Soaking WET Announces New Productions at the West End Theater

David Parker, curator, and Jeffrey Kazin, producer, announce the May 16-19 performances of Soaking WET, featuring all female casts of creators and performers, led by choreographers Ellis Wood and Kate Digby, and writer Erika Batdorf. Lighting is by resident Soaking WET designer Jay Ryan.

The ensemble will premiere Earthbound, in which the dancers created various spaces by moving structures to form pathways, room and surfaces. Within these boundaries, they explore physical and emotional states of being such as heaviness, ecstasy, and confusion. The sound was designed by Alexandra Lockhart, with text written by the performers.

The new Earthbound is a project of a new initiative designed by Ms. Wood to support emerging female choreographer/dancers. The project provides all rehearsal space, pay, fees, music, costumes, set, performance venue, lighting and tech, allowing the artists to focus solely on their craft. The first initiative supports three graduates and collaborators from SUNY Purchase: Chelsea Hecht, Alexandra Lockhart and Emily McDaniel who, joined by Ellis Wood, will appear in the premiere of Earthbound. Ms. Wood was trained at U.C. Berkeley by her parents, famed Martha Graham dancers Marni and David Wood. She danced in the companies of Stephen Petronio, Dan Wagoner, and Bay Area Repertory Dance. In addition to directing Ellis Wood Dance, she currently choreographs, teaches and holds residencies at national and international festivals and universities.

Collaborators Digby and Batdorf will present The Red Horse is Leaving, written by Ms. Batdorf and inspired by the journals of her mother Thaya Whitten, a Nova Scotian painter, performance artist and musician. The work travels through the dangerous territory of creative inspiration, sacrifice and clinical madness in the pursuit of artistic excellence and beauty. The Red Horse is Leaving gives the audience an intimate view of someone who is plagued (or blessed) by visions, and struggles to distinguish inspiration from delusion.

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