Heather Kravas
The Green Surround
Heather Kravas upends the effortful, immodest, non-sequential physicality of 9 women and the practice of perfection. Through repetition and the endless rhythmic possibilities of classical and anti-classical movement, text, and atmospheric sound, individuality oozes from the cracks of a stoic mass as the facade of idealised beauty is broken.
Performed by: Laurie Berg, Milka Djordjevich, Cecilia E., Carolyn Hall, Lyndsey Karr, Sarah Beth Percival, Liz Santoro, Antonietta Vicario, Elizabeth Ward
Choreography & Direction: Heather Kravas
Performance Advisor & Eye: Rebecca Brooks
Composer & Sound Design: Vorhees aka Dana Wachs
Scenography: Jason Starkie
Lighting Design: Madeline Best
Costume Constructor: Maria Garcia
Heather Kravas grew up in Pullman, WA where, under the tutelage of Deirdre Wilson, she studied classical ballet and the experimental theater exercises of Jerzy Grotowski. In the early 90’s, she moved to Seattle, incorporating modern and improvisation techniques with teachers Joan Skinner, Hannah Wiley and Stephanie Skura. As a young performer, she co-founded the repertory company D-9 and danced with Amii LeGendre. Also in Seattle, she created her first dances in collaborations with Maureen Whiting, Karn Junkinsmith and Jack Magai. An independent artist working, and working to work in New York City since 1998, she has performed for Marion Ballester, Jennifer Allen, Amy Cox, Yvonne Meier, and most significantly, DD Dorvillier, whose work she continues to tour. In Spring 2010 she was part of MoMA’s retrospective, Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present. In 1999, as the nono twins, Kravas and cellist Okkyung Lee began an investigation of emotionally charged, repetitive improvisations that they performed frequently at experimental music venues in NYC. From 2003-2008, Kravas collaborated with Canadian/European artist, Antonija Livingstone, generating several works, including two, multi-evening performance events,XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX – a situation for dancing. And (no more village), both exhibited at international theaters and festivals throughout the US, Canada and Europe. Her work has been presented at MR @ Judson Church, the Kitchen, DTW, Tonic, On the Boards, Kaaistudios (Brussels), City of Women (Ljubljana), Springdance (Moscow), Festival TransAmerique (Montreal), Festival Antipodes (Brest) and Chez Bushwick and awarded support from Washington State Arts Commission, Bossak-Heilbron Charitable Foundation, the Yard, f.u.s.e.d., and the CCN de Franche-Comte a Belfort. Heather lives and works between New York, Seattle, and Montesquieu-Volvestre, France.
Madeline Best (Light Design)Madeline Best designs dances, installations, lighting and video and is the Production Manager at the Chocolate Factory Theater. Best graduated from Bennington College, grew up in Durham NC and currently lives in Brooklyn NY. She has designed lights for Luciana Achugar’s Bessie award winning PURO DESEO, Neal Nedlyn, Milka Djordjevich/Chris
Peck and Len Jenkin. Performance experience includes work on The Chocolate Factory Theater’s 2010 Resident Project Selective Memory (with Brian Rogers) as well as work with Choreographer Juliana
May/MayDance.
Vorhees (Sound Design) Vorhees is the nom de guerre of Dana Wachs, an audio engineer, musician, and sound designer, based in New York City. Vorhees began as a recording project in 2005, focusing on creating analogue textures and soundscapes for extended ambient listening sessions based on memories of childhood and teenage excursions to the Pine Barrens of South Jersey. Recordings, and now live performance, has evolved into more contemporary song structures while retaining her original ambient experiments, rejecting any assistance from a laptop. Ms. Wachs has applied her skill and artistry in music and audio production to world tours of Internationally acclaimed musicians such as Cat Power, MGMT, M.I.A., Lykke Li, and St. Vincent to name but a few, as well as in Greene Street Recording Studios, (now defunct birthplace of classic albums by Public Enemy, Run-DMC, Sonic Youth, and New Order). She has also acted as a consultant for Visionaire Magazine’s SOUND issue, sound design for NY Fashion Week designers Rachel Comey, Imitation of Christ, Y + Kei, Wink, Sebastian Pons and Jess Holzworth, and her composition “Condensor” featured in a short film by the SOMNUS collective for their 2008 F/W presentation. Vorhees continues to record and perform with recordings planned for release the summer of 2011.
Rebecca Brooks is a dance artist and Alexander Technique teacher based in NYC. Recent performance work includes projects with Marina Abramovic, Amanda Loulaki, Jillian Pena, Katy Pyle, robbinschilds, and Kathy Westwater, and next month she will be performing in a work by Susan Rethorst at Danspace Project. Her own performance works have been presented throughout NYC. Rebecca has taught classes in the Alexander Technique at Balance Arts Center, CLASSCLASSCLASS, Movement Research, the Fieldston School and the American Dance Festival, and she also teaches privately. BA, Sarah Lawrence College; Co-founder, AUNTS; co-curator, Movement Research Festival Spring 2007: Reverence (Irreverence); Program and Event Manager, Movement Research; Artistic Director, Rockbridge Artist Exchange. www.rebeccakelleybrooks.com
Jason Starkie, visual artist, studied painting in the late 80’s in San Francisco at the Art Institute and has had studios in Chicago, Seattle, New York, Montreal and Leipzig. He is currently developing a new body of work in DUMBO.
This performance was supported in part by TestPerformanceTest & made possible with commissioning support from Performance Space 122 and the Jerome Foundation.
US PREMIERE | DANCE
Wednesday, May 4 – Saturday, May 7, 2011
Wednesday – Friday at 7:30PM,
Saturday at 7:30 & 9:30PM
ALSO performed during COIL 2012: Jan 7-11, 2012
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