Danceworks Performance Company is a Milwaukee laboratory and showcase for inter-arts performance. “Intersect,” running Nov. 15-24 at the Danceworks Studio Theatre (1661 N. Water St.), will offer five such world premieres.
Product of Distance is the work of choreographers Christina Briggs Winslow and Edward Winslow, composer Tim Russell, video artist Katelyn Price and DPC’s resident dancers. This is Briggs Winslow’s third year as visiting professor at UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts dance program. Her husband is a freelance dancer, choreographer, designer and puppet maker. They have virtually moved to Milwaukee.
This performance grew from a UWM symposium the couple conducted with Russell and others last spring about multi-disciplinary performance. Russell, the premier composer for modern dance in Milwaukee, speaks of a search for “musical empathy” with dancers. His newest composition is rhythm driven and employs sounds such as the voices of children playing, “to create a human element using synthesized sound,” he said.
Winslow built a giant, floorless pup tent that hangs from the ceiling to provide a metaphoric personal space for dancers and a screen for Price’s subliminal flash images. The choreography is abstracted from personal material and reflects the couple’s style, Winslow said.
The title Um, ok... Now Let’s Move On repeats a phrase that flutist Emma Koi used as she played a fortune telling game with cellist Alicia Storin and dancer Christal Wagner, her co-founders in Cadence Collective. They recorded the game on a whim last spring. Koi and Storin have turned the cadences and rhythms of their voices into music for flute and cello to which Wagner choreographed a duet for herself and DPC’s Melissa Anderson. Koi calls the music “a study on thought.” For Wagner, the dancing adds comic irony to a work built on wondering “What will become of me?”
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“Intersect” also includes premieres by choreographers Gina Laurenzi and Laura Murphy with, respectively, composer/engineer Matt Martell and composer/vocalist Amanda Schoofs, the latter teamed with musicologists Steve Schlei, Trevor Saint and David Collins; and Laws and Logic by DPC’s Artistic Director Dani Kuepper with the company, on rules and breaking them.
For information, call 414-277-8480, ext. 6025 or visit danceworksmke.org.
TAGS: Danceworks Performance Company, John Schneider, Danceworks Studio Theatre, Product of Distance, Christina Briggs Winslow, Edward Winslow, Tim Russell, Katelyn Price, UW-Milwaukee, Peck School of the Arts, Um, ok... Now Let’s Move On, Emma Koi, Alicia Storin, Christal Wagner, Cadence Collective, Melissa Anderson, Intersect, Gina Laurenzi, Laura Murphy, Matt Martell, Amanda Schoofs, Steve Schlei, Trevor Saint, David Collins, Laws and Logic, Dani Kuepper
