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| UW MFA Concert Photo by Tim Summers |
UW MFA Concert
May 15–19, 7:30 PM, Meany Studio Theater
The UW Dance Program presents its annual MFA Dance Concert, with choreography by current MFA candidates. For admittance into the MFA program, candidates must have at least eight years of professional performance experience and this concert merges that experience with the academic inquiry of UW’s rigorous two year program. In collaboration, UW Drama’s MFA design students design costumes and a range of professional artists from the wider community collaborate in various roles. Advanced undergraduate dancers from the UW Dance Program perform. The concert offers intelligently crafted dance that explore ideas of individuality and community created by seven MFA candidates. Tickets are available here.
The Burlesque Alice in Wonderland
May 15–18, 6:30 and 9:30, The Triple Door
The producers of the holiday burlesque extravaganza Land Of The Sweets: The Burlesque Nutcracker, and the wine-soaked party-through-time Burlesco DiVino: Wine In Rome, have both gone mad… mad as March Hares, that is. Lily Verlaine & Jasper McCann invite you to shrug off the squareness of reality and fall into their “incomparable…colorful and entertaining” (Seattle Gay News) re-imagination of Lewis Carroll’s classic tale of nonsense and fantasy. Come along with Alice as she discovers what wonders lie beyond the velvet rope at Wonderland’s most exclusive nightclub, The Looking Glass. An exploration of numerous artistic influences, this production mixes jazz with classical, Indian, and exotic music to set the mood as dancers from around the region mix ballet and jazz dance into a whirlwind of whimsy and bawdy beauty. Seattle’s Burlesque A-List round out the cast of Alice, including Lily Verlaine, Miss Indigo Blue, Waxie Moon, Kitten La Rue, Babette La Fave, J. Von Stratton, Polly Wood, Trojan Original, Paris Original, Jasper McCann, Miss Inga Ingénue and Lou Henry Hoover. Tickets are available here.
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| Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo Photo by Sascha Vaughn |
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
May 16–18, 8:00 PM, Meany Hall
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo remains one of the most popular dance troupes in the United States. The company of professional male dancers performs the full range of the ballet and modern dance repertoire, achieving high comedy by incorporating and exaggerating the foibles, accidents and underlying incongruities of serious dance. The fact that men dance all the parts—heavy bodies delicately balancing on toes as swans, sylphs, water sprites, romantic princesses or angst-ridden Victorian ladies—enhances, rather than mocks, the spirit of dance as an art form, delighting and amusing novices and aficionados alike. Tickets are available here.
Whim W’Him Third Degree
May 17–19, 8:00 PM, Intiman Theater
Whim W’Him presents two new creations, an intimate and stirring new work from Artistic Director Olivier Wevers that explores his perspective, motivations, and art, and one by PNB dancer Andrew Bartee. Also on the program are the Seattle premiere of L’Effleure by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa plus the return of Wevers’ FRAGMENTS. Tickets are available here.
May 17–19, 8:00 PM, Intiman Theater
Whim W’Him presents two new creations, an intimate and stirring new work from Artistic Director Olivier Wevers that explores his perspective, motivations, and art, and one by PNB dancer Andrew Bartee. Also on the program are the Seattle premiere of L’Effleure by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa plus the return of Wevers’ FRAGMENTS. Tickets are available here.
Saint Genet
May 16–18, 8:00 PM, On the Boards
On the Boards presents the North American premiere of Paradisiacal Rites by local wunderkinds Saint Genet, directed by Derrick Ryan Claude Mitchell. The company’s lavish and ornate style will become even more audacious in their most ambitious work to date, a feat involving more than forty artists, designed for the Merrill Wright Mainstage Theater. Paradisiacal Rites takes inspiration from hysteria, elastic moral codes, conformity, the Jonestown Massacre and the Manson trials as it engages in the horrific and the sublime. Using the formalist structures of opera and musical compositions, the long-form performance begins as soon as the house opens at 7pm and continues for three acts, with four “knees.” These immersive, intermission-like pauses, initially developed by director Robert Wilson (one of Mitchell’s mentors), help to create an installation-like environment in which the audience is invited to take breaks as they please. The night additionally invokes elements of ballet, symphony, opera and durational performance (including leaches, liquor and rigorous exercise) to create a hypnotic and visceral experience. In addition to the performances at On the Boards, Saint Genet will present installations, after parties and other events throughout the city during the same weekend. For details see saintgenet.org. Tickets for the On the Boards performance are available here.
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| Gathering Bones Photo by Joseph Lambert |
Gathering Bones
May 18–19, 8:00 PM, Velocity Dance Center
This epic performance event features a sixty minute dance work created by Maya Soto with original music composition by Seattle composer Paurl Walsh, as well as an interactive gallery space where the audience is invited to step right into the creation of the work. Gathering Bones is a movement collage exploring themes of internal personal power, feminism and femininity through dance, music and art. Soto dives into princess, warrior, and queen archetypes through a variety of cultural histories and resources. This performance goes back in time, exploring stories and myths of powerful and wild women. Tickets are available here.
Mother for you I made this
May 6–19 Daily, 7:00 PM, 800 block of Steward Street
Part performance and part activism, Ezra Dickinson‘s Mother for you I made this is aimed at activating a conversation about the failed mental health care system in America through memories of Dickinson’s childhood as he lived with and unknowingly cared for his schizophrenic mother. Dickinson’s hour-long solo is built from a series of performances he made as gifts for his mother over a seven year period. Audiences are guided through forgotten public spaces by ushers and given a personal audio tour weaving conversations between Dickinson and his mother with sounds from the actual landscape. Consider yourself lucky if you already have tickets, as all performances are currently sold out. Read the SeattleDances review here.
