VASHON, WA: Kinesis Project dance theatre presents a Treasure Hunt Special Performance of "Search(Light)"
Company:
Kinesis Project dance theatre
Kinesis Project dance theatre, along with Vashon Center for the Arts, Vashon Park District, John C. Robinson, and Laurie Geissinger, presents a special treasure hunt dance performance of Search(Light) on August 22, 2021 at 5:30pm (5pm arrival) on Vashon Island.
Kinesis Project is known in NYC and Seattle for creating large-scale and surprisingly intimate dances in unusual spaces. Choreographer Melissa Riker has placed three sections of the company's newest work, Search(Light), in three beautifully different, undisclosed Vashon Island locations. Guests will begin their dance adventure at VCA and will be given a map and directions to find each subsequent performance location.
For more information and to reserve a ticket, visit vashoncenterforthearts.org/event/treasure-hunt.
Tickets
$35 for the Heron Meadow performance only
$75 to see all three outdoor performances (dinner not included)
$125 to see all three outdoor performances with a picnic dinner and wine at the last location
*Groups of four or more can receive a 10% discount via the VCA Box Office, by calling 206-259-3007, Wednesday-Sunday 12 noon - 5pm.
At each site, dancers will invite interactions, play with perspective, and use light to create connections. Audience members, guided by the dancers and facilitators, will experience Kinesis Project's signature blend of surprise, delight, adventure, and introspection. At the final location, guests who have purchased the picnic dinner will be offered picnic boxes and wine from a collector's cellar.
Guests are asked to arrive for the performance at 5pm. Good walking shoes are suggested. There will be accommodations for those needing accessibility options at each location. Please make a note for accommodations with ticket purchase or call the box office.
“Search(Light) is a work of connection; it is about invisible threads made visible and many kinds of light,” said Melissa Riker, artistic director of Kinesis Project dance theatre. “Kinesis is a large-scale dance company, and as we are gently stepping out of some very challenging times for live performance and performers, we are finding joy in the adventure of our work. We are thrilled to be partnering with such amazing hosts and supporters to bring our west coast audiences a gorgeous, inspiring, one-time experience on Vashon Island!”
Search(Light) is Kinesis Project dance theatre’s newest work in development, originally inspired by an experience Riker had six years ago when she witnessed a full pier of squid jigging, a type of fishing, in Seattle. Enthralled with the lights from the dock reflected off of the water, beautifully caught in a chaotic, mesmerizing rhythm of fishing lines, Riker had the inkling of an idea.
As it is developing now, Search(Light) draws from the science of light, as well as how we connect, how we are pulled in, how light guides and informs, and how light, connection, and distance intertwine. Riker and the dancers have been developing the vocabulary of the work since November 2019, workshopping the connectedness of light and dancing of the piece by being in person and then when the global pandemic hit in 2020, shifting to Zoom and then cross-country, real-time live stream to keep the full company in collaboration.
Search(light) is set to premiere in NYC at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on October 9 and 10, 2021 in partnership with Vashon Center for the Arts, Vashon Island, WA.
The New York cast includes Claudia-Lynn Rightmire, Therese Ronco, David L. Parker, Sumaya Mulla-Carrillo, and Nicole Truzzi. The Seattle cast includes Kimberly Holloway, Hendri Walujo, Robert Moore, Margaret Behm, and Madeline Morser.
Search(Light) in 2020 and 2021 has been made possible in part through partnerships with Brooklyn Navy Yard and Vashon Center for the Arts, Dance/NYC Covid Relief Grant, Shuttered Venues Operators Grant, Indie Theatre Fund, John C. Robinson, Emily and Tony Seaver, Amerigo Falciani and Melissa Graule, and many generous individuals.
Along the east side of the VCA campus lies the Heron Meadow. This two-acre wetland forms part of the eastern headwaters of Judd Creek, our islands’ largest salmon-bearing creek. In 2019, Vashon Center for the Arts and Vashon Nature Center created a partnership to restore this wetland meadow to become a sanctuary for native wildlife and a demonstration site for how to enhance wildlife habitat. It is also a field-based office for Vashon Nature Center and a community gathering spot where the confluence of science, art, and community can thrive in nature!
Melissa Riker is Artistic Director and Choreographer of Kinesis Project dance theatre. She is a New York City dancer and choreographer who emerged as a strong performance and creative voice as the NYC dance and circus worlds combined during the 90s. Riker’s dances and aesthetic layer her training as a classical dancer, martial artist, theatre choreographer and aerial performer. She creates dances on site - and in context. Riker invents large-scale out-door performances and spontaneous moments of dance for individuals and corporate clients. Audiences and critics have called Riker’s work “a Marx Brothers’ routine with soul,” “A movable feast.” And from The New York Times, her choreography is: “comically acrobatic, gracefully classical, visually arresting.”
Kinesis Project is a dance organization that creates dance as public art, facilitates educational programs and produces site-specific performances with diverse communities. A company at the forefront of the international discussion of placemaking, art engagement and the cultural imperative of art in public space, Kinesis Project dance theatre invents large scale, space-changing, breath-taking experiences.
In 2020 Riker kept Kinesis Project working and creating consistently on both coasts thanks in part to COVID Relief Grants from Dance/NYC, the Indie Theatre Fund and generous donors.
The company live-streamed multiple performances from Riverside Park South presented by Summer on the Hudson and has continued creating and developing Search(Light) on both coasts.
Since 2005, Kinesis Project’s work has been experienced in San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Vermont, Florida and in New York City at such venerable venues as Danspace Project, Judson Church, Joyce Soho, The Minskoff Theatre, The Cunningham Studio, West End Theatre and Dixon Place. In 2019, the company’s work was experienced in Seattle, Brooklyn, NY, Riverside Park, supported by New York City Parks, and in Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island. The company dances outside in sculpture gardens, universities, and annually since 2006 in Battery Park’s Bosque Gardens and The Cloisters Lawn as well as hosting more than 30 surprise performances all over New York City and the tri-state area as an element of the company’s earned income and outreach programming with volunteer populated flash mobs. Residencies include: Earthdance 2006, Omi International Arts Center 2008, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center 2011, TheaterLab 2014, Adelphi University 2014. Ms. Riker is a 2016, 2017 and 2019 CUNY Dance Initiative Residency Fellow, 2015 LMCC Community Arts Fund grantee, 2019 Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Grantee. In 2020 Riker and Kinesis Project received a Dance/NYC COVID Recovery Grant and Indie Theatre Fund Recovery Grant. She has been commissioned by The Brooklyn Botanic Garden for a surprise large-scale work and performances of her work Secrets and Seawalls at Omi International Arts Center, Long House Reserve, Gateway National Park in partnership with Rockaways Artist Alliance. Ms. Riker has received commissions from Carson Fox and the Ephemeral Festival in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 for large-scale outdoor events, NYU in 1998, for an outdoor work long before “flash mob” was coined, 2006 and 2008 grants from the Puffin Foundation for her work Community Movements, a dance work with community volunteers, Fellowships from the Dodge Foundation, Space Grant Residencies from 92nd St Y, The New 42nd St Studio, Gibney Dance Center, and The Joyce Theatre Foundation, and grants from The Bowick Family Trust and John C. Robinson to support the continued work of Kinesis Project dance theatre.
Pictured: Kristin Lee and Sumaya Garrett Parker in "Search(Light)"
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