WORKS

I’d rather go to the movies

Created by Maria Blanco + dancers
Danced by Deja Hood, Diamond Gant, Alix Schillaci, Sarah Ellen Miller, Lucy Williams, Jaylen Ray, Chloe Hamilton, Maddy McCarthy + Reign Winker
Costumes: Izzy Jackson
Music from Quincy Jones, Wilson Pickett, Nancy Sinatra, The Champs + Barbara Streisand

Coming to terms with my own habits, repressed experiences, and ignored pain, I present an homage to my childhood self through my most memorable and favorite movies from childhood. Making a dance that is dripping in play, my past (and present?) ideas of happiness, and the radical acceptance of my own lived experiences is my way of taking back my power while creating a more sustainable life for myself in the future. The past sees pain, joy, uncertainty, comfort and discomfort, hustle and fear, instability and chaos. The future is free, viable, quiet, restful, honest, contently sad, and prioritizes her own damn self. In giving myself the permission to move forward, I present, I’d rather go to the movies, because most of the time, I would rather be doing that.

~ and I thought of you

Created by Sarah Ellen Miller in collaboration with performers Chloe Hamilton, Deja Hood, Alix Schillaci, + Lucy Williams
Costumes: Ella Frauenhofer + Jean Elliot
Music from Tonic Walter, First Touch, Codebreaker, + French 79

In our first rehearsal, I asked these artists what their sustainable, long lasting relationships have in common. What work do they require? How do they feel when a relationship is truly feeding/fueling/supporting both people?

Tonight, we have an offering for you: An honoring of the way we choose to invest in those we love and build bonds that can withstand the unexpected. I hope you see and feel something familiar, that reminds you of your sister, your lover, your aunt, your best friend. In many ways, people are all that we have. Let’s hold them close, give them room to grow, whisper sweetness in their ear, let them see who we really are.

In an industry so saturated with abusive people and practices, how do we as working professionals reclaim our relationship with dance? How do we reclaim our relationship with our bodies? What parts of our dance histories do we hold close to our hearts, and what parts must we reject and rebel against? How do we support ourselves and each other in the deconstruction of our histories and the reconstruction of a new dance world? How do we keep our love for dance sacred? How do we keep our love for dance sustainable?

Donning their favorite rehearsal outfits as if they are luxe couture, the dancers navigate these questions through the lens of their personal dance histories as well as the choreographer's ever-changing, ever-tumultuous, joy-inspiring, and rage-filled relationship with dance.

Ghosts vs. Angels

Created by Maddy McCarthy + dancers
Danced by Deja Hood, Diamond Gant, Alix Schillaci, Sarah Ellen Miller, Lucy Williams, Jaylen Ray, Chloe Hamilton + Reign Winker
Textile piece by Maddy McCarthy
Music from Pink Floyd

journal entry - October 24th 5:09pm:

“I have to wonder if all this time i was scared, was I scared of ghosts or angels?
I thought it was ghosts. that’s what kept me up all night, at least. The thought that i’d open my eyes and see something shapeless yet sinister looming over me. that in a blink it would be gone. and in another it would be back. that chaos, that unpredictability, that chance that reality itself could come undone at any instant is what kept me wide-eyed, heart pounding all night while all i wanted was sleep. Ironic then, that when i grew up and had a chance to create my own life, that i built it to be chaotic and unpredictable. i created a life that kept me wide-eyed, heart pounding just like those many terrifying nights when I was younger. danger was comfortable. or at least familiar.
I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. i was exhausted, stripped bare, forced open, all spilled out. That’s when I started to wonder, what am i really afraid of? Ghosts or angels?
I was comfortable with fear. i was much less equipped for grace. i feel safe filled up with panic. it’s terrifying to invite in peace.
how do we become more familiar with love than fear? how do we learn to trust peace more than panic? consistency more than chaos? angels more than ghosts?”

Using a sustainable textile piece made from scraps of other handmade rugs, the dancers make real-time choices exploring the spectrum of safety/attachment to danger/disregulation, and community/belonging to isolation/individualism.

Trash Babylon

Choreography: Alix Schillaci, in collaboration with the cast
Danced by Deja Hood, Maddy McCarthy, + Lucy Williams
Costumes by Alix Schillaci
Sound Editing: Josh Stanley
Music: Wouldn’t It Be Nice / The Beach Boys, The Rip / Portishead, Car Crash / Idles, Born to Be Alive / Patrick Hernandez, I’m Not Your Dog / Baxter Dury

Trash Babylon is an origin story. After a glittering birth- giant and magical femme creatures emerge to roam a post-climate-disaster Earth. Tasked with caring for what and who are left they must build a reimaged, sustainable world from the trash and love leftover. Before the work can begin however, they must learn for themselves if they are heroes or villains.

This first draft is the result of in-studio conversation and movement building exploring death anxiety, aging, decay, unstoppable change, and a cultural obsession with youth; as well as rebirth, reinvention, and how to maintain a sense of ourselves as we change and the world changes. We started by asking: "What hurts? What’s scary? What would help?"