On June 2nd and 3rd at 8:30 pm, REDCAT will present seven Los Angeles artists for Studio: Spring 2019, a showcase of works-in-progress. The series that REDCAT refers to as Studio is presented quarterly and features new works and works-in-progress to showcase innovative artists in dance, theater, music and multimedia performance. For spring 2019, Studio was programmed by guest curators Miwa Matreyek (animator, director, designer and performer living in Los Angeles) and Meena Murugesan (experimental choreographer, performer, video artist, and arts educator). The evening will feature works by FISH TO BIRDS, Drew Denny, Jasmine Lin, Lindsey Lollie (lollieworks), Marina Magalhães, Rian James Alcid, and Sadie Yarrington.
Born in Altadena, California, Lindsey Lollie studied at California Institute of the Arts where she met several of her collaborators. She has performed in collaboration with CARLON, is a currently a dancer with szalt dance co., and is the founder of lollieworks. Lollie’s work has been presented at numerous venues including the Electric Lodge, Pieter Performance Space and on the 2019 FRINGE festival at Diavolo Performance Space. For Studio: Spring 2019, Lollie will present Wind Down which is performed in front of giant electric fans and set to a sound score by Grammy Award-winning composer Alex Wand. Wind Down “explores containment and PTSD whilst on the path to recovery and freedom”.
Drew Denny will present Asking For It, an introspective work is “a multimedia first-person exploration of domestic violence and partner abuse.” Denny exposes how people are conditioned to be the victim or the abuser the problems of “dismantling that paradigm”. Denny is an out lesbian film/maker, whose her first film won Best Feature, Best First Feature and Best Cinematography during a run of film festivals, earning her a spot in The Advocate’s “40 Under 40″ list. She has since directed six documentary episodes for the launch of Vice’s “Broadly”, followed by a documentary for CNN and one that followed a troupe of drag queen nuns titled QUEER HABITS. Denny is passionate about focusing on women, people of color and the LGBTQ communities.
For Muscle Memory, Los Angeles based performer/choreographer Sadie Yarrington will use the audience as a chorus while she “investigates body memory, how moments in time live in the body and how their retelling has a physical response”. Yarrington’s work has been presented at The American Theatre of Actors in New York, Brand Library & Arts Center, Moss Theater and the Bootleg Theater to name a few. An avid educator, Yarrington on faculty at Inner-City Arts, the New Roads School in Santa Monica, and teaches workshops that honor the physical and neurological diversity of each group. She is also a company member of Invertigo Dance Theatre.
Marina Magalhães describes herself as “a border-crosser, bridge-builder, and dance-and-change-maker from Brazil”. Now a resident of Los Angeles, Magalhães’ work has been performed in the US, Brazil, Cuba, Botswana, South Africa, and France, she was the recipient of an LA Weekly Theater Award for Best Choreographer. For Studio: Spring 2019, Magalhães will present a new duet titled Apoio | Support that draws from Latinx diaspora ancestral dances of the Orixás (the divine forces of nature), samba, merengue, and dance hall. Apoio | Support will be performed to the sound of the dancer’s movement and breath, and features poetry by Afro-Brazilian poet Conceição Edvaristo titled Fêmea-Fênix (Female-Phoenix).
Taiwanese American artist born, raised and based in Los Angeles, JASMINE LIN 林思穎 tells their* (* the artist’s preferred use of pronoun) tales “with and alongside hybrid forms of temporal consciousness and cultural memory, and identity. Having begun dance at an early age, Lin has directed and choreographed for the dance troupe known as ACA and their choreography and films have been presented in numerous venues including the Los Angeles Contemporary Archive, Nous Tous Community Gallery, the British Museum, and Kassel Dokfest. Lin utilizes a ritualistic repetition of Chinese morning exercise called zão cão to “purge the body of oppressive socialized choreographies” in their work titled Morning Exorcise. The piece pulls from Japanese Butoh and documentary theatre to “create a transgressive alternative addressing the experiences, histories, and traumas of their queer body of color”.
Rian James Alcid is currently a Sophomore Dance major at the UCLA World Arts and Culture/Dance department. He has been applying his research on the conflicts of male stereotypes within the arts and looking at how that affects boys who interact with dance. As part of his continuing research, Alcid has brought together four young male-identified dancers for a work titled Manecdotes and uses an absorbing sound score that syncopates with the choreographic language assembled during interviews discussing the cast’s experiences as dancers.
FISH TO BIRDS is a seven-person a cappella improvisational vocal collective formed in 2012. The group creates its spontaneous compositions by blending together their individual talents as singers and musicians and has performed in venues that include the Blue Whale, Catalina Jazz Club, Skirball Cultural Center and Vitello’s. For Studio: Spring 2019, the group will be performing an improvised work titled Organized Chaos. The group’s soundscapes “blend their unique mix of music backgrounds – jazz, European classical, Senegalese mbalax, Pinoy music (which has its origins in Philippine folk music) – mixing languages and ideas that shift from performer to performer depending on the moment on stage.”
Studio: Spring 2019 promises to be a very diverse and exciting evening of dance, film and performance art. The production runs June 2 & 3, 2019 at 8:30 pm in REDCAT, located at 631 W 2nd St, Los Angeles, CA 90012 inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex. For information and tickets, click here.
Featured image: lollieworks – Wind Down – Photo courtesy of the artist
