This is a Call to Action
This is in response to Velocity’s Next Fest NW 2017, which included performances, a speakeasy conversation, and Next Dance Cinema screenings. I am primarily responding to the conversations I’ve had with people surrounding these events. The theme of “Disruption” has tapped in to the formative time our dance community is in, as well as the current political climate. I felt the conversation and questions that arose, (that...
The Amorphous and Agile Swarming of Belongingness: Part 1
Planets whizzing out of control, stars flung like frisbees into the farthest, darkest fields of the universe? Somehow not. Planets have orbits, stars congregate in clusters, gas clouds accumulate and billow. In this void, this vacuum surrounding us, something beyond gravitational pull and the momentum of mass is at work. Calculations (and serious inquiry) only in the 1970s to begin to understand dark matter—the hidden substance, an...
In Response – Next Fest NW 2017: Disruption
Program note by Next Fest NW 2017 Writer-in-Residence Jordan Macintosh-Hougham, in response to the Festival’s theme of “disruption.” 1. RADICAL EMPATHY The audience witnesses the piece, and they understand. They know they don’t have to put words to the understanding. They see a movement, a facial expression, a gesture… they engage on a visceral level. It informs how they witness the next thing. The piece is abstract,...
Gift-ask-receive-re-gift: A beginning
A figurine like the Venus of Willendorf but in her original state, not yet pockmarked by thousands of years of rock abrasions and surrounding decay. Crease of her pelvic girdle smoothly and deliberately pointing to her sex. Provocative, yes, for the purposes of my necessary shrine, the harnessing of a lion. Lady of the Girlboss, small chant, small mouthing. Lady of the Girlboss, grant me badassness. To...
SFDI 2017: What Opened Your Eyes?
At the end of an improvisation jam guided by Joe Goode during Velocity’s Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation 2017, Joe offered a writing prompt to participants. “Share an experience you had that opened your eyes.” Here are some of the responses: 1. I was interviewing a girl from Rwanda as a class assignment. After I asked about her personal history and the history of her country, I took...
Freedom Through Dance: Pat Graney’s “Keeping the Faith” Prison Project
Written by Cornish College of the Arts student Hannah Cavallaro, this essay is a thoughtful, personal response to the article Baring and Bearing Life Behind Bars by Jessica Berson. Berson arrives at the Washington Corrections center for Women to see the performance created and performed by the inmates, who had worked with Pat Graney for three months. She describes Graney’s “Keeping the Faith” Prison Project from a fresh...
Strategies to Manage Stress
This Strictly Seattle LunchTime Talk was conducted by Tonya Lockyer on July 20th, 2017. Some stress is normal. Intensified stress can be a helpful warning system that signals us to respond to whatever is causing the stress. Avoidance of stress can also be unhealthy. There are many different causes of stress. Change – even positive change like graduating from college or getting married – can be...
SFDI ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Joe Goode
SFDI ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: JOE GOODE “To make something, to build something, is not just exerting the force of your skill and intelligence upon the world. It is also a process of looking inward, of gaining new perspective, of inhabiting your life in a more deliberate way. This can be powerful and transformative.” – Joe Goode JOE GOODE makes dances to survive. In his own words, creating dances has been...
SFDI ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: taisha paggett
SFDI ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: TAISHA PAGGETT “Art making develops a type of curiosity that, I think, makes is a radical practice . . . to break open fixed narratives and ask why anything has to be the way it is.” – taisha paggett taisha paggett’s work challenges dance, visual art, activism and education: What do they demand of us? How do they shape communities? What possibilities do they...
A Home at Velocity
The following interview was conducted by Serra Shelton on February 24th, 2017. Maeve Haselton, Dance Major at Cornish College of the Arts, has been involved with Velocity since 2011, taking classes, workshops, volunteering, and now interning in its supportive community. How did you first find Velocity? I first found Velocity as a high school freshman. I went to DANCE This camp at Centrum. Amy O’Neal was...
Belly Dancing: Caught Between Cultures
In this essay Mulla-Carrillo compares the way belly-dancing has been viewed in Eastern and Western societies, shedding light on how Islamophobia impacts the practice of belly-dancing today. Sumaya Mulla-Carrillo is a dance major at Cornish College of the Arts, originally from San Jose, CA. Images of Middle Eastern dance consist of forbidden and exotic women wearing lavish costumes. In popular culture, belly dancers from Egypt, Iran, and Saudi...
Sunken Cities: A Layered Reality
In this stream-of-consciousness piece, Renee Boehlke, local choreographer and director, reflects on the process of her Bridge Project piece, Sunken Cities, performed at Velocity Dance Center on January 26th – 29th, 2017. The Bridge Project offers four choreographers up to 45 hours of rehearsal space in which to create and perform a new work in four weeks. During this time Velocity also provides a costume stipend, and an audition...