// GUEST ARTIST SERIES //
PHOTO TIM SUMMERS
Velocity’s GUEST ARTIST SERIES provides the Seattle community with residency activities from national/international dance artists including technique classes, workshops, and performances.
Velocity strives to give Seattle’s dance community opportunities to train with outstanding local and national artists through its Guest Artist Series. The Guest Artist Series presents internationally renowned artists in contemporary dance and related studies, offering classes, lectures, performances and/or workshops with these artists. This program helps to insure that Seattle’s relative geographic isolation does not result in a lack of exposure, and helps Seattle to stay abreast of current technical and artistic standards.
Velocity has hosted classes and/or workshops with such nationally and internationally recognized artists as Tere O’Connor, Pat Graney, John Jasperse, Keith Hennessy, Danielle Agami/Ate9, Daniel Linehan, Miguel Gutierrez, Amy O’Neal, Mark Haim, Jesse Zaritt, Anouk van Dijk, Reggie Watts, Faye Driscoll, zoe/juniper, Dayna Hanson, Deborah Hay, KT Niehoff, Bebe Miller, David Dorfman and many more.
// 2017 GUEST ARTISTS //
GUEST ARTIST SERIES: DANIELLE AGAMI / ATE9
Calling Glenn with Wilco’s Glenn Kotche
MARCH 3/ 8PM
Velocity at The Moore Theatre 1932 2nd Ave
A partnership with STG
TICKETS $30 General / $25 MVP/ $18 Under 25 w/ ID / $50 Patron
(Ticket prices not including fees. All tickets are sold through STG.)
WORLD PREMIERE. Calling Glenn is a one-night only performance at the histori Moore Theatre by Danielle Agami and her Los Angeles based company Ate9, with live music by the rhythmic anchor of the beloved band Wilco, Glenn Kotche. Agami’s strong physicality, humor, and theatricality has made her one of the hottest choreographers in America today. More info >>
GUEST ARTIST SERIES: BECCA BLACKWELL
They, Themself and Schmerm
SEPT 22 + 23 / 8PM
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave
TICKETS $20 / $25 at the door / $18 Under 25 w/ ID / $17 MVP / $50 Patron
Part classic standup comedy special, part teen zine vomit confessional, They, Themself and Schmerm is Becca’s disturbingly hilarious personal tale of being adopted into a Midwestern religious family, trained to be a girl, molested, and plagued by the question, “How do I become a man and do I even want that?” You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll question what bathroom to use. More info>>
GUEST ARTIST SERIES: 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
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave
TICKETS $20 / $25 at the door / $18 Under 25 w/ ID / $17 MVP / $50 Patron
A trio confronting the seductiveness of classifying, ordering, and structuring, while attempting to hold onto the character of the unnameable, vulnerable, and imaginable. More info>>
// 2016 Guest ARtists //
GUEST ARTIST SERIES: KEITH HENNESSY
MARCH 13 / 7:30PM
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave
Motivated by grand spectacle + ambitious prayer, Bear/Skin appropriates Nijinsky’s choreography for Le Sacre du Printemps (1913) to consider Modernism’s dependence on appropriations of the indigenous, folk, exotic, + oriental to ask questions about ritual + art today. More info >>
GUEST ARTIST SERIES: BILL EVANS
75th Birthday Tour
FEB 20 + 21 / 7:30PM
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave
Celebrating his 75th year, Guggenheim Fellow Bill Evans’ national tour brings him back to Seattle, where his influential Bill Evans Dance Company (1976-1983) put Seattle Dance on the national map– touring to all 50 states, Mexico + Canada. More info >>
Part of Velocity’s 20th Anniversary Season celebrating the history of Seattle Dance.
// 2015 GUEST ARTISTS //
GUEST ARTIST SERIES: PEGGY PIACENZA
Touch Me Here
Encore Performance
SEPT 3 + 4 / 8PM
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave
Velocity presents the encore performance of Touch Me Here, an evening length solo performance created and performed by Seattle-based choreographer Peggy Piacenza with an original live score performed by cellist Scott Bell. More info >>
DANIELLE AGAMI / ATE9 (LA/Israel) + MATT DREWS
mouth to mouth
Plus The Weltgeist, a new work by Matt Drews
June 19-21 / 7:00PM
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave
Learn more
Velocity brings Danielle Agami / Ate9’s triumphant return to Seattle, and two compelling new works by Agami and Seattle dance super star Matt Drews.
Ate9 Dance Company has become one of the country’s “hottest cultural commodities” (Dance Magazine). Join us as they return to Seattle to celebrate their 3rd anniversary at the venue where it all started: Velocity! mouth to mouth is a critically acclaimed contemporary dance piece created by Agami, former Batsheva dancer and Artistic Director of Ate9, with original music by Jodie Landau, merging “breathtaking physicality, sly humor, and a hip theatricality” (Dance Magazine).
Matt Drews’ solo world premiere is an exciting collaboration with composer Garek Druss (Saint Genet, A Story of Rats) and costume designer Anna Telcs (Saint Genet, Shabazz Palaces). Celebrated for his “completely captivating” (Seattle Dances) performances, Drews has drawn a following performing on the stages of On The Boards and Velocity, with companies such as tEEth, Ate9, Saint Genet, and Kate Wallich + the YC.
MONICA BILL BARNES & CO
HAPPY HOUR
April 16 / 7:30PM
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave
Learn more
Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass trade their signature sequins and feather headdresses for a pair of everyday men’s suits in the world’s first-ever cocktail party dance show. With nothing up their sleeves and just a few things in their pockets, they dance their way through the guys in ties that we all recognize — from the Rat Pack to Las Vegas magicians and silent comic tramps to classic business men.
Happy Hour mixes dance, theater and one card trick all set to a sound score of Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Journey and Nat King Cole. Come after work, first drink’s on us. No really, you get a drink but leave the dancing to us.
THE DANCE CARTEL
ONTHEFLOOR
featuring special guest appearances by
REGGIE WATTS, AMY O’NEAL, HYPERNOVA, GEORGIA SANFORD + DJ WD4D
March 6-8
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave
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.
