As the board president (as well as a Memphian), I’m proud of Project: Motion’s 25 Year History of delivering modern dance in our community. With their upcoming show guest artists will collaborate with our collective to deliver a limited, one-weekend show.
Because artists and writers can articulate things better than I, I’m handing the microphone over to Joan Biddle for details on the upcoming show which features hip-hop, nationally recognized artists, contemporary dance, as well as fun. Ticketing information is at the end.
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Guest Artists Brighten the Stage in Axis: Long Distance Affairs
by Joan Biddle
Modern dance collective Project: Motion presents a rare opportunity to see fabulous local and national guest artists in an innovative dance show. Melding Hip-Hop, improvisation, and contemporary movement, Axis: Long-Distance Affairs is a must-see.
Gifted teacher, dancer, and choreographer Robin Sanders is the Artistic Director of Out Loud Artistry in Memphis, an organization that provides performer training and mentoring to kids in Midtown. Seven of her dancers will perform “Soul Journey”, a fusion of Hip-Hop and African dance set to the music of Flying Lotus. She calls the piece “eclectic movement set to electronic sound.” Sanders, who is teaching a series of master classes to Project: Motion dancers, says the collective “provides a great learning and teaching environment.”
Amy O’Neal, a dancer, choreographer and teacher in Seattle, will perform a solo work-in-progress titled “The Most Innovative, Daring, and Original Piece of Dance Performance You Will See This Decade.” The piece deconstructs Amy O’s past influences (from Hip-Hop to Classicism, MTV to feminism) and “questions the way performance is sold and bought through the eyes of a woman.”
In an essay for Seattle’s City Arts magazine, O’Neal wrote, “Movement that essentially replicates sex was first used ceremoniously eons ago, to celebrate life, attract a mate and invoke fertility.” Then, sex was made exotic, and people became “increasingly removed from their own bodies.” O’Neal explores this idea through the music of Big Boi, Ciara, Tom Gray, and Potato Finger, as well as projected text. She sees dance as happening in situations, in life, in brushing your teeth, in being with friends, and uses this as a basis for her choreography and teaching.
John R. Stronks of Houston will present three works. “Subversive Stylized Submission” explores “the nature and importance of platonic relationships in the context of the LGBTQ community.” “Alone, in the temple of what is familiar to me,” is a solo work, and “OK, I’m Here … Now What?” is a piece in which dancers build an artificial California out of miscellaneous props, that ponders “letting go of knowing, and diving head first into the gap between.”
Stronks says his dances are about “the connection that movement and behavior share through the body.” He strives to utilize dancers’ authentic experiences and personal histories to convey truth. Of Project: Motion, john says the creative “space that the company has offered gives me the opportunity to develop and clarify my actions as an artist.”
Show Information
Dates: February 17-19, 2012 (Friday and Saturday @ 8 p.m. and Sunday @ 2 p.m.)
Prices: $20/Adults & $15/Students and Seniors
Buy One Get One Free on Sunday, February 19 (adult tickets only)
Location: Evergreen Theatre, 1705 Poplar Ave.
To Purchase Tickets:
Call 901-214-LEAP
www.projectmotiondance.org
Connect Online
http://www.facebook.com/projectmotion
http://twitter.com/projectmotion
