The 9th Annual Seattle International Dance Festival, BEYOND THE THRESHOLD Runs 6/13-22
By: BWW News Desk May. 30, 2014
Hundreds of dancers from near and far descend on the vibrant South Lake Union neighborhood for the 9th Annual Seattle International Dance Festival (SIDF), Beyond the Threshold. The festival runs June 13-22, 2014 and includes five major components, starting with the free outdoor street fair and dance party kickoff known as Art on the Fly. The Inter|National Series runs over two weekends and includes groups from Brazil, India, Romania and France as well as collaborations between companies from China, Peru, Germany and Seattle. The popular Spotlight on Seattle program challenges three Seattle-based dancer/choreographers (Andrew Bartee, KT Niehoff and Jerome Aparis) to curate an evening of performances. This year's Threshold Institute, led by Dayna Hansen, brings together dancers from across the country for a rare opportunity to study with internationally acclaimed teachers and choreographers. And finally the mysterious Sanity Caférounds out the nine day festival with an artist-driven late evening cabaret-style performance in a secret South Lake Union location.
Tickets to paid performances (Inter|National Series and Spotlight on Seattle) are $20 in advance, $25 at the door(Students/Seniors are $15 in advance $20 at the door). A 2-Show pass is $35 and an All Festival Pass (7 shows) is $50. All details, including performance times, locations and ticketing information are available at www.SeattleIDF.org. ART ON THE FLY Dusk Dance Party - June 13; 4:30 - 7:30pm ART ON THE FLY Street Festival - June 14; 12 - 6pm
Food trucks, arts & crafts vendors, alcoholic beverage area, dance performances and dozens of FREE kid-friendly dance events take over Terry Avenue, surrounding Amazon's Van Vorst Plaza. The Seattle Streetcar turns into a giant "art ride" through South Lake Union. Contemporary dance springs to life in everyday environments with surprise/ roving performances, impromptu dance classes, flash mobs, vendors, music and food. Don't miss a very special family-friendly outdoor DJ dance party on Van Vorst Plaza at 6 pm on June 13, 2014.
INTER|NATIONAL ARTISTS SERIES WEEKEND 1 - June 13-14 (Fri & Sat @ 8pm.)
Paulo Lima & Experimentus (Fortaleza, Brazil)
Brazil's premiere up and coming company from Ceará State performs a work entitled The GreyColor of Things, inspired by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, who postulates that the world is no more than a representation, pleasure is only the momentary suppression of pain and this, in turn, is the only true reality.
Khambatta Dance Company (Seattle)
Returns from its Pacific Northwest/India tour of Vice and Virtue to present the last performances for Seattle Audiences. The work, which twists a hypnotic human tale of yearning, addiction and desire, is accompanied by all original work by NYC-based, Northwest native, Julia Kent.
INTER|NATIONAL ARTISTS SERIES WEEKEND 1 - June 15 (Sun@7:30 pm)
Collectif Random (Lectoure, France)
The company takes over the theatre, lobby, backstage and staircases and the audience is invited to join in this participatory performance entitled simply, Perception.
Chévere, re:flexion Dance and Version Excursion (Peru/Seattle) collaborate
Mixing media, dance, video and cultures, the choreographers Erin Boyt (Seattle), Daphne Ma (China, Peru, Seattle), and Constanze Villines (Germany, Seattle) present two works with their respective companies: Traducción/Translation - a cross-cultural collaborative piece performed on two continents about being amongst strangers and Graceland - inspired by a long ago trip to Africa.
INTER|NATIONAL ARTISTS SERIES WEEKEND 2 - June 20 (Fri @8pm)
Sumeet Nagdev Dance Arts (Mumbai India)
This is the U.S. premiere of Saki Naki, a piece about the director's interaction with a homeless person over one year andTalkative Dancer a humorous work parodying contemporary dance.
Ezra Thomson (PNB, Seattle) & Jerome Aparis (Massive Monkees, Seattle)
Ballet and Street Dance collide in a festival commission that joins these two premiere artists in their field. It's a unique and unusual opportunity to witness a groundbreaking meeting of minds and bodies. INTER|NATIONAL ARTISTS SERIES WEEKEND 2 - June 21 - 22 (Sat @8pm, Sun@7:30pm)
Gabrielle Revlock and Nicole Bindler (Philadelphia)
I made this for you is presented with members of the Seattle dance community. The work is a raucous, playful yet earnest dance about audience engagement and community building. It challenges notions of competition and conventional forms of beauty by using biting wit and playful commentary.
Cristina Lilienfeld (Bucharest Romania)
This is an intimate one-woman work that questions the concept of the "female body" in society today. She looks the audience in the eye, and exposes the nakedness of the body, the nakedness of her expression. Spectators are asked to write on her body what they think about it. It is a piece about vulnerability...and power, about peeling away the Lay(ers) of perceptual armor to reveal our humanness within. [piece contains nudity] SPOTLIGHT ON SEATTLE - June 17-19 at 7:30pm
Spotlight on Seattle brings together three curators to share their view on the Seattle dance scene. New in 2014, the festival offers the Crystal White Gaer, J. Steward and G. Kusnick Artistic Development Award to one group or artist each night of the Spotlight on Seattle Series. Each group/artist chosen receives $500 to develop work and one piece will be produced at the 2015 festival. Awardees will be selected by the audience and professional panelists, Donald Byrd and Dayna Hansen, who will also serve as mentors. Awards will be presented at the June 19th Spotlight on Seattle performance.
June 17 - Andrew Bartee (PNB/Whim W'Him) curates: Cabinfever present Scrapping for Joy, a piece about swaying from side to side with someone else. The piece takes the messy and places it neatly between the couch and the dining room table for the audience to see. Colleen McNeary performs Scene Study #1, which tells the story of a young girl's life through her daydreams and nightmares. GenderTender presents its latest piece. This Seattle-based interdisciplinary performance project began out of the desire to make work in a safe and rigorous environment for trans*, queer*, questioning and allied artists of all kinds. Tyler P. Wardwell performs Racing Around the Box -life's oldest race, preposterously scaled.
June 18 - Jerome Aparis (Massive Monkees) curates: Lillianna Koledin presenting a trio dancing to French cafe music and a piece infused with whimsy and romance. In Rose Colored Glasses the audience is transported to another time and place.Ktisk Dance presents Head Forward Moving Backward, a sinuous and circular movement journey, walking the line between here and there caught in a continuum of wants and fears. Corolis presents selections from Unfixed Arias about the vast nothingness of space and the incomprehensibly dense compaction of matter at the center of the black hole of a dying start.RE:FLEXION Dance presents Me & cosmo nostro and The Potential of You and Me, one woman's discovery of her place in the world and the navigation of two women's exploration through friendship and sexuality. Suzanna and Friends presents a contemporary fusion of Belly Dance, a global exploration of dance without sound and borders. Skolds presents a Neo-Modern dance work of accelerating proportions, featuring musical composition by Spekulation and the dancers of Serendipity Dance Brigade. Badmarmar Dance presents its latest work after a short reprieve. 3rd Shift Dance, a contemporary jazz company performs Timeless Dream, looking at the hopes, frustrations, and the needed continuation for advancement in the civil rights movement.
June 19 - KT Niehoff, (Lingo Dance) curates: Bianca Cabrera returning to Seattle with her most recent California premiere,Charge, which thrusts formality and rebellion at one another while rubbing simplicity all over complexity. Jody Kuehner(a.k.a. Cherdonna Shinatra) performs Snap Happy, an investigation of investigating and an attempt to invest in all that is vesting in and around gating with respect to the tigation and inveting vesti tiga v vestgatignatingsesting. Emily Sferrapresents physical work inspired by the quote: "I want to unfold. I don't want to stay folded anywhere, because where I am folded, there I am a lie. " - Rainer Maria Rilke. Maya Soto presents GO Stop Falling an athletic rhythmically driven contemporary dance with a cast of powerful dancers reflecting the interior landscape of the modern super woman. Alia Swersky performs Beauty, a solo exploration addressing her relationship to beauty as a dancer, as a mother, and as a woman approaching 40. The piece seeks to illuminate that beyond its many external facets, beauty exists as a myriad of sensations in the body. Markeith Wiley performs Self-Titled Mixed Tape vol. 4, a fiction/non-fiction dance theater work that explores his past, present and future as a functioning member of society. He will touch on race, sex, money and love. THRESHOLD INSTITUTE - June 16-21, Daily Classes 9:30am - 3:30pm: Cost $350 Study and perform with the best teachers in the world