CONTROL QUEEN

Since founding SLOWBURN dance in 2019, Meredith Pellon has been diligently making and showing work across the Puget Sound region, popping up everywhere from art galleries, parks, and festivals, to Vashon Center for the Arts and the Georgetown Steamplant. And once you catch on to SLOWBURN’s crystalline style—wherever you see them—it’s unmistakable. 

An Evening with SLOWBURN Dance ran this past weekend at Seattle Open Arts Place (formerly 18th and Union). A mixed program of eight short pieces pulled from the company’s repertoire, along with several new works, was a perfect opportunity to observe Pellon’s signature approach to movement, often made in collaboration with her dancers. Rife with blade hands, sculptural holds, clean balances, and spines that seem to carve space, it would be hard to overstate how controlled Pellon’s choreography is. Each movement shifts into shape without an ounce of reverb. Sometimes snapping into place in a rhythmic staccato—blink and you’ll miss it—sometimes growing into a new shape like the body is filling a mold. 

There is something severe, almost militaristic, about the cast of six as they enter for the first work Agony Column (2025). Hair slicked back and wearing a mix of black separates and black socks (another common feature of SLOWBURN’s aesthetic). They wait at attention as Pellon performs an extended hold in backbend, arms stretched and hands clasped above her head. Finally it gives way to a series of highly precise shapes that spread through the ensemble, each held and then snapping to change at unpredictable intervals. Right away we are introduced to Pellon’s other main choreographic devise—rhythms that follow their own internal logic, composed with a sense of musicality that often creates counterpoint with the music or the other dancers on stage. This is particularly true in this first piece, set to music by The Smiths and Mk.gee, where the rhythms and aesthetic seem to intentionally challenge the music’s jangly vibes. Most of the works use more atmospheric soundscapes, in which the contrasting rhythms live more organically, but still just as clear.

The second piece, Ours (2022), a duet between Pellon and Elise Meiners, finds softness and flow inside of the sculpted movement, but never release. The two seem on different trajectories but coming into flashes of synchronicity, like two sea creatures caught in the same wave. Similar moments of unison punctuate the next ensemble work Something New (2025), where abrupt simultaneous shifts give me the momentarily illusion that the room itself has slid sideways. In another moment the cast tips forward, reaching arms and circling their legs to make a long line parallel to the floor. Then in one breathtaking beat they flip their pelvises open and it’s like a school of fish changing direction, showcasing incredible control and coordination with one another. 

SLOWBURN’s dancers (Hannah March, Madeline Morser, Shayley Timm, Izzy Wroblewski, Meiners, and Pellon) are an impressive group, because of their individual physical prowess, but also because of what must be a fastidious rehearsal process. Every angle, shape, and beat is understood and executed with a level of uniform precision that is almost without comparison in Seattle—Pellon’s tricky rhythmic sensibility performed without hesitation or obvious musical cues. Clean pirouettes float out of the choreography, seemingly without preparation, and in one particularly jealousy-inducing moment, Timm drops into the splits in measured bursts of pure strength and agility. 

Watching Pellon as a performer, it is so clear that this style originated on her body and she’s done an excellent job cultivating her style in her dancers, with one (literally glaring) exception. While she seems to have mastered a compelling, almost glamorous, vacantness of expression, on her dancers this ‘neutral face’ can easily become an expression of fear, tension, flatness, or grumpiness that either layers on unintended meaning, or steals expressive power from movement itself. And when everything is so uniform and clean, even subtly different expressions can be very distracting. 

It also made me reflect on the human-ness of these dancers within the context of each piece. Pellon wrote in the program notes about human experiences as inspiration for many of her works, but largely I experienced the works as abstract compositions of space and time. It made me hungry to see a longer format work, where theme and variation could develop over time to create meaning. Or perhaps developing the human element more inside Pellon’s well-defined container. 

The one piece where the humanity of the dancer felt present was Ivory (2022), a solo performed by Morser the night I attended (Meiners and Timm each performed it at the other showings), and was definitely a highlight of the show. Pellon’s interesting use of shape—like a fist hovering over an open palm—had time and focus to land. Morser’s subtle performance made each image feel like an expression of her internal experience. A repeated windmill of the arms, with foot brushing the floor lulls us into the pulse of repetition, faster and faster until Morser releases up into a moment of floating suspension. The piece ends when the music cuts abruptly: mid note and mid movement. An apt finish for a choreographer who’s play with timing keeps me expecting the unexpected.

SLOWBURN has two upcoming performances:

June 10 at Seattle International Dance Festival’s Spotlight on Seattle

August 2 at the Georgetown Steamplant

An Evening with SLOWBURN ran May 30-June 1 2025 at Seattle Open Arts Place. The program for the show is available here. To learn more visit slowburndance.com.