SPLIT BILL: SZALT + LAVINIA VAGO
moon& + NOEISIS X, a solo for two*
FEB 21-24 / 8PM
Velocity 1621 12th Ave
$20 ($25 at door) / $17 MVP-Friend / $15 under 25 (w/ ID) / $50 Patron
Velocity is thrilled to announce their upcoming February split bill of LA dance company Szalt and Seattle-based dance artist Lavinia Vago. Performances will run February 21-24 at Velocity’s Founder’s Theater, and will feature a world-premiere of Vago’s first original solo performance, and an encore performance by Szalt of their acclaimed 2018 piece moon&.
Mirroring the eight phases of the moon, moon& debuted under the light of the full moon at LA’s Ford Amphitheater in 2018 to critical acclaim and enthusiastic audience response. The piece features an all-female company of six world-class dancers paired with the compositions of electro-acoustic composers Louis Lopez and Jonathan Snipes.
“beautifully complex… moon& must be experienced” – LA Dance Chronicle
“[Zaletel has] a unique choreographic voice, creating work that is meditative, introspective, haunting, and…dream-like.” – SeeDance.com
After years of dancing with acclaimed choreographers and companies like Sidra Bell, Kate Wallich, and Rubberbandance Group, NOESIS X, a solo for two will be Lavinia Vago’s first solo work in Seattle. In collaboration with Berlin-based sound artist and composer Harald Stojan, Vago has created an immersive multi-sensory environment that explores the power of kinesthetic empathy between the performer and the audience and the effects of sonic landscapes on one’s inner experience. NOESIS X is supported by Case van Rij, Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, Studio Kate Wallich and Velocity Dance Center.
“Individual dancers step forward, most notably Wallich’s longtime collaborator Lavinia Vago. This tall, lean woman seems made of rubber rather than skin and bones. Her body bends in every direction with, to me, astounding flexibility and control. She is mesmerizing.” – Marcie Sillman
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
STEPHANIE ZALETEL (choreographer, artistic director of szalt) Stephanie Zaletel is an LA based choreographer, dancer, and educator. Her choreography has been commissioned for various music videos, short films, colleges, institutions, and collaborations. Zaletel began her career dancing for Barak Marshall, Colin Connor (Artistic Director, Limon), and Danielle Agami (Artistic Director, Ate9) before officially forming SZALT in 2015. SZALT is a team of specialized dance artists led by Stephanie Zaletel in Los Angeles – arousing curiosity through voyeuristic feminine experiences, depictions of body memory, and dream logic – creating and facilitating highly collaborative, site-sensitive, and socially fluent dance performance and practice. Zaletel and her team have performed, led workshops, and held residencies at numerous notable venues across the U.S. including LA Dance Project, The Hammer Museum, REDCAT, Arizona State University, Cornish College of the Arts, Tempe Center for the Arts, Loyloa Marymount University, and Ford Theatres. Zaletel most recently choreographed for Lars Jan’s “The White Album” which premiered at Wexner Center for the Arts, BAM’s Next Wave Festival, and will be showing at the Freud Playhouse in partnership with CAP UCLA and Centre Theater Group in 2019. She holds a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography with a minor in Humanities from California Institute of the Arts.
SZALT (DANCE CO.) is a collection of Los Angeles movers, collaborating with musicians and visual artists – tackling subjects of the feminine experience, body memory (specifically as it pertains to trauma), and dream-logic while creating and facilitating highly collaborative, site-sensitive, and socially fluent dance performance and practice.
LAVINIA VAGO (director, performer) is a dance artist from Italy, based in Seattle, working between NYC, Montréal, and Berlin. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Cornish College of the Arts. She has created, performed and toured internationally with Sidra Bell Dance New York, Vim Vigor Dance Theater, Loni Landon Projects, Saint Genet, Tom Weinberger and more extensively with Rubberbandance Group. She has been co-directing, creating, and performing with Kate Wallich + The YC since 2010 and has been a rehearsal director for YC2 since its founding in 2017. She also works as a choreographic assistant and rehearsals director for Victor Quijada, Loni Landon and Kate Wallich.
As an educator and choreographic assistant she has taught at Strictly Seattle, Velocity Dance Center, Marymount College, Purchase College, The Juilliard School, The Ailey School, Domaine Forget, Springboard Danse Montreal, L’ècole de danse contemporaine de Montreal, L’école superieur de ballet du Québec. She teaches her own contemporary improvisational class as well as Dance Church™ and the RUBBERBAND Method. She was recently trained to teach Dance for Parkinson’s disease and will soon begin teaching classes in Seattle.
HARALD STOJAN (sound designer, performer, collaborator) lives and works inter- Berlin, Vienna and the whole world as composer, soundartist, audio engineer, poet and performer oscillating between contemporary musics, fine arts & dance. Studies of computermusic and audio engineering in Vienna, with focus on multichannel/ambisonics, voice and psychoacoustics shape their output. Works usually are site-specific involving sound sculptures, multi-channel sound installations and live performances in various mediums and formats. The physical quality of sound, and sound as the embodying medium of touch and gesture are means of creating affective and immersive experiences which find their fundament in the studies biological, neurological and evolutionary mechanisms of hearing/sensation. Extended vocal techniques and live processing are as much visceral to the work as deconstructed formats of academic- and club music. Artistic collaborations in Theatre, Architecture, Fashion & Dance – among others at Signature Theater New York/Broadway, Columbia University New York, TAKE Festival for Fashion Vienna, Actoral Festival Marseille and venues all over Vienna and Berlin (Theater in der Drachengasse, Kabelwerk/Wien, WUK, EKH etc.). A portion of the collective CLINIC, exploring contemporary club and event culture & part of demon pop duo Pandora. Currently pursuing a contemporary dance education at Tanzfabrik Berlin.
*moon& was supported by IGNITE @ the FORD!, a series presented by the Ford Theatre Foundation comprised of world-renowned contemporary artists whose work is thought-provoking and reflects the world in which we live. moon& was commissioned and co-produced by Los Angeles Performance Practice. This work created with support from Loyola Marymount University and LA Dance Project’s inaugural 2245 Choreographic Residency.
*NOESIS X, a solo for two is underwritten by Velocity dance champion and friend Case Van Rij.
PHOTO CREDITS – Nikita Zhukovskiy
