SPOTLIGHT: NAPHTALI ANN
“Dancing in my 40s now, personal challenges, and post-pandemic life has led me to search for what I am really passionate about and find joy in.”
“Dancing in my 40s now, personal challenges, and post-pandemic life has led me to search for what I am really passionate about and find joy in.”
Veteran choreographer Mary Sheldon Scott discusses her decades-long visual art practice, her debut exhibition at the Behnke Gallery, and the lucky accidents that inform her work.
Joining the ranks of Pacific Northwest Ballet in 2021, they’ve also performed for Amanda Morgan with The Seattle Project and in the local Ballroom scene. Follow this exciting new artist, Zsilas Michael Hughes!
“I really relish dramatic work that allows you to lose yourself. Dance is such a unique space where we have the opportunity to transform ourselves into characters, animals, the elements, mystical beings, or even abstract states of being.”
“I’m willing to try anything and talk about anything in rehearsal. You need a lot of trust in a rehearsal process to make the project successful and I have figured out how to keep myself open to things to help create that environment.”
“At times we lend each other our sadness so that we can remember how to stand up. Carrying it all on our own will make us crumble. This ignited in me the desire to turn to community and start creating work through the support it offered me.”
“I work in a highly collaborative process. I care very much about the perspectives that dancers and performers share and try to create dialogue around whatever concept we are working with…the intention is at the forefront of the piece.”
“I read, watched, contemplated, listened, talked-to, and asked a whole lot about birds. I explored movement from the idea of their locomotion and flight patterns; I went deep into the structure of feathers…” Read more about Zara Martina Lopez’s inspiration in this Spotlight Q&A!
Deepali Jamwal’s studio Live2Dance opened just before the pandemic. They celebrate the thriving community that aided the studio’s survival with an all night Dance-a-thon this Friday.
With 30 years experience making dance work in Seattle, Peggy Piacenza talks process, history, working slowly, and the beginnings of something new.