Velocity Dance Center

GUEST ARTIST SERIES: The dance cartel

 

Velocity + THE DANCE CARTEL present the West Coast Premiere of
ONTHEFLOOR
featuring special guest appearances by
REGGIE WATTS, AMY O’NEAL, HYPERNOVA, GEORGIA SANFORD + DJ WD4D

March 6+7 / Doors Open 8:30PM (w/ Reggie Watts + Amy O’Neal + DJ WD4D)
March 8 / Doors Open 7:30PM (w/ HYPERNOVA + GEORGIA SANFORD + DJ WD4D)
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave
TICKETS $20 / $25 at the door / $15 student + senior / $17 MVP

This presentation of The Dance Cartel is made possible through Velocity’s Guest Artist Series.

 

“It’s haute-performance theory with a house party vibe… Raucous and grooving ”
– The New York Times

 

 

The critically-acclaimed DANCE CARTEL makes its West Coast premiere of immersive dance experience ONTHEFLOOR, with a starry roster of special guests at Velocity Dance Center. For their Velocity Guest Artist appearance The Dance Cartel joins forces with Seattle legends dance artist Amy O’Neal, “spectacularly original” (New York Magazine) comedian/musician Reggie Watts (March 6 +7) , contemporary dance company HYPERNOVA, former Seattlite, dancer and drag artist, Georgia Sanford (March 8) + “The Feel-Good DJ of the Decade” (The Stranger), WD4D. Driven by pumping bass, glitter and dance theory in (almost) equal parts, ONTHEFLOOR is a 90-minute, energy-busting experience.

ONTHEFLOOR is cultivating a new dance scene that becomes what the audience wants it to be: a participatory dance performance, a throwback to a Warhol era nightclub, performance art spectacle, a burgeoning underground creative community, a Brazilian Carnival—Seattle and New York’s most “exuberant, electrifying” (This Week in New York) dance party experience. The Dance Cartel won’t force you to dance, but they’ll invite you to misbehave. Target audience includes anyone and everyone: performance art nerds, dance fans, transients, music connoisseurs, 18-year-olds, grandmas, Jay-Z, college students, hipsters, Amazonians, comedy radicals, and everyone else. Kick off your stilettos, because after the show, you are invited to join the Cartel on the floor into the night.

ONTHEFLOOR is conceived and choreographed by Ani Taj (The Dance Cartel, Les Freres Corbusier, Reggie Watts), co-directed by Sam Pinkleton (Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812; Mr. Burns); costumes by Madeleine Askwith.

“THIS IS LIVE PERFORMANCE AT ITS BEST… AND YOU SHOULD GO.”
– Huffington Post

 

Photo by Stephen Elledge

 

 

about the artists

 

 

 

THE DANCE CARTEL is Alexandra Albrecht, Emily Bass, Aziza Barnes, nicHi douglas, Thomas Gibbons, Audrey Hailes, Sunny Hitt, Danika Manso-Brown, Justin Perez, and Ani Taj.

In addition to the prolific residency at the Ace Hotel NY, The Dance Cartel has taken dance floors across NYC and beyond, performing at diverse spaces such as The Brooklyn Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Le Poisson Rouge, Space Gallery (Portland, ME), Judson Church, Edward Sharpe’s Big Top (LA), Santa Monica Comedy Festival (LA – with Reggie Watts), the Museum of Art and Design (MAD), Red Hook Festival, littlefield, 285 Kent, Espaco Xisto (Salvador da Bahia, Brazil). Music videos for Yoko Ono, Reggie Watts, The Sway Machinery.

Learn more at THEDANCECARTEL.COM

 

Hilarious, brilliant, unpredictable – comedian/musician REGGIE WATTS is a staple of the international performance scene. Reggie’s improvised musical sets are created on-the-spot using only his formidable voice and a looping machine. No two songs are ever the same. An avowed “disinformationist,” Reggie loves to disorientate his audiences in the most entertaining way. You may not know what Reggie is going to do, but that’s okay – he doesn’t either.

As a solo performer, Reggie was handpicked by Conan O’Brien to open nightly on Conan’s entire North American “Prohibted From Being Funny on Television” tour. Reggie was featured as “Hot Comedian” in Rolling Stone’s Hot Issue 2010, named SPIN Magazine’s “Best New Comedian” and “Best of CMJ” 2010, and a featured profile in GQ’s Man Of The Year issue 2010. Reggie released his debut comedy cd/dvd ‘Why $#!+ So Crazy?’ on Comedy Central Records in May 2010. He has a new album entitled ‘Reggie Watts Live at Third Man Records’ which will be available limited edition vinyl Spring 2011.

On screen, Reggie has appeared on The Conan O’Brien Show, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, HBO’s The Yes Men Save The World, Comedy Central’s Michael and Michael Have Issues, Iceland TV, UK’s “Funny Or Die,” PBS’ revamped Electric Company and the music video “What About Blowjobs?” for College Humor. Reggie can also be seen in short comedic interstitials during Comedy Central’s late night block and has a pilot for the channel in the works. Read More + Watch.

 

AMY O’NEAL is a versatile dancer, performer, choreographer, and dance educator with one foot firmly planted in Hip Hop and Street Dance culture and the other in Contemporary Performance Practices.  She is passionate about the intersection of these worlds and how they connect energetically and philosophically, while honoring their cultural differences.  For fifteen years, she has taught and performed throughout the US, Japan, Italy, and Mexico, and she has choreographed for stage, commercials, rock shows, galleries, dance films and music videos. Her work is an amalgam of her diverse movement and life experiences presenting social commentary with dark humor and heavy beats.

 Amy’s work has been presented by On the Boards (Seattle, WA), PICA TBA Festival, (Portland, OR), Joyce Soho (NYC), Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out (Becket, MA), Myrna Loy Center (Helena, MT), ODC (San Francisco, CA), Southern Theater (Minneapolis, MN), Project Motion (Memphis, TN), SUSHI (San Diego, CA), Okinawa Prefectural Museum (Okinawa, Japan), Northwest Film Forum (Seattle, WA), RADAR: Exchanges in Dance Film Frequencies (Vancouver, BC), Next Moment Film Festival (Tokyo, Japan), Kyoto Art Center (Kyoto, Japan), Festival Danza Sin Frontreras UNAM (Mexico City, Mexico), and ProDanza Italia (Castigliencello, Italy). Read More.

HYPERNOVA is a contemporary dance company founded in 2014 by Artistic Director, Rainbow Fletcher. HYPERNOVA strives to deliver authentic and stylistically charged choreography, performances, and collaborative inventions. Learn more at www.hypernovadance.com + Watch.

RAINBOW FLETCHER founded HYPERNOVA Contemporary Dance Company in 2014. She also continues to serve alongside Ezra Dickinson as Co-Artistic Director of The Offshore Project. In addition to her current work, Rainbow is well known for her past innovative creations as the Choreographer and Dance Director of the Can Can Castaways. She performed with the Castaways for nearly a decade in over a dozen full length productions and was an original founding member of the group. Prior to her career as a choreographer and performer, she received her B.F.A. in Dance from Cornish College of the Arts. After graduating she danced for Donald Byrd in Spectrum Dance Theater, and as a guest artist for various groups. The Offshore Project’s Karyotype 46/XY and The Buffoon, were both presented in Northwest New Works Festival at On The Boards. The Buffoon was also presented as a finalist in The A.W.A.R.D. Show! (2011). Over the past decade she has been commissioned to choreograph a variety of pieces for Coriolis Dance Collective. In 2011, she had the honor of choreographing Refined Slang for dance department students in Cornish Dance Theater. In 2013, she gave a TEDx talk in Tacoma on “The Choreography of desire”. Rainbow has been featured in various music videos including: Body Builder, by Jules Leotard, Fantasea by Vockah Redu & Cru, and as a dancer and choreographer for While I’m Alive, by STRFKR and DNA by Fly Moon Royalty. She recently showed her newest works, When Jupiter and Saturn Met, in Northwest New Works Festival, and Sportif for the Men In Dance Festival.

 

A former Seattleite, GEORGIA SANFORD is excited to bring her experiences from NYC to the stage as a part of ONTHEFLOOR! She has provided backup dancer realness  for such artists as Zebra Katz, Princess Superstar, Jessica 6, Cazwell and The Naked Heroes and recently worked with choreographer Ani Taj on new immersive dance theater experience “Better for Night.”  With co-conspirator Viva Bodyroll she is a part of Haus of Sweat, a fly gurl team meant to get you sweat and start any party! She has seen the stage with many a drag artist and performs in drag herself as Boy Georgia in the  provocative and ever-evolving Brooklyn drag scene.  Possessing a jazz dance background and an acquired vogue and house dance vocabulary, she wishes for all to never stop and to get it get it always. 

 

WD4D aka Waylon Dungan is one of Seattle’s most talented and ambitious beat scientists whose bold style has injected new sonic fusions into the city’s hip hop and electronic music communities. Versatile and always fresh, WD4D’s sound ranges from left-field experimental beats and funky upbeat dance music to jazzed-up hip hop and soulful underground rap. Producing and DJing for almost sixteen years, WD4D was recently dubbed “The Feel-Good DJ of the Decade” by Seattle’s The Stranger newspaper. This innovative producer’s dedication to his craft has resulted in an impressive discography; his debut album Some Assembly Required (2005) was followed by a slew of both signed and unsigned releases, including his latest EP Post-Hyphy-Romanticrunk (2010) that features a crew of female vocalists from the area. A skilled turntablist who embraces both the digital and vinyl realms, WD4D takes unpredictable twists and blasts the hinges off genre definitions with his inventive and eclectic style. Not only a knowledgeable producer but an engaging performer as well, WD4D was named champion of Seattle’s 2010 Battle of the Mega-Mixes. Deeply involved in the local arts scene, WD4D has released music on Seattle-based label Fourthcity, and also scored the original music for the theatrical dance performance In Fere. Learn more + Listen.

 

insights

WATCH Promo Video – The Dance Cartel Presents ONTHEFLOOR

 

press

READ Review – I Told You So: The Dance Cartel Show at Velocity Was Unbelievably Good. Melody Datz Hansen. The Stranger SLOG. March 10, 2015.