Here are a few of the NW New Works reviews that have rolled in this week:

Seattlest takes on both the Studio and Mainstage showcases for weekend 2.

The Seattle Weeky reviews the whole festival, with special attention to all the dance.

If the Weekend 2 showcases of NW New Works this year were any indication of Weekend 1, I’m sorry to have been out of town at that time. Way to shake off the shackles of geographic anaemia, northwesterners! What a captivating display of creative vitality.

Sunday night on the mainstage:

The evening begins with It’s Just a Dance by the response. I would say that it’s much more than just a dance, it’s a successful lobby installation. Seeing a good pre-show lobby installation is like spotting a pegasus perched on top of a tree outside your window. All odds are against the performers. It’s Just a Dance was enticing enough to pull me away from milling-about-the-lobby conversation to observe, then the music continued to build, then the two dancers started pulling and throwing each other around the lobby, onto the bar, forcibly breaking up patrons’ conversations through the energy of their activity. They conquered that lobby.

Amelia Reeber and Scott/Powell Performance comprised the first half of the all-dance showcase. Both works had interesting elements of choreography and solid performances, but this juxtaposition brought me to contemplate the use of visual art and costumes in dance. I saw it aid Amelia Reeber’s this is a forgery and detract from Scott/Powell’s work. HOME had some beautiful moments, but I found myself continually pulled away from a connection while I wondered about the significance of the blue lines on the floor or what the costumes were intended to convey.

Leaping momentarily to the last work of the evening to follow this train of thought, zoe | juniper’s work continues to hold a strong awareness encompassing all mediums they work with. Partnering with Holcombe Waller for the music in Old Girl powered some complex twists and turns in the tone of the work. Zoe’s choreography is full of tension, looks wildly uncomfortable, and is continuously emotionally communicative.

Directly preceding zoe | juniper, 605 Collective’s Audible was my favorite work of the evening, and given the audience’s response, I believe I was not alone. Infectious energy, gloriously playful, absolutely precise. I could have watched them for hours, which is fortunate because it looks like this was an excerpt of an hour long work to be premiered in Vancouver, BC in July. Keep it coming.

Friday night in the studio:

Sunday Service: art without contrivance. I know these women, I know that they’re all talented with distinct, compelling personalities, and I knew the basic intent of their Sunday meetings. I was not prepared for them to take their personal, spiritual, musical exploration and turn it into such a compelling and exposing theatre piece. The pacing was flawless and their physical interaction added humor and warmth. I did not grow up with the expectation of following an organized religion put upon me, but there was a universal quality to their testimonies that was intensely emotionally moving. Their work reminded me that vulnerable performance is often the most shocking. It wasn’t a self-indulgent confession, it was a hand extended. And the a capella Bach at the end floored me. Way to create a gem, ladies.

Given my emotional reaction to the first piece and how starkly different it was from the rest of the studio showcase works, it was difficult for me to change gears and accommodate. I did pull my mind back around to note the well-crafted blend of choreography, sound and video work in Jurg Koch | Lyn Goeringer’s ab: from / to. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of this work with the first, contrasting the directly emotionally connective nature of Sunday Service’s piece with an analytic observation; emotional situations seen from the lens of a scientific behavioral study.

The last two pieces in the studio showcase distanced themselves even further from the start of the evening’s program through a sharp focus on satirical social commentary. From Angela Fair’s portrayal of a vapid narcissist having an emotional breakdown while wailing some Nine Inch Nails to Rush-N-Disco’s manic, condensed view into YouTube personalities, the showcase ended with a reminder of the commotion and information overload constantly at our fingertips.

- Kate Ratcliffe

The NWNW mainstage showcase on June 14 was an exciting evening of dance that raised many questions for me as a viewer. The show made me wonder about the relationship between kinesthetic and aesthetic choices, about abstracting the body, about virtuosity and how it can be both invigorating and isolating. I feel that great art should provide more questions than answers so as to inspire inquiry into art and life. I salute all of the participating artists for their work, and On the Boards for continuing to give performance opportunities to the Northwest dance community, a network that is constantly growing in richness and variation.

The evening was opened by Amelia Reeber’s solo work, this is a forgery. Her rich gestural vocabulary was witnessed by a larger than life cosmic cat that pawed at Reeber’s body from a screen upstage. Reeber’s movement was grounded, piercing and deliberate just like her set, a sculptural anchor that rested downstage left. The work was at times funny and touching. It did contain a few modern dance clichés that should be off limits to contemporary artists at this point, such as guttural vocalizations accompanying movement and unwinding ribbons from one’s dancing body. However, these theatrical devices were embodied well by Reeber so one assumes she knows the history of work hers is referencing.

Next on the program was Scott/Powell’s Home. This was the most interesting work I have seen from Scott and Powell. The dancers were costumed and utilized more as individuals than I have seen in their previous work. It inspired me to contemplate the relationship between idiosyncrasy and virtuosity. One of the great invitations of post modern dance is that performers are now able to be themselves while performing virtuosic actions. Rather than dissolving the self into a technical vacuum, skilled contemporary dancers bring their personality and life experience into their ability to create form and manipulate time with their bodies. Ellie Sandstrom is an exemplary performer in this regard. She has long been gracing Scott/Powell’s stage with technical prowess that is effectively embodied in her expression of herself as a unique individual. She sets a high standard for the company. Scott and Powell’s kinesthetic and sonic collaboration met at particularly beautiful points in Home. The dancers were often costumed in plastic that whispered and rustled as they moved, creating a dialogue between the movement and the score.

After intermission, The 605 Collective brought down the house. These five dancers were all costumed in suits and tennis shoes. Though their performance was virtuosic in its own way, the costume choice made it clear that we were watching people dance, not dancers perform. This made the kinesthetic experience of the performers more immediate to the audience, evoking a delicious metakinesis. John Martin coined this term writing about Graham’s work in the mid 20th century. It refers to the physical experience an audience has when watching movement. There have been all kinds of studies done that show we have more of an embodied experience as viewers when we watch people moving whom we can relate to. The relaxed posture that informed The 605 Collective’s group choreography, and the daring athleticism of their partnering, made metakinesis inescapable. The audience found itself swaying and rocking with the formal structures and rhythmic coordination that supported the wild courage of the dancers. I found myself wondering as I watched about how different aesthetics are that come from physical experiences rather than conceptual ideas. It was refreshing to see work that so deftly celebrated the physical, not as a concept, but as a reality that puts performers and audience alike, in touch with gravity, our joints, and each other.

Zoe/Juniper’s work then embodied the exact opposite style of virtuosity. It was a story about dancers. While Old girl contained breathtaking physicality it was of the sort that separates the performers from the audience, transforming the dancers into superhuman beings who live in a separate place from the gravity bound reality of the audience. Scofield has incredible power as a choreographer to manipulate classical form. She is particularly gifted, but victim to that gift. The content of her work is evident in her body, which seems to be possessed by a demonic hunger to move in the extreme ends of its range. This inhuman physicality was supported by the brilliant costume designs of Erik Andor. He created leotards with protrusions along the backs and sides of the dancers. These spikes along with bright green neckpieces abstracted the dancer’s bodies in surprising ways. The dancers appeared to have been stripped of their humanity in the interest of stark aesthetics, a classic story in dance history. The movement wrote a sad story in time, one of individuals consumed by their art, unable to escape the demands of their craft, even after the lights go out. Old girl is both evocative and heartbreaking.

It is exciting to see how many talented performers there are in the Northwest. This Festival continues to be a gift to Seattle and the region not only because of what it offers to the performing artists, but also for the diversity and stimulation it offers to the audience.

-Catherine Cabeen

Alice Gosti | Hit Me

This video was only available for the duration of the 2009 NWNW Festival.

BASE Movement Theatre | Drop Your Art

This video was only available for the duration of the 2009 NWNW Festival.

Stotler Ludwig Kioe | One

This video was only available for the duration of the 2009 NWNW Festival.

Two out of two local magazines agree that the NW New Works Festival is a thing to check out:

Steve Wiecking at Seattle Met recommends a couple NW New Works artists in his weekend round up.

Seattle Mag calls the festival “overwhelmingly good stuff” as pasrt of their “Weekend Must List.”

Vital 5 has a few pictures from last Friday’s protest of performance art here at OtB (part of their Aribitrary Art Grant series). Check it out and read about how the winner was arbitrarily chosen.

Here’s a couple of the reviews that have rolled in so far:

“God Save the Queen” – Brendan Kiley on Slog:

“Shmooquan’s heart beats pure entertainment—glittery, gaudy, and shameless.”

“NW New Works, Week 1: the Studio Showcase” – Jeremy Barker on Seattlest:

“Helsinki Syndrome produces experiences, not just shows, performances that actively engage (and frequently trip-up) their audiences.”

Tanja Liedtke’s construct received 2 major accolades at the Australian Dance Awards last weekend – for outstanding acheivements in choreography and in independent dance. Kristina Chan was also awarded the prize for best female dancer.

Read about the awards in The Age’s article “Dance awards honour the dead.”

Congrats to the construct crew!