Full Tilt 2025

In 2006, Fumi Murakami and Kelly Smith founded Full Tilt, an annual festival-style contemporary dance show. In that same year I gave birth to my second child. I remember it was intimidating to return to advanced modern classes a year later as a 39-year-old mother of two. I felt like (and maybe was) the oldest dancer in the room. It has been a struggle over the years to find my place in the dance community as an “older” dancer, so it was really refreshing to learn that part of Full Tilt’s mission is to recruit dancers over 40.  

As an audience member this year for Full Tilt 2025, I witnessed a smooth blend of dancers and choreographers ranging in age, reflecting the Seattle dance community as I experience it. The over-40 dancers didn’t stand out any differently than their younger peers, but I appreciate Full Tilt for making the explicit invitation.  

Browsing the program before the show, my heart shreds a little when I read choreographer Davianna Griffin’s notes for the first piece, Shades of Rage. “Dedicated to my little sis, Jalia. I love you and I miss you always.” 

The lights come up on six dancers, backs to the audience. The movement is rooted in the down beat. It looks like a fusion of street dance and vocabulary I recognize from taking West African dance classes. The dancers scream. They look over their shoulders, struggle with each other when holding hands in a rope-like line. Chests pulse. They punch down and cross their wrists like they aren’t going to take any more sh*t. When the music switches to saxophone, I can feel the draining, bluesy-ness of grief that is the flip side of anger. They make slicing motions. I think of what it feels like to be cut off at the knees by grief.

Words from the soundtrack hit me on a guttural level. My grief, my anger is completely justified. Struck by Griffin’s bravery choreographing about something so personal and raw, I asked her via Instagram message if she was willing to share about her process. Graciously she replied, “I was already in the process of making the piece before my sister passed. I previously made a piece about anger, and I was interested in exploring the complexity of the emotion in this piece. How it’s not always direct–sometimes it’s reflective, silent, bubbling, etc….The dancers brought their own experiences with anger into it as well to portray it from their point of view.”

At first glance, the next piece, Ambiguitas choreographed by Audrey Byrne, has a Bob Fosse-Chicago-cabaret vibe. The dancers wear black leotards and tights. Most wear heels, but I wonder why some have socks on instead. The central dancer (Maisy Neill) is dazzling in dramatically dark lipstick and a lustrous (but obvious) wig. She lip syncs, “Tell me what, is your currency?” The mood switches when the other dancers strip off Neill’s wig and shoes and leave her convulsing and crying. They walk by blind to her distress like strangers on a street. They tilt her head for her like a mannequin—an ambiguous body shaped by outside whims. The group’s heads loll like they’ve lost the ability to think for themselves. Suddenly, the dancers are backlit so we can only see their silhouettes. Their legs shake, they flip their arms forward, almost like they’re turning themselves inside out for outside validation. 

Set to airy, soulful, instrumental music, Trace by Evelyn Morrison, is like a delicate, moving poem. I see themes of commitment, freedom, and trust. I notice a motion that looks like pulling off a wedding ring. Peace fingers tentatively reaching out. They cover their eyes. There is desperate scratching at the floor like trying to dig out of a bad situation. In the end, the six dancers stand with arms out like they’re soaking in the sun and one lofts her arms like winging to safety. 

Back from intermission, I notice a phone on a tripod set low on the floor in front of the first row of the audience. The sight of the digital device dissipates the interior, reflective, dreamy mood Morrison’s piece left me in. When Touch Starved by Jeremy Cline and dancers begins, one of the dancers is talking into the propped phone like an influencer. Her chipper face is projected on a huge screen covering the back of the theater. The stage lights dim and the performers dance holding phones with the flashlights on, creating star-like pinpoints of light in the dark. As they move, their images are simultaneously projected at the back of the theater. After some time the projection alters, and through some kind of digital manipulation, begins to look like an abstract painting.

The dancers talk to the audience about likes and views. How being viewed isn’t the same as being seen for who you are. They speak of missing physical hugs. The dancers use index fingers to operate their phones reminding us that “touch” in our days can be reduced to tapping, scrolling. As the piece concludes, the screen in the back of the stage transitions from fractured lines to looking like we’re headed into a black hole of doom scrolling.

In Skeletons, choreographed by Sally Hollman, each dancer wears a brightly colored tie and a white button-down shirt. The piece is structured in sections where the lighting matches each dancer’s tie color. I’m reminded of the movie Inside Out where different colors are associated with different emotions. There are movements symbolic of carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders—slow crawling, arms that look to be holding a heavy ball. Suddenly fouetté turns in second position and split jeté jumps punctuate the choreography. Stylistically, these technically challenging moves seem quite different than the preceding movement quality. I wonder about the choreographic intent. Perhaps these dazzling movements belie the work it takes to achieve them?  

Choreographer Arinze Okammor’s background in acoustic and electrical engineering shines through the sound composition for the show-closing, show-stopping piece, AM/FM. As the title indicates, radio ads, weather reports, emergency broadcast signals, and static blast the audience along with incredibly bright light. The dancing, crisp, high speed, and precise starts and stops exactly as the radio signal tunes into different frequencies. Several times a voice asks, “What was that?” “I don’t know what that was.” I’m not sure either, but judging by the audience reactions, we all agree the piece is pure delight to watch.

Evoke Production’s Full Tilt 2025 was performed April 5 and 6, 2025 in NOD Theater.