looking back | looking ahead
Today is Mother’s Day (call yo mama!) and it also marks one year since our debut show “For the Love”. Held at our rehearsal home Open Door Studios, the show had a blackbox feel, cramming about 80 audience members & a dozen dancers in a space roughly 30×40 square feet… TWICE! For our first solo show (well, we had some appearances by friends Arlynn Zachary of The MARK Dance Company and Caitlyn Swett of Triptych Collective) it was a huge success and we walked away beaming, proud, and feeling loved. It was the start of something good..
But today also marks one month UNTIL our next show, Dance Under the City Sounds. This time we will be occupying The Chop Shop, a music and performance venue that holds crowds in the upper hundreds and hosts some of the biggest-name bands that come through the Charlotte area. While we are projecting attendance in the lower hundreds (but, still!) and may not be as well known as say, St. Paul & The Broken Bones (who packed that place out!) we are pretty damn excited. Even more exciting is the fact that we are partnering with musical duo Bless These Sounds Under the City and phographer extraordinaire Sara Woodmansee for this show (and hopefully more!). To try to explain how amazing these folks are would not do them justice. Just last night I was trying to describe to someone what BTSUTC sounds like, and I found myself getting tounge -tied. I can’t even call them a “band” because they are so much more; they are artists, creaters, true originals who are not afraid to let their influences be heard, but have a sound unmistakably all their own. You can listen for yourself here. And Sara, well she makes things that you thought were mundane, ugly, or already beautiful… absolutely stunning. Check out her project Beautiful Badlands, and YES, she shot this footage. Obviously, we are in good company.
If you are reading this, you probably already know what we do, so I don’t have to toot our horn for you. (If you haven’t experienced us in action, I’ll see you June 11th!) Actually, I’ll go ahead and say we’ll see you there regardless of who you are, because you will not want to miss it. I am not kidding when I say this show has been the most daunting, gratifying, fun, and inspiring project I have had the pleasure and insanity to take on in my career as a dancer and choreographer. All 14 artists involved are amazing individuals, who I could not be more proud to call my co-collaborators and friends. As the poster says, Dance Under the City Sounds is going to be “an evening of movement, music, and mayhem”, but also of making memories. BE THERE.