Velocity Dance Center

// GUEST ARTIST SERIES: JOANNA KOTZE (NYC) /  KIM LUSK (Seattle) //

JOANNA KOTZE (NYC) / KIM LUSK (SEATTLE)
It Happened It Had Happened It Is Happening It Will Happen by Joanna Kotze
in a special split-bill with Seattle’s Kim Lusk

NOV 3-5, 2017 / 7:30PM
Velocity 1621 12th Ave
$20 ($25 at the door) / $17 MVP / $15 under 25 (w/ ID) / $50 Patron

Award-winning New York choreographer Joanna Kotze will be joined in this special split-bill Guest Artist Series performance with rising choreographer and local favorite Kim Lusk.

“Kotze’s dance is a dance of life, vivid, chaotic, unexpected, moments of subtly and unbridle hamminess, joyful and reserved.”—D.C. Dance Watcher

 

“Lusk is in a sweet spot as a choreographer, and so, as the audience, we are too. In recent work she’s been developing a movement vocabulary that literally vibrates at the intersection of classicism and pop action, like a slam-dancing sarabande.”—Sandra Kurtz, Seattle Weekly

 

It Happened It Had Happened It Is Happening It Will Happen
Choreographed by: Joanna Kotze in collaboration with the dancers
Performed by: Raja Feather Kelly, Joanna Kotze, Netta Yerushalmy
Music by: Dave Ruder
Costumes by: Reid Bartelme
Lighting Design by: Kathy Kaufmann

Joanna Kotze’s It Happened It Had Happened It Is Happening It Will Happen—a site-responsive piece drawing from Kotze’s background in architecture—won her a prestigious New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer. Acclaimed trio Raja Feather Kelly (Princess Grace Awardee and 2017 Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation instructor), Netta Yerushalmy, (Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography) and Kotze will perform the piece in its West Coast Premiere at Velocity.

It Happened It Had Happened It Is Happening It Will Happen which confronts the seductiveness of classifying, ordering, and structuring, while attempting to hold onto the character of the unnamable, vulnerable, and imaginable. Playing with ideas of performance, intimacy, and space in our digital age, the dancers’ physicality and vulnerability are viscerally felt, as breathe, sweat, stomp, clap, and dance in close proximity to the audience.

Trio in Silver
Choreographer: Kim Lusk
Performers: Kim Lusk, Erin McCarthy, Alexander Pham
Rehearsal Assistant + Dancer: Shane Donohue Composer: Ryan Hume
Original Lighting Design: Evan Anderson
Lighting Design: Evan Price

Kim Lusk—Velocity’s 2018 Made in Seattle artist—will showcase her first full-length work, Trio in Silver, before it premieres in its entirety at Velocity next spring. Lusk has developed much of her work at Velocity through the organization’s residency, production support, and mentorship.

POST-SHOW TALK / SAT NOV 4
After Saturday’s performance, join Joanna Kotze, Kim Lusk, Raja Feather Kelly (dancer), Netta Yerushalmy (dancer), and Tonya Locker (Artistic + Executive Director, Velocity) for a post-show talk.

 

Special Events

MASTER CLASSES: Joanna Kotze + Netta Yerushalmy
SAT NOV 4 / 12:15 + 2PM
Velocity 1621 12th Ave
Drop-in: $25 (both classes) / $15/$12 MVP (per class)
12:15PM-1:45PM – Technique Laboratory with Joanna Kotze
2PM-4PM – Creative Process with Netta Yerushalmy

12:15PM-1:45PM Technique Laboratory with Joanna Kotze
Both laboratory and technique, this class will delve into the body’s architecture and its unique potential, gaining more information, trust, and range. Through technical studies, set movement phrases, and improvisational practices, we will discover and challenge habits and pre-conceived notions while practicing our relationship to time, space, and each other. Concentrating on the forces through the legs into the floor will lead us to finding more range, opposition, and weight in the body. We will culminate by learning repertory movement from It Happened It Had Happened It Is Happening It Will Happen.

2PM-4PM Creative Process with Netta Yerushalmy
Choreographer and performer Netta Yerushalmy will lead a two-hour Creative Process workshop based on her choreographic process. Yerushalmy, awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography, dances in Joanna Kotze’s piece It Happened It Had Happened It Is Happening It Will Happen.

POST-SHOW TALK
SAT NOV 4
Velocity 1621 12th Ave
Joanna Kotze, Kim Lusk, Raja Feather Kelly (dancer), Netta Yerushalmy (dancer), and Tonya Locker (Artistic + Executive Director, Velocity)
Included with performance ticket purchase

SPEAKEASY: Dancing About Architecture
SUN NOV 5 / 5PM-6:30PM
Velocity 1621 12th Ave
Join Joanna Kotze, Kim Lusk, and architect Ben Maestas
FREE + open to all

Dancing About Architecture will bring together audience, artists, and architects in a timely, interdisciplinary discussion in the face of Seattle’s fast-changing cityscape. This conversation will illuminate how we as humans are constantly affected by the surroundings we pass through and by the architecture we build, and how this relates to choreographer Joanna Kotze’s process and performance.

With:

• Joanna Kotze (NY-based choreographer, whose BA in Architecture has influenced her choreography)
• Kim Lusk (Seattle-based choreographer, whose upbringing with an architect father has also influenced her work)
• Ben Maestas (Seattle-based dancer-turned-architect)

 

About The Artists

Joanna Kotze is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, dancer, and teacher. She is a 2016-2018 New York Live Arts Live Feed artist, premiering her next evening-length work, What will we be like when we get there, at NYLA March 28-31, 2018. She is currently a 92nd Street Y artist-in-residence and has upcoming residencies at The Bogliasco Foundation and The Yard.

Joanna received the 2013 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer. Her choreography has been presented at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Baryshnikov Arts Center, American Dance Institute (ADI), Bard College’s Fisher Center, Danspace Project, New York Live Arts Studio Series, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Dance New Amsterdam, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Roulette, Dixon Place, 92nd Street Y, WAXworks, Lu Magnus gallery, Soho20 gallery, Show Room Gowanus gallery, Industry City, and the Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts (WI).

Joanna has had commissions to create new works on Gibney Dance Company (NYC), Toronto Dance Theatre, Ririe-Woodbury (Salt Lake City), Zenon Dance (Minneapolis), and the James Sewell Ballet (Minneapolis). She has also created original works on students at Barnard College, Eugene Lang College (The New School), Purchase College, Long Island University, Ohio University, Southern Utah University, and Miami University (OH).

Joanna has received support from the Jerome Foundation, Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) BUILD, Brooklyn Arts Council, Yellowhouse, and two Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants. She is a recipient of two Process Space residencies through Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) and was a 2013-2015 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence. She has had residencies at Milvus Artistic Research Center (Sweden), Jacob’s Pillow, Bennington College, Sedona Arts Center, Marble House, The Camargo Foundation, Baryshnikov Arts Center, the Bogliasco Foundation, and Djerassi. Joanna was a 2012 Fellow for Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab, a 2011 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Swing Space resident and has worked in residence at Mount Tremper Arts. She was the Fall 2012 boo-koo space grant recipient at Gibney Dance Center and has participated in Sarah Maxfield’s One-Shot, a web-based solo performance relay.

Joanna danced with Wally Cardona from 2000-2010, performing throughout New York City (including twice at BAM’s Next Wave Festival) the United States, Canada, Europe, and Mexico. She is currently dancing for Kimberly Bartosik/daela and Kota Yamazaki, and has worked with Stacy Spence, Netta Yerushalmy, Sam Kim, Sarah Skaggs, Christopher Williams, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Daniel Charon, Nina Winthrop, and others.

Joanna is on teaching faculty at Movement Research and Gibney Dance. She has taught at Barnard College, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Eugene Lang College – The New School for Liberal Arts, Long Island University, Southern Utah University, Ohio University, Miami University Ohio, Salt Dance Fest, and the American Dance Festival. She is originally from South Africa and has a BA in Architecture from Miami University. 

Kim Lusk is descended from a hearty line of cowboys, homesteaders, and mountaineers, and is the choreographic assistant/performer for zoe | juniper. Since her choreographic debut commissioned by Velocity’s Next Fest NW, she’s gone on to be presented by Seattle International Dance Festival, On the Board’s NorthwestNW, Vashon Center for the Arts, and Velocity’s Bumbershoot Showcase.

Reid Bartelme (Costumes, Joanna Kotze) began his professional life as a dancer. He worked for ballet companies throughout North America and Canada, and later in his career worked for modern dance companies in New York including Shen Wei Dance Arts and the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. He has also performed in works by Jack Ferver, Liz Santoro, Burr Johnson, Douglas Dunn, Christopher Williams, Kyle Abraham, and Ryan McNamara. He went on to graduate from the fashion design program at the Fashion Institute of Technology and began working as a freelance costume designer. Reid has designed costumes most notably for Christopher Wheeldon, Lar Lubovitch, Gwen Welliver, Pontus Lidberg, Jack Ferver, Pam Tanowitz, Burr Johnson, Jillian Peña, Juliana May, Michelle Boulé, Joanna Kotze, and Liz Santoro. In collaboration with designer Harriet Jung, Reid has designed costumes for the New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Justin Peck, Marcelo Gomes, Kyle Abraham, and Trey McIntyre.

Kathy Kaufmann (Lighting Designer, Joanna Kotze) is a New York City native who has had the honor of designing for many renowned artists and choreographers including Michelle Dorrance, Vicky Shick, Rebecca Davis, Moriah Evans, Keely Garfield, Meredith Monk, David Parker, Eiko and Koma, Lauren Bakst, Sally Silvers, Jon Kinzel, Rebecca Stenn, Jacques D’Amboise, Hilary Easton, Yvonne Meier, Will Rawls, Gina Gibney, Vanessa Anspaugh, Benjamin Kimitch, Jillian Peña, Ben Munisteri, Kota Yamazaki, Julian Barnett, Jean Butler, Patricia Hoffbauer, and Larissa Velez-Jackson. Having designed Kotze’s It Happened… Ms. Kaufmann was delighted to collaborate again with Joanna and her always-excellent company on Find Yourself Here. A two time New York Dance and Performance Award “Bessie” recipient, Ms. Kaufmann is a resident designer at The Danspace Project at St. Marks Church and teaches at Sarah Lawrence.

Raja Feather Kelly (Dancer, Joanna Kotze) was born in Fort Hood, TX. He has formerly been a company member with David Dorfman Dance, Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion, Christopher Williams Dance, zoe | juniper, Colleen Thomas and Dancers. Kelly can be seen in the work of Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group, Keely Garfield, and Kota Yamazaki. Raja is the first and only choreographer to dedicate the entirety of his company’s work to Andy Warhol and the development of popular culture over the last thirty years (thefeath3rtheory.com). Honors include a 2017 Princess Grace Award for Choreography, a 2017 Bessie Schoenberg Fellowship at the Yard on Martha’s Vineyard, a 2017-2018 Buran Theatre Carthorse Fellowship for Theatre, a 2016 NYFA Choreography Fellowship. Raja will be apart of Soho Repertory Theatre’s 2017-2019 Writers and Directors Lab. He received his BA in both Dance and English from Connecticut College. Raja lives in Brooklyn, New York with loved ones and continues his quest for enlightenment through self-help books and memoirs.

Dave Ruder (Composer, Joanna Kotze) is a Brooklyn-based vocalist, clarinetist, guitarist, electronicist, composer, songwriter, writer/librettist, and interdisciplinary collaborator. Dave is a key member of the band Why Lie?, the ensembles Varispeed and thingNY, and the storytelling project Dave & Woody’s Chicken Slaughtering LLC. He has worked extensively with composer Robert Ashley, premiering his opera Crash (2013) and the vocal work World War III: Just the Highlights (2010) in addition to interpreting his pieces Perfect Lives, That Morning Thing, Trios (White on White), and Public Opinion Descends Upon the Demonstrators. Additionally, Dave has worked with Anthony Braxton, Aaron Siegel, Helado Negro, Andrew Lafkas (Eidolon), Kimberly Bartosik, Abigail Levine, Joanna Kotze, Dušan Týnek, and Panoply Performance Laboratory. For two years, Dave curated and ran the Flowering Inconsistencies performance series in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Since 2013, Dave has been the driving force behind Gold Bolus Recordings. As a composer, Dave wrote The Gentleman Rests, a meditation on the certification of the 2000 presidential election, with a commission from the Jerome Foundation and Roulette in 2014. Additionally, his work has been featured in Experiments in Opera and his WHY LIE? project, 100+ open scores, is available online. Dave holds degrees from Wesleyan University and Brooklyn College, and by day he works for the Make Music Alliance/Make Music NY.

Netta Yerushalmy (Dancer, Joanna Kotze) was awarded a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography, a Jerome Robbins Fellowship from the Bogliasco Foundation, and fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Six Points. Her work has been presented by Danspace Project, The Joyce Theater, American Dance Festival, HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Harkness Festival, La Mama, Suzanne Dellal Center (Tel-Aviv), and others.

Her new project, Paramodernities, was awarded a 2018 National Dance Project grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts. Paramodernities is commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow Dance, New York Live Arts, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Extended Life program, Williams College, Trinity College, and received development support from Movement Research AIR, Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Djerassi Art Program, and 92Y Harkness Dance Center AIR. Past residencies include DiP at Gibney Dance Center, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (Berlin), and others.

Netta’s work has been commissioned by repertory companies and universities around the country: Ririe Woodbury Dance Company (Salt Lake City), Juilliard School, University of Texas at Austin, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Zenon Dance Company (Minneapolis), American Dance Festival (NC), Same Planet Different World (Chicago), Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, University of the Arts (PA), Alvin Ailey school through the New Directions Lab, Rutgers University (NJ), University of Utah, SUNY Brockport (NY), and James Madison University (VA).

Netta danced with Doug Varone and Dancers from 2007-2012 and has collaborated and performed with Nancy Bannon, Mark Jarecki, Karinne Keithley, Ronit Ziv, and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. She has worked with Joanna since 2009 and is currently working with Pam Tanowitz as well. She grew up in Israel and received her BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. nettay.com 

Press

Press Release: October 11, 2017— NY-Based Award-Winning Choreographer Joanna Kotze Joins Rising Seattle Choreographer Kim Lusk For Guest Artist Series Performance at Velocity

“More in Dance”—City Arts, Aug 25, 2017
Excerpt: “[Lusk is] making a name for herself as she churns out balletic parodies to nostalgic ’90s synth beats. Lusk’s bone-dry humor is delivered via sharp-as-a-tack choreography, and her last piece at NW New Works was one of the most beloved of the festival.”

“35 Things You Must Do This Fall”—Sandra Kurtz, Seattle Weekly

“5 dance events to look forward to in fall 2017”—Seattle Times staff

“Artist Profile #158: Raja Feather Kelly (Brooklyn, NY)”—Life as a Modern Dancer

“Learning the Uses of Disorder: Joanna Kotze’s ‘It Happened,’ at Danspace Project”—New York Times

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Guest Artist Series: Joanna Kotze + Kim Lusk is supported by a grant from the Western States Art Commission, with media sponsorship from KUOW and special underwriting by John Robinson and support from Todd Campbell and Ina Chang through Velocity’s New Dance Initiative.

Find out how to support this piece through the New Dance Initiative.

   

It Happened It Had Happened It Is Happening It Will Happen was created, in part, with support from the Danspace Project 2012-13 Commissioning Initiative, with support from the Jerome Foundation and in part by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. It Happened… also received support from the National Arts Centre in Ottawa as part of their Face 2 Face series 2016, Bard College’s Dance Program and Live Arts Bard 2014, New York Live Arts’ 2012 Studio Series program with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the Jerome Foundation and was developed, in part, with support from Gibney Dance Center’s boo-koo space grant program. The process and production of It Happened… was also made possible by contributions from generous individual donors.