#doug stapleton

IN DEVELOPMENT: MIX with SIX

We are shifting gears this winter and I've handed over the car keys to the dancers. In order to take a break from the studio myself and begin research for a new collaboration, I invited the dancers to choreograph and shape their own show. MIX with SIX - a concert of new short dances by the six members of The Seldoms - will run April 12-14 at the new home of Links Hall (to be announced soon!)

I recently attended a rehearsal of the two first works underway - Philip's solo for Cara and Damon's duet for Javier and Amanda. What a tremendous pleasure to see them working through their own ideas, vocabularies and structures, after always bringing them into mine! Of course I know that this group of dance artists is an exceptional collection of curious and inventive minds...I've benefited from them in service to my investigations and work. And now I get to - and the Seldoms audience gets to  - witness their singular voices.

The image above is a collage by my good friend and Seldoms founder, Doug Stapleton. He presented this to me in honor of the company's 10th anniversary. We decided it was an apt representation of this show...the many and various pieces placed together, with seams still visible.

MIX with SIX will feature new choreography made and performed by Philip Elson, Damon Green, Amanda McAlister, Bruce Ortiz, Javier Marchan Ramos, and Cara Sabin.

FLASHBACK #6 - THE HOTTEST PERFORMANCE EVER Carrie Hanson

We have performed under some less than ideal conditions. The hottest performance we ever did was on a blistering August day in 2005. Outdoors. At 2pm. We performed on the grounds on Ragdale - an amazing artists retreat in Lake Forest, Illinois, that is within a historic Arts & Crafts Mansion and its beautiful, expansive gardens. 

The full-length dance theater work, Recluse, was developed in part during a two-week retreat for Doug Stapleton and I. Inspired by the mission of the place, we also looked to reclusive artists and writers, including the crazy Renaissance painter, Pontormo, and resident of Walden Pond, Thoreau.

The roaming performance through this serene and contemplative setting offered changing backdrops - shaded, tree-lined nooks, open prairie, and a sculpture garden. It truly is an inspiring place. If you can spend time there inside your artistic practice, do it!

In our current reflective mood during our 10th anniversary year, we are doing some thumbing through the memory pages of our body-of-work album. This is an exercise that is simultaneously affirming, humbling, and mostly - surprising - at the sheer amount of creative work by so many artists/collaborators that has been built and shared with audiences over this past decade.

We'd like to share these reminiscences with you. Maybe you were there for our first shows at the Viaduct or Vittum Theater...or at the Hamlim Park Pool for our dance in the drained pool...or more recently with us at the MCA Stage or the Harris Theater. For our most enduring audience members, you may notice how our work has evolved and matured. For those of you who have just recently been introduced to The Seldoms, you may enjoy learning about past projects.

This first installment of our "Flashback Friday" series looks all the way back to our debut as The Seldoms, in "POST" in May 2002 at the Viaduct Theater. Founding artists Carrie Hanson, Susan Hoffman, and Doug Stapleton each presented premieres - a varied program of dance, dance-film and spoken word pieces, with topics ranging from the events of September 11, 2001, to the disruption of identity in the event of displacement/exile, to the representation of body/movement/self with the camera. (Seems we launched our Seldoms project with some heady stuff!) Illustrious guests included notable Chicago movement artists Jeff Hancock, Matthew Hollis, Julia Rhoads and Mark Schulze. POST marked our first collaboration with architect Joel Huffman/Vertu Inc, whose comprehensive set design involved a group of movable corregated plastic walls that contrasted the Viaduct's dark, cavernous appearance and shifted to change the room for each work, as well as discrete set pieces for Hoffman’s In Shadow that suggested shards of buildings in ruin.

With POST, we laid the groundwork for some lasting core artistic values - charting out underused and new venues for performance, rich interdisciplinary collaboration, and a full consideration of the visual environment.

Susan Hoffman in In Shadow