancers with rigorous training in a challenging and invigorating environment. Artists, students and audiences share their knowledge and inspiration through daily classes, jams, informal showings, conversations and performances. Now in its 17th year, Strictly Seattle is a supportive community of open experimentation and camaraderie where dancers form alliances for future collaborations.

New this year: An Advanced Film Track facilitated by KT Niehoff with leading Seattle cinematographers and film editors. This three-week immersion takes the filmmaker through every step of the process as they create their own dance film.

FACULTY: Michele Miller / KT Niehoff / Pat Graney / Zoe Scofield / Ellie Sandstrom / Jody Kuehner / Shannon Stewart / Rosa Vissers / Byron Carr / Kate Wallich / Cyrus Khambatta / Louis Gervais / Bennyroyce Royon

Strictly Seattle happens alongside the world-renowned Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation (SFDI) to create Velocity's international summer festival Maximum Velocity, July 6 through August 3, 2014. SFDI celebrates its 21st year with performances, intensives and free events with some of the world's leading dance innovators including- Kirstie Simson, Faye Driscoll, Eric Beauchesne, Michael Schumacher, Tom Koch, Neige Christenson, Darrel Jones, Tahni Holt -and Dance Innovators in Performance, two packed evenings of performances by international SFDI faculty who have been performing everywhere but in the mainstream (July 31, Broadway Performance Hall and Aug 2, Velocity Founders Theater).

TICKETS for Strictly Seattle Performances:

July 25, 2014 / 8PM
July 26, 2014 / 2PM + 8PM
at the Broadway Performance Hall 1625 Broadway

Call 206.325.8773 or go online at velocitydancecenter.org/box-office.
Prices: $18 / $12 student + senior / $15 MVP.

Strictly Seattle FREE Bonus Events:

All events are FREE at Velocity (1621 12th Ave) unless otherwise noted.

STRICTLY SEATTLE MOVIE NIGHT
At 10 degrees
July 9

SPEAKEASY SERIES: Free Lunch Talks

Making it Happen: Self-promoting in Seattle

Nutrition

Injury Prevention

Dance + Graduate School

The Seattle Dance Scene

This ain't no Part this ain't no Disco: Dance as a Career

Go to velocitydancecenter.org/program/strictly-seattle/ for a full schedule.

ABOUT THE TEACHING ARTISTS

Zoe Scofield studied ballet and modern dance at Walnut Hill School for the Performing Arts in Boston. She has danced with Prometheus Dance and Bill James among other choreographers in Toronto, Boston and Seattle. Scofield has received The Stranger's Genius Award, National Dance Project Tour Support, The Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award from Wesleyan University, Artist Trusts GAP Grant and Artist Fellowship Award, City Arts Innovator Award, Seattle Magazine's Spotlight Award, Alpert Award Residency and the Princess Grace Foundation Choreography and Special Project Awards. As collaborators, Scofield and Shuey have been commissioned and shows work at galleries and art spaces nationally and internationally. zoejuniper.org

Fillipino-American dancer-choreographer Bennyroyce Royon is a graduate of The Juilliard School and former dancer with the Armitage Gone! Dance company. Royon has been noted for his "keenly focused, succinct way with movement" and his ability to blend explosive physicality with fluid energy. He has worked with notable choreographers sush as Karole Armitage, Azure Barton, Sidra Bell, and Jill Johnson, and has performed with numerous acclaimed dance companies including the Metropolitan Opera Ballte, Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, BADD BOYS OF DANCE. He is the founder of Bennyroyce Dance Productions. bennyroyce.com

Legendary Seattle-based choreographer Pat Graney has received Choreography Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts for 11 consecutive years, as well as from Artist Trust, the Washington State Arts Commission, the NEA International Program, National Corporate Fund for Dance and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 2008, Ms. Graney was awarded both the Alpert Award and a US Artists Award in Dance. patgraney.org

Jody Kuehner is part contemporary dance artist and part bio drag queen named Cherdonna Shinatra. Jody is in her seventh year dancing for the Pat Graney Company and has also been Pat's dance intern for the company's prison project "Keeping the Faith". Jody currently dances with Mark Haim and has been his Administrative Assistant and Rehearsal Director for various projects. She has worked as Dayna Hanson's Production Coordinator and/or Assistant Director for various projects as well as Assistant to the Director for Hanson's feature length film "Improvement Club". Jody currently teaches technique at Velocity Dance Center and is Velocity's 2014 Artist-in-Residence as well as a Velocity Made in Seattle artist. She has been supported by the Seattle Mayor's Office of Arts & Culture, 4Culture and was recognized by Seattle Magazine as a 2010 Spotlight Award Winner for her work with Lou Henry Hoover. cherdonna.com

Shannon Stewart is a dance artist that has taught and performed in Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, New York, Boston, Helena, Oakland, San Francisco, Berlin, Budapest and Amsterdam. Classically trained from a young age, and then struggling with that experience, Shannon found her way back to dance through balancing ballet and modern training with yoga, qi gong, somatic embodiment and contemplative dance practice; building strength through breakdancing, capoeira, the Gyrotonic Expansion System; and opening creative channels through improvisation. Shannon makes work under the moniker The Real Shannon Stewart which includes collaborating on film performance works with Adam Sekuler. She teaches contemporary technique, improvisation, is certified in Gyrokinesis, and is a Teaching Artist with the Mark Morris Dance For Parkinson's program. Shannon is currently practicing and adapting a solo by Deborah Hay that is included in a suite of work entitled David and Deborah, putting Hay's work in proximity to work inspired by filmmaker David Lynch. Shannon also danced with tEEth (2011-12), Salt Horse (2010-12), and has danced for Sebastian Matthias (2012), Dayna Hanson (2010), zoe | juniper (2008-2010), Paige Barnes (2010), Kathleen Hermesdorf (2006-2008), and many others. therealshannonstewart.org

Rosa Vissers (NL/US) is an international dance artist, teacher and activist. For the past 10 years she has performed in Europe and the US with over 20 companies/artists and shown her own work in the Netherlands, Hungary, Utah, Idaho, Chicago, NYC, Portland and Seattle. In collaboration with HATLO she creates performances under the name PE|Mo, which has presented work at Open Flight, Velocity's BIG BANG! and NEXT NW, On the Boards' NW New Works Festival and 12 Minutes Max, the Seattle International Dance Festival, and Lo Fi Arts Festival. Rosa is also the Executive Director of Yoga Behind Bars. rosavissers.com

Rhonda Cinotto currently teaches in the dance programs at the University of Washington and the Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences. Rhonda graduated with her M.F.A in dance in 2007 from the University of Washington. Immediately after graduating, she spent a year teaching modern and jazz in the dance department at Western Michigan University. Prior to entering the M.F.A program, she was a member of Spectrum Dance Theater, touring throughout the Pacific Northwest and Mexico, Germany, and the Netherlands performing works by Anne Reinking, Dwight Rhoden, Daniel Buraczeski, Daniel Ezralow, Frank Chaves, Lar Lubovitch, Margo Sappington , Donald Byrd and others.

Byron Carr holds an MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts. He recently moved back to Seattle after living in New York City for 17 years and has trained, taught and performed throughout the U.S. and Europe. In NYC he worked with various companies including, The Graham Ensemble, Chen and Dancers, and The Erick Hawkins Dance Company. In 2002 he began showing throughout NYC and has been presented by; Dance New Amsterdam, Dixon Place, Joyce SoHo, The Wave Rising Series, Triskelion Arts Center and Chashama Arts. Outside of New York, he has shown work in Seattle, Boston, and Berlin.

KT Niehoff is Seattle based artist who makes events, dances, music, films, classes, spaces and fosters creative communities. She was featured in Dance Magazine's "International Women in Dance" ('08) and on the covers of Dance Teacher Magazine ('12) and City Arts Seattle ('13). Her interest in dance film began in 2008. Since then she has had the privilege of learning from filmmakers Thierry De Mey, Victoria Marks and Alla Kovgan as well as working with cinematographers Ben Kasulke, Christian Hansen, Sebastien Scandiuzzi and Linus Phillips. To date she has created four short films and her work has been screened at the American Dance Festival, NEXT Dance Film Festival, Dance for Reel at Emory University, Green Valley State University and the San Francisco Dance Film Festival.She was the co-founder of Velocity Dance Center and in 2011 opened her own creative research space on Capitol Hill called 10 degrees. www.lingodance.com / www.10degreesspace.com

Michelle Miller After teaching at and managing Dance Space Center in New York, Michele moved to Seattle to join the Pat Graney Company in 1992. She opened Velocity Dance Center with KT Niehoff in 1996, serving as the Executive Director until 2005. An Associate Professor at Cornish College of the Arts, Michele has recently formed Catapult Dance, a company of eight awesome, fierce women dancers and collaborators. Michele currently owns SH/FT Movement and Healing Arts with her partner, Heather Coyle, where she teaches private Pilates sessions, Northern Shaolin Kung Fu and Koo's Tai Chi to both dancers and martial artists.

CYRUS KHAMBATTA has over 25 years teaching experience with CI and contemporary partnering work which he uses to choreograph his own set work on his company Khambatta Dance. The company performs internationally and Cyrus has taught in Europe, Latin America and Asia. A sensitive teacher, Cyrus creates a thoughtful learning arc, enabling students to be challenged at a comfortable pace with great skill accumulation.

LOUIS GERVAIS (MFA) has been dancing for more than 30 years. Training in ballet, tap, modern, and jazz, he performed professionally with many companies and toured professionally throughout the world. He explores improvisation from a body/mind/spirit perspective. He is a member of the Seattle Contact Improvisation Lab and teaches regularly in the Seattle area. Louis received his MFA from the UW in 2009.

Pictured: Bennyroyce Dance Productions. Photo by Quinn Batson.

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