FULL TILT TURNS 20

When listening to music or watching a dance, there is a complex symphony happening inside the human brain. Our motor cortex activates as we process rhythm, prefrontal cortex is engaged to analyze and predict patterns, chemicals are released when sounds and movement align into harmonies and familiar melodies. 

This year, watching Evoke Productions’ presentation of Full Tilt, I could feel the reward receptors in my brain fire up, as each choreographer brought a level of composition to their work that was coherent, rich, and multilayered. The pieces went so well together, in fact, that I felt that I was just watching one long piece rather than six separate dances. Some narratives and aesthetics distinguished the dances from each other, but for the most part they shared a clear connective tissue. All the dances seemed to be about moving and relating in a collective, in unison and discord. Being able to compose that movement into a way that the audience can process is a honed skill that these Full Tilt choreographers all were able to tap into. 

In i am not a violent dog, choreographed by Diana Kim, ten dancers are anonymous under black veils, wearing black costumes and electric-red full length gloves. Set against the black marley, black curtains, and low light, the twenty hands become the main focus of the movement, reaching and weaving in and out. A strong diagonal across the space with hands rippling a clap down the line, palms shifting into pulsing slow blossoms, wrists rubbing together, with satisfying variations of energy. Kim’s musicality is idiosyncratic and nuanced, aligning the choreography with the more undercurrent layers of the songs. With red hands on invisible bodies, reaching and winding between one another, a narrative arises right at the end of the piece, as a single performer removes their veil, revealing their face, reaching out towards another veiled dancer, with the potential of vulnerability and exposure. 

In Think, Again, choreographed by Olivia Evans, there are many moments where all fourteen dancers were dancing fourteen unique solos. The effect is a meditative white noise, something that can be taken in as a conglomerate wash of motion or zoomed in to individuals. While the dancers’ faces are exposed, the quality of movement and the ethereal shadowy light mostly highlights the dancers bodies in motion. At one point, duets take a more aggressive turn, though it was difficult to tell whether there is a relational connection between the combative movement and the embodiment of sparring – be it pleasurable, playful, or threatening. The program note mentions how “the mind spirals” returning again and again to “nagging thoughts,” so perhaps the dancers are embodying the ideas in the mind. 

Marlo Martin’s piece, on the edge of your vast expansion, begins in the dark, in silence, with fourteen dancers downstage. Close to the audience, the move in solo rhythms, so we can see their white button ups shifting and hear the rustling and breathing and feet patting against the ground. An audience member next to me loudly whispers “popcorn!” and I agree with the sentiment! Clumped together, the dancers walk in slow motion towards the front, one at a time their gaze shifts from looking straight ahead to focusing to the side, perhaps as the path ahead becomes less certain, or as the more immediate obstacles require present attention. In a refreshing use of space, the dancers run out to all edges of the theater and reenter from the diagonals in smaller groups, diving to the floor, carving through space, swiping their legs and rolling. The soloists are less focalized than the relationship of the one to the many, as seen when Eva Crystal arches and bends in front of a line of dancers, whose movements ripple in reaction to Crystal passing them. A single agent becomes a means for affecting change. 

Blink of an Eye, choreographed by Madeline Maxine Roman, offers a refreshing component of live music, composed and performed by Valentina Roman. The entire piece takes place across the energetic diagonal of the space, facing the downstage left corner, beginning with the eight dancers clumped around Roman and their guitar. Notes plucked on the string begin softly as the dancers roll their head, nuzzle, reach, walk their fingers along the pathways of their arms. This unison choreography is done with eyes closed, offering a deeper listening and connection through the musicality. Making their way forward along the diagonal, the dancers split into two duets and a trio, hugging and swaying in a tender slow dance. Our attention shifts to a figure, Melissa Koh Krienke, dressed in all white, emerging from the group with imperceptible slowness. Had they been walking the whole time? The rest of the dancers and the musician move in a tempo and at a distance that cannot reach them. Roman’s vocals repeat “it’s a moment not a sprint” again and again, the rest of the ensemble pulled back to their beginning formation. The opening movement is revisited, head rolls, nuzzle, reaching, meaning now contextualized by their reaching arms and open gaze towards the slow motion walker who does not turn back. 

In Observed Threads, the movement is facilitated by Heather Smith and Samantha Weissbach, and co-choreographed by the performers: Cambre Roberts, Christine Zou, Constanze Villines, Joan Swartwood, Kate Henderson, Lou Chow and Meredith Berlin. The dancing in this piece is gentle and serene, like swirling leaves. The dancers circle and witness each other, sharing phrasework that transforms and passes between them. 

The show closes with Baada Ya Kifo, which is Swahili for “After Death,” choreographed by dani tirrell and artists. A main sonic touchstone of the piece is a recording of “Death Poem” by Alysia Harris. The words “there will come a day when the fear of death will be the favored joke passed among corpses,” are repeated and sonically modulated again and again throughout the dance. As much as death is mentioned in the title and throughout the dance, the piece is very joyous and offers a glimpse at what life could look like if we embrace and stop fearing death. tirrell has time and time again found a way to create a rehearsal process that brings the individual out, while necessitating the collective. In this piece, each dancer is given moments to shine while the rest of the cast holds space, witnesses, and brings the movement into themselves. The dancers are genuinely playing, connecting with each other, with the music, with the audience and with being witnessed. It is always a gift to be shown what can be possible when a collective moves rooted in themselves. 

As an audience, our brains seek familiarity and novelty. Similarly the dancing bodies in space seek organization – adopting shared rhythms and patterns, finding shared attention and unity – just as much as they seek the opposite – finding the incongruities and distinction of self amidst the order. The choreography in all of these pieces oscillated between both edges. Sometimes all the dancers would be moving in shared choreography, together, musicalized, in synchronicity. In other moments, the entire ensemble would be moving to their own rhythms, exploring their own movement pathways, creating a different type of unity, one that comes with the multiplicity inside of a given grouping. 

In each dance, my mind drifted towards the natural patterns we see in geometry, in the ocean, in the plants. Waves, rippling through, with singular pathways, or tumulting with many different vectors at play. The order and disorder of cherry blossoms all falling off the branches during a stormy day, unified in the result, but so different on their journeys through the air and to the ground. Or in the human scale, the crowds at large intersections, waiting and crossing. The way a yawn or a whisper passes through a crowded room.

This is Full Tilt’s 20th year of providing the Seattle community a platform where new and established choreographers can make work for large casts across a wide range of ages and points of their dance careers. While 1621 12th Ave has been Full Tilt’s long-standing home, first as Velocity Dance Center and now as Nod Theatre, Exit Space will be letting go of the venue this June. Evoke Productions has plans for their 21st year to be performed at The Erickson, just a few blocks down in the heart of Capitol Hill. Fumi Murakami, who continues to steer Full Tilt since its founding, is committed to continuing to provide this resource for dancers and choreographers to keep creating work and fostering contemporary dance in Seattle.

Evoke Productions presented Full Tilt April 11-12 2026 at NOD Theater. The program can be viewed HERE.