Choreographer Catey Ott Thompson will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Catey Ott Dance Collective with five works choreographed during the last year for her company dancers and other collaborators from Milwaukee and New York City. The show’s entertaining title, 3rd eye (i) Conscious/idiosyncratic ideology with integrity, is a fair description of its content. Individual dances reference Buddhist philosophy, Jungian psychology, the artistic manifestos of modern dance pioneers Ruth St. Denis, Yvonne Rainer and Douglas Dunn, and the vision of its maker. For the performances on June 27 and 28, Ott Thompson will stage the five works back to back in an uninterrupted stream of consciousness.
“The idea of a collective unconscious is something I can’t get away from,” she says. “My work is personal but I find non-loneliness in it.”
Ott Thompson left Milwaukee in 1995 for NYC. There, she studied, taught, performed and made dances. She returned in 2005 for an MFA from UW-Milwaukee and founded her company here as part of that study. She moved her company back to New York, gathered dancers and created original works for illustrious venues while continuing to perform for such distinguished choreographers as Heidi Latsky. Latsky introduced her to composer Randall Woolf, whose beautifully complex music will underscore the anniversary concert. In 2012, her young son in tow, Ott Thompson returned here to join the faculties of Milwaukee Ballet School and Academy, Marquette University and Danceworks. She’s a frequent guest artist with area artistic and educational institutions. This concert is her 20th self-produced program of original work.
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3rd eye (i) Conscious will open and close with dances performed by Ott Thompson and her current Milwaukee dancers. The choreography is personal and abstract; the themes are spiritual and psychological. “You have a whole house inside of you,” she says, “and sometimes it has to be cleaned.” Her New York dance company will reassemble for “Life is (No) Daffodil,” inspired by William Wordsworth’s poem “Daffodils” and Langston Hughes’ poem “Mother To Son/Life for Me Ain’t Been no Crystal Stair.”
Milwaukee performance artist Kim Miller will join Ott Thompson in reading and reacting to impassioned writings by groundbreaking choreographers from 1920 to 1990. With dancers from Milwaukee Ballet II and Milwaukee Ballet Academy, the company will present Ott Thompson’s “Phoenix: Falling to Rise Again,” inspired by high school student artworks. It asks how many deaths and rebirths we have in our lives.
Intrigued? Get your tickets here.
Performances will be on Saturday, June 27 at 6 and 8 p.m., and on Sunday, June 28 at 2 p.m. at Danceworks Studio Theater, 1661 N. Water St. For tickets, call 414-277-8480 ext. 6025 or visit danceworksmke.org.
