// SCUBA 2013 //
ABOUT * SPEAKEASY EVENTS * MASTER CLASS * MVP EVENTS * INSIGHTS * PRESS
“A kind of Whitney Biennial of dance, this mobile showcase taps the country’s best emerging talent . . . and sends them on the road.”
— Minnesota Monthly
SCUBA 2013 PERFORMANCES
APR 26-28 / 8PM
Post-show Conversation SAT APR 27
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave on Capitol Hill
TICKETS $18 / $15 MVP / $12 students + seniors
+ World premiere MAUREEN WHITING DANCE COMPANY (Seattle)
+ GREEN CHAIR DANCE GROUP (Philadelphia)
+ SHANNON STEWART (Seattle)
Shannon Stewart / Photo by Adam Sekuler
SCUBA 2013 features performances by three nationally emerging talentsin contemporary dance: Seattle’s own Shannon Stewart is joined by Philadelphia’s “laugh-out-loud funny and completely engaging” Green Chair Dance Group. New in 2013, SCUBA is also commissioning a world premiere by Seattle favorite the “riveting, mysterious and startling” Maureen Whiting Dance Company, with a 20-foot tree, a cast of 14 and original music by Seattle composers Bukake, Dave Abramson, and Eyvind Kang.
“Shannon Stewart’s choreography is filled with brave, unusual contrasts and is by turns athletic, detail oriented and tranquil.” — SeattleDances
Velocity initiated SCUBA in 2002 to create a national platform providing precious touring opportunities to contemporary dance artists. SCUBA gives audiences a fantastic view of the breadth of choreographic invention across the country, while every year sending a Seattle artist on their first national tour.
SPEAKEASY EVENTS
POST-SHOW CONVERSATION
April 27 / Directly following Saturday’s SCUBA performance
Free
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave
Join Maureen Whiting, Shannon Stewart and Green Chair Dance Group for a conversation about their work and process with Executive/Artistic Director Tonya Lockyer.
HAPPY HOUR SPEAKEASY CONVERSATION
Next Wave?
April 28 / 5:30PM
Free
Boom Noodle 1121 E Pike St
What are the new directions in dance (aesthetic, political, digital. . .) that we see happening in Seattle and the rest of the country? Join the conversation then head over to the closing night of SCUBA.
MASTER CLASS
“Ready. Fire. Aim.”
Contemporary Dance Practice with Shannon Stewart
April 26 / 9:30-11:15AM
$15 drop-in
Velocity 1621 12th Ave
This class fully warms the body and gets the creative juices flowing using improvisation and set material from Stewart’s SCUBA piece: An Inner Place That Has No Place to access technique, freedom, and creativity. Open to the community.
MVP EVENTS
MAUREEN WHITING OPEN REHEARSAL
April 11 / 1-2PM
Free
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave
An interactive opportunity with SCUBA artist Maureen Whiting where she will show her work in process and share some of her ideas, followed by a facilitated feedback session. Join us for a unique sneak peek two weeks before the world premiere of About That Tree and participate in the final stages of development of the new work.
INSIGHTS
Green Chair Dance Group (Philadelphia)
Tandem Biking and Other Dangerous Pastimes for Two
In Tandem Biking and Other DangerousPastimes for Two performers open themselves to questions of commitment, tensions of intimacy, and the joys of moving together. They wrestle, share secrets, tick each other off, and build monuments. The performers invent moving and hilarious stories that drift back and forth between movement and words.
Green Chair’s expansive view of human/body and relationships is theoretical, funny, accessible, and constantly changing. With a mix of intellect and exuberance, the trio of dancer/director/choreographers Sarah Gladwin-Camp, Gregory Holt and Hannah DeKeijzer create accessible dance/theater works that draw from diverse backgrounds in improvisation, linguistics, math, and a wide swath of movement techniques. greenchairdancegroup.com
“Green Chair Dance Group showed a charming ability to connect with its viewers and make us feel like we were part of the show: that they were there for us, just like they are there for each other.” — thINKing Dance
WATCH Tandem Biking and Other Dangerous Pastimes for Two (excerpt) — Vimeo
Shannon Stewart (Seattle)
An Inner Place That Has No Place
An Inner Place That Has No Place is part of a suite of dance and film works exploring memory and memory loss – personal, material, and societal. Created by choreographer/dancer Shannon Stewart in collaboration with filmmaker Adam Sekuler, composer Jeff Huston, and performers Meredith Horiuchi, Mary Margaret Moore, Aaron Swartzman, Rosa Vissers, and David Wolbrecht, the work fulfills the physicality of space distilled into distinct dance units.
Shannon Stewart is a contemporary performance artist and choreographer based in Seattle who creates work for stage and film, in collaboration with Adam Sekuler. In 2000, Shannon graduated with honors from the University of Washington with degrees in Urban Planning and Dance and completed certificate programs in the Netherlands for both Dance and Spatial Design & Planning. She has since trained, taught and performed nationally and internationally, most notably with west coast companies tEEth, salt horse, Dayna Hanson, zoe | juniper, and Alternativa (Kathleen Hermesdorf). She has received numerous individual artist awards and residencies and is thrilled to begin touring her own work nationally. In 2012, Shannon was selected as a participant for the last iteration of Deborah Hay’s Solo Performance Commissioning Project and is currently in a daily practice of the solo, entitled “Dynamic.” Her latest work, Come.Get.To.This is being developed through audience participation in numerous festivals and showcases including, Open Performance in New York, Seattle Festival of International Dance, and Risk/Reward in Portland, OR. Shannon is a 2012 and 2013 Creative Resident at Velocity. She teaches contemporary technique, improvisation, is certified in Gyrokinesis®, and is a Teaching Artist with the Mark Morris Dance For Parkinson’s program. feetlikebirds.blogspot.com
“…dancers beautifully balance their way through a complicated scheme of light, sound and video of themselves that is rich and disorienting.” — Seattle Times
WATCH An Inner Place That Has No Place (excerpt) — Vimeo
Maureen Whiting (Seattle)
About That Tree (world premiere)
About That Tree features original music by Seattle composers Bukake, Dave Abramson, and Eyvind Kang and costume and visual design by Danii Blackwell and Jean Hicks, who worked with Maureen and Ezra on “belly” for Onthe Boards’ Northwest New Works in June 2012. About That Tree centers around a cast of 14 and a fallen 20-foot Sequoia obstructing the stage space.
Since 1997, Maureen Whiting has created new choreographic works at On the Boards, ACT Theatre, Seattle University, Annex Theatre with commissions from Seattle Dance Project, Cornish, and Velocity. She created film and video projects shown at Lincoln Center Library in New York (Dance on Camera), Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum, Velocity’s NextFest NW, and released on Seattle Women in Film in 2008. Maureen grew up a ballet dancer and graduated with a degree in Mathematics in 1989 from Smith College and she currently teaches mathematics. She has danced for Stephanie Skura and Amii LeGenre. Maureen actively pursues collaborations with visual artists, composers, with her company. maureenwhitingco.org
“Whiting takes pleasure in thwarting our expectations: shifting from full throttle, kinetic dancing to more quirky physical examinations.” — Seattle Weekly
PRESS
Review — Cross-Pollinating the Dance World at SCUBA 2013, SeattleDances, Anna Waller, April 30, 2013
Review — Three New Works Invite Repeated Viewing at Velocity’s SCUBA 2013, The SunBreak, Michael van Baker, April 27, 2013
Review — Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crackerjacks!, thINKingDANCE, Lisa Bardarson, April 8, 2013
Preview — Philadelphia Dance Projects to Present SCUBA ’13, The DANCE Journal, Steven Weisz, February 20, 2013
Review — SeattleDances, An Inner Place that Has No Place Unravels Memory, Victoria Jacobs, April 17, 2012
PDF — Press Release for SCUBA National Touring Network for Dance 2013
Photos J Makary, Adam Sekuler, Tim Summers, Ryan Law
SCUBA National Touring Network for Dance is a visionary Velocity program in partnership with ODC in San Francisco, Philadelphia Dance Projects and independent Minneapolis curator, Laurie Van Wieren that has helped propel onto the national stage SCUBA alumni zoe|juniper, Lingo and Salt Horse.
SCUBA 2013 is made possible by the generous support of 4Culture, ArtsFund, The Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs and Media Sponsor The Stranger.
