LAUNCH dance theater presents:
pro re nata
Saturday May 2 @ 7pm
Sunday May 3 @ 7pm
Tuesday May 5 @ 7pm
Wednesday May 6 @7pm
Thursday May 7 @ 7pm & 10pm
Friday May 8 @ 7pm
Saturday May 9 @7pm
Location: HaLo
500 E Pike Street, Second Floor / Capitol Hill
Tickets: $20
½ price for 25 + under, seniors, + those with military ID
www.brownpapertickets.com
pro re nata: for the given occasion, take as needed.
One American civilian’s experience of living in a nation
at war on foreign ground.
Contemporary dance theater choreographed by Ricki Mason with dance artists Jody Kuehner & Monica Gilliam. Original text by Rebecca Brown. Lighting Design by Hallie Kuperman.
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pro re nata is inspired by the choreographer’s experience of being an American civilian during the US occupation of Iraq. Mason’s experience of this war is not unique. She lived stateside for the entire Bush era. She reads the news, and she wishes there was a way for her to really understand what is going on on the other side of the world. Her sister was killed in action by an IED. Losing a soldier is not as simple as those country songs make it sound.
Mason’s frustration at not being able to see what is going on on the other side of the world has manifested itself as a gold rain curtain separating the theater space in half, with the audience seated on two opposite ends of the room. There are two sides to this dance just as there are two sides to every story, and when the curtain is down the dancers travel back and forth between the two separate performance spaces, creating two different but complete audience experiences. Mason is employing her rigorously athletic and sharply specific movement vocabulary, and stretches the dancers’ physicality by using their faces as tools for abstract expression on par with their spines and limbs. Images from pro re nata include an IED made out of a balloon, an Operation Game organ transplant, a flag folding, a three-foot sparkler, and a woman carrying a large tv through the room -- the images on the screen are the most tangible link she has to her soldier.
Live video feed is used as a magnifying glass for details of the visceral, image based movement in pro re nata. Original text written by Rebecca Brown and recorded by Rhonda Soikowski provides a more cerebral layer to the work. pro re nata was presented in workshop form by On the Boards 2008 Northwest New Works Festival, and has been developed with support by 4Culture and Century Ballroom.
“Pulse-Pounding . . . indisputably immense . . . an abstract multimedia piece actually hits you in the heart.” - Ben Rapson
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Ricki Mason has been working in Seattle as LAUNCH dance theater since 2003. Her work has been presented by On the Boards, Velocity Dance Center, Bumbershoot, and Century Ballroom. LAUNCH has been funded by 4Culture, the Bossak Heilbron Charitable Foundation, and the Open Flight Flight Deck Residency. Favorite commissions include The Yard on Martha’s Vineyard and The Bridge Project. In addition to choreographing contemporary dance works, Ricki performs as Lou Henry Hoover in Seattle cabaret venues, and directs The Launchettes, Century Ballroom’s resident chorus girl troupe. Currently Ricki teaches ballet at Velocity Dance Center and social dance for queer and non-homophobic people at Century Ballroom. Ricki has danced for d9 dance collective, KT Niehoff, BetterBiscuitDance, Laura Curry, and Karl Frost. She holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Michigan.
Rebecca Brown’s thirteenth book, forthcoming from City Lights in June, 2009, is a collection of gonzo “essays” called AMERICAN ROMANCES. Brown’s other titles include THE LAST TIME I SAW YOU, THE END OF YOUTH, THE DOGS, THE TERRIBLE GIRLS (all with City Lights), EXCERPTS FROM A FAMILY MEDICAL DICTIONARY (U of Wisconsin) and THE GIFTS OF THE BODY (HarperCollins). A frequent collaborator, she has written numerous texts for dance; a play, THE TOASTER; and WOMAN IN ILL FITTING WIG, a book length collaboration with painter Nancy Kiefer. Her work has been translated into Japanese German, Italian, Norwegian and Dutch. She recently co-edited, with Mary Jane Knecht, LOOKING TOGETHER, an anthology of writers’ responses to work at the Frye Art Museum which the University of Washington Press published in March. She lives in Seattle and teaches at the low residency MFA program at Goddard College in Vermont and elsewhere.
Monica Mata Gilliam is a Seattle based contemporary dancer and improviser. Over the past 9 years she has had the great pleasure to work with many talented local artists, such as Paige Barnes, Corrie Befort, Pablo Cornejo, Karn Junkinsmith, Aiko Kinoshita, Ricki Mason, and Kristen Tsiatsios, to name a few. Monica has received funding in support of her work, “You’re Right Here” from 4Culture. She earned a degree in Dance from Texas Woman’s University, and is currently pursuing a Masters in Acupuncture at the Seattle Institute of Oriental Medicine.
Jody Kuehner graduated with distinction from the University of South Florida with a BFA. She left Florida in 2003 for Seattle where she lives now and continues to create and explore. Upon her arrival she joined Launch Dance Theater and d9 Dance Collective. Currently she dances for the Pat Graney Company, co-founded Left Field Revival and is developing a new character named Lickity Split with dancer/choreographer Ricki Mason. She was the dance intern for the Pat Graney prison project Keeping The Faith 2007 series, design the 2007 KTF Anthology and has become part of the KTF staff for the new developing transitions program. During the day Jody works at the Century Ballroom.
Hallie Kuperman, mostly known now by the title “proprietress” of the Century Ballroom and HaLo, and now as the owner of a new restaurant on Capitol Hill called The Tin Table. She has been Stage Managing and Lighting for dance companies since 1991. She’s had the honor of working for LAUNCH dance theater, Pat Graney, Llory Wilson, Robert Davidson, d9 dance collective, and for Century Ballroom’s annual cabaret shows, among others.
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