It’s time for dance fans to get their calendars out and their ticket buying fingers warmed up because the upcoming month is a veritable parade of exciting dance performances. This may just be the busiest month in Seattle dance history, so in the great wisdom Daft Punk, time to lose yourself to dance.
**Before I get deep into this, don’t panic—all show dates, times, and ticket info are available for easy viewing on the SeattleDances calendar.**
MALACARNE at the Volunteer Park Conservatory. Photo by Allina Yang.
Kicking off on March 1, Seattle is blessed with a one-night visitation from Kidd Pivot, performing Revisor at Paramount. This is followed in quick succession by two distinct site-specific MALACARNE performances on the 2nd and 3rd, one at the exquisitely tropical Volunteer Park Conservatory and the other on Seattle’s own historical monorail on Friday afternoon. And that evening just across the sound at Bainbridge Island Museum of art, Christin Call will be performing in Sarah Fetterman’s installation piece, Lost in the Familiar.
I hope you’ve cleared your entire upcoming weekend, because it also features SIDF Mini Winter Fest, the UW Dance Majors Concert, Robbi Moore at Seattle Center, and the first of three out of town artists Velocity is bringing in during the next three weeks!
Because Velocity is now mostly operating out of 12th Ave Arts (which is rented in time chunks to accommodate the run of a standard play), their season is compressed into more of a festival schedule with back to back shows every weekend. It’s a new format and a lot to keep track of, so for that reason we’ll do a quick run-down of those offerings.
First up is Sean Dorsey’s The Lost Art of Dreaming (Mar 2-5), about “queer dreaming and future-making.” The trans artist out of San Francisco is visiting Seattle for the 3rd time, along with a troupe of five queer, trans, and gender-non-conforming dancers performing in what promises to be a beautifully produced, accessible, and highly physical show.
The following week is Black feminist performance artist Gabrielle Civil, who is conducting a research and performance week with artists at the intersection of dancing and writing. What will actually happen at Translated Bodies is a little hard to parse—seems like the kind of event to just show up with an open mind and see where it takes you. March 9 and 11 are in-person performance experiences (though distinct from one another) and March 10 “Virtual Play” is an interactive virtual experience that integrates dance into your own life. Sign up to be sent scores, prompts, and playlists throughout the entire day.
Visiting from Portland, OR, Claire Barrera’s Grammar of the Imagination runs March 17-19, and features an intergenerational cast (Kids! Dancers over 60!) exploring play and children’s games as a way to imagine “radically new social relations.”
Grammar of the Imagination
Then Velocity is premiering local fare to close out their season, premiering a new Made in Seattle project by Black Collectivity (Nia-Amina Minor, marco farroni, and David Rue), who share their multi-year research into the history and contributions of Black dance artists in Seattle, including the incredibly influential Syvilla Fort, who was the first Black student at Cornish College of the Arts, danced with the Katherine Dunham Company, and went on to make major contributions in dance education. Don’t miss it—March 30-April 9.
One very cool thing is that Velocity has several performances with ASL interpretation, including Sean Dorsey on March 3, Gabrielle Civil on March 9, Claire Barrera on March 17, and Black Collectivity on April 7.
In a fun alignment of theme, the same weekend as Grammar of the Imagination, Camille A. Brown and Dancers bring a work that also sources children’s games, specifically African American vernacular forms like double dutch, hand-clapping games, and ring shout. BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play comes to UW’s Meany Center with a story of Black female empowerment March 16-18.
And in yet more inspiration from the youth, Young Choreographers Club’s culminating performance is the afternoon of March 18, featuring works by this year’s cohort of choreographers 14-24 years old. The program was recently revived by previous participant Moonyeka, who led the 8-week dancemaking workshop this winter.
Also this weekend from local makers: the return of BOOST Dance Festival (March 17-19) at Nod Theater (featuring Arinze Okammor, El Sueño, Coalescence Dance, Artistry in Motion, Emily Vazquez, Lisa Kwak, Robbi Moore, BadmarmarDance), and 12 Minutes Max, which is one of my favorite reoccurring shows, not only because it always has a wild mix of new pieces from across genres, but also because it’s on a Sunday-Monday when little else is happening. March 19-20 at Base.
PNB’s Boundless (March 17-26) features premieres from Alejandro Cerrudo and Jessica Lang and the PNB school is putting on a family-friendly Snow White (Mar 19-25), which includes a sensory-friendly performance on the afternoon of March 24. Other than that the fourth weekend of March appears to be a brief reprieve!
But March isn’t quite over yet, with the final busy weekend delivering us into April and a haul of more local dance. Along with Black Collectivity Project, immersive evening ode-K’an (March 30-April 1) features Abdiel, Cypher Queenz, Dani Blackwell, Hannah Simmons and Alethea Alexander, Lucie Baker and Connor Walden, Maia Melene Durfee, Nahaan, and Undercurrent, who’ve all created works for the Mini Mart City Park. And on the same dates but an entirely different vibe, Noveltease Theatre presents a burlesque edition of The Count of Monte Cristo at Theatre off Jackson.
Two touring shows also this weekend: Flock (directors Alice Klock and Florian Lochner) mount Somewhere Between at Erickson (March 31-April 1), which features locally beloved dancer Liane Aung, and The Motherboard Suite makes a single appearance on April 1 at Meany Center, which is performed by musician Saul Williams and his musical collaborators. Unclear exactly what to expect here, but it claims to feature seven choreographers and is directed by Bill T. Jones, so expect some cross-disciplinary magic.
**Do you enjoy having a calendar of dance performances in Seattle? SeattleDances’ calendar depends on community effort to keep our calendar comprehensive. If you are a a producer of dance in Seattle, please consider using our easy-to-use form to put your performance on our calendar! Simply click “Submit an Event” from the top of our homepage.**
