Laurie Sefton never fails to wake up one’s gray cells. Her work is abstract but just below the surface there is always an investigation into what is taking place in our society. During the COVID pandemic, Sefton’s work Breath investigated how climate change has increased diseases that effect our health. How we treat one another showed up in Bully and following the 2017 election of Donald Trump, her work Supremacy Ride exposed how politics had divided friends and families. At L.A. Dance Project on Friday, February 21, 2025, Laurie Sefton Creates presented three works that also dove beneath the surface where truths often go in an attempt to hide.
Created in 2024, Choose the face that best describes how you’re feeling is Sefton’s latest choreographic work. Here she asks, ‘How are you today? This moment? Are you being honest or just wearing a mask?’ The movement is all Sefton; quirky, angular, with technically challenging dance phrases made even more difficult by ever moving arm, hand and facial gestures.
Laurie Sefton Creates – cast of “Choose the Face that best describes how you’re feeling”, choreography by Laurie Sefton – Photo by Denise Leitner.
On this night, Sefton’s choreography was performed to almost perfection by her company’s dance artists Carmen Callahan, Leah Hamel, Enya Kollek, Harry Louis, Leah McCall, Zachary Medina and Jane Zogbi performing to an intense and sometimes earth vibrating original composition by Erika Poh and Sasha Matson.
The work was stark with primarily solos and duets broken up intermittently with a quartet or sextet. Even when the stage was occupied by the entire cast dressed identically in grey pants and white flowing shirts, Choose the face that best describes how you’re feeling appeared sparse with the performers isolated from each other’s true state of mind.
Music used by special permission of the composers: Section 1 – I-5, Grapevine by Sasha Matson, Section 2 – I’m not by Erika Poh. Costumes by Laurie Sefton.
Laurie Sefton Creates – L-R Megan Pulfer, Zachary Medina, Leah Hamel in “More Please”, choreography by Laurie Sefton – Photo by Denise Leitner.
After a lengthy pause, dancers Carmen Callahan, Hunter Foster, Leah Hamel, Zachary Medina, and Megan Pulfer performed in Sefton’s 2014 work titled More Please, a piece that Sefton transformed her unique movement style into standoffish sensuality. All but one performer was dressed in black with firey red trim. Costume designer Velwyn Yossy, however, dressed Leah Hamel in a sexy costume that brought to mind images of Solome’s dance of the seven veils before King Herod Antipas in the New Testament story of the Feast of Herod and the execution of John the Baptist.
Although I very much enjoyed More Please, the work felt incomplete; almost as if what we saw was only an excerpt from a longer work.
The music for More Please was Section 1 – Down with the Sickness composed by System of a Down and performed by the Vitamin String Quartet, Section 2 Dark Stuff by Yann Tierson.
The Mythology of Self is a work that I have now seen three times and not only do I never tire of it, but each time I see more and each new cast member brings yet another interpretation to their role. Brava to Sefton for allowing her dance artists to bring themselves into this beautiful, haunting and multi-media work inspired by what she witnessed on social media during the COVID pandemic.
Anyone observing this work cannot help but recognize themselves or someone who they follow on whatever social media platform they use. A gender shifting woman who dons a mustache and expresses her masculine side. A flamboyant man takes the opportunity to remove all barriers. A beauty queen who can only flirt and parade in front of her camera but in real life might be seen very differently. And a fearless woman who challenges another woman who is a total introvert.
Laurie Sefton Creates – Hunter Foster, Enya Kollek, Leah McCall, Megan Pulfer and Jane Zogbi in “Mythology of Self”, choreography by Laurie Sefton – Photo by Denise Leitner.
Sefton uses original music by Emer Kinsella, Bryan Curt Kostors and Victoria Vasta along with the beautiful but eerie vocals by Carmen Voskhul to separate these five individuals into their own private environments. The brilliant costumes by Leon Weibers wonderfully describe how these people wants to be seen. And finally, the incredible use of photographer Adrien Padilla and visual artists German Diaz and Paige Twyman that capture both the social and internalized self of each persona.
All the dancers who performed on this concert were excellent, but I must give special mention to Leah Hamel who is dancing her best right now, to the amazingly gifted and passionate Zachary Medina, and to the truly exquisite Megan Pulfer whose dancing I have greatly missed.
The cast of The Mythology of Self was Hunter Foster, Enya Kollek, Leah McCall, Megan Pulfer and Jane Zogbi. Other artists included Photographer Adrien Padilla, Visual Artists German Diaz and Paige Twyman, Original music by Emer Kinsella, Bryan Curt Kostors and Victoria Vasta, Original vocals by Carmen Voskhul, and Costumes by Leon Weibers.
Sefton’s work is always powerful, intriguing and beautifully performed. In the past, however, her choreography suffered from the movement being so difficult and intricate that it was hard to see and restricted the dancers’ freedom. This latest concert, however – especially The Mythology of Self – proves that Sefton as now mastered her style.
For more information about Laurie Sefton Creates, please visit their website.
For more information about L.A. Dance Project, please visit their website.
Written by Jeff Slayton for LA Dance Project.
Featured image: Laurie Sefton Creates – Choose the Face that best describes how you’re feeling, choreography by Laurie Sefton – Photo by Denise Leitner.
