DANCE

CORE Performance Company, in collaboration with NY and Houston choreographers, presents Navigating the Hallway. 

As a part of the Dance with Camera  exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, a group of Houston choreographers will be collaborating with New York’s KDNY to perform the dance installation Navigating the Hallway on October 14 from 6:30-8 p.m. The performance is free and open to the public.

Navigating the Hallway was originally conceived by choreographer Kathleen Dyer and premiered by KDNY in New York in 2008 and will be expanded for the performance in the CAMH with additional choreography by CORE Performance Company artistic director, Sue Schroeder, and Houston dance makers Becky Valls, Leslie Scates, and Teresa Chapman.

Navigating the Hallway, captures moments and characters from our urban environment and presents the juxtaposition of our dual desires for anonymity and human interaction. The piece uses a set of five area rugs to represent ‘rooms’ of those living in close proximity, though isolated by their adjoining walls. With the performance space confined to each rug, the audience will be free to travel from ‘room’ to ‘room and observe the eccentricities of each individual character’s movement and mood. Performed to an explosive percussion score by PJ Merola, Navigating the Hallway explores our present-day community and the combinations, questions and inspirations that occur while we are sharing small spaces.

ABOUT THE COLLABORATORS:

The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (camh.org) is an idea and a place shaped by the present moment. The Museum exemplifies the dynamic relationship between contemporary art and contemporary society through its exhibitions, public and educational programs, and publications. The CAMH provides the physical and intellectual framework essential to the presentation, interpretation, and advancement of contemporary art; it is a vibrant forum for artists and all audiences, and for critical, scholarly, and public discourse.

KDNY (www.kdnydance.com) creates rich theatrical experiences that celebrate, through craftsmanship, ingenuity, humor and beauty, the deep and powerful imagery of women. Founded in New York City in 1997, the all-female company led by Kathleen Dyer, has been delighting audiences with a repertory of works that combine live original music with a movement vocabulary that is charged with athleticism and grace. In addition to annual New York seasons, KDNY has toured to Alabama; Illinois; Connecticut; Washington, DC; Texas; and Canada. The company has also performed in popular festivals including Joyce SoHo Presents, DanceNow, the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and the renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.

Committed for 30 years to innovation, artistic risk-taking and collaboration, CORE (coredance.org--formerly Several Dancers Core) creates, performs, and presents contemporary dance. CORE promotes dance awareness and education through performances, presentations, workshops, and classes in contemporary approaches to movement and is dedicated to opening new channels of communication between artists and the community. CORE Performance Company, the professional touring company of CORE, focuses on the ongoing development of the artistic process through the creation of new work. Made up of individual artists, the company performs new choreography that evolves through an intentional collaboration of experimentation and improvisation with artists from different mediums.

Teresa Chapman is an assistant professor at the University of Houston where she teaches pedagogy, aesthetics, and technique. Chapman has enjoyed a wide variety of experiences in her dancing career. She has performed for various choreographic artists in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, New York, and Los Angeles where she enjoyed a career in commercial dance and film. She has also been a guest artist in residence and choreographed for University of Nebraska, West Virginia University, and Bucknell. Her work has been presented at Barnevelder Movement Arts Complex, UH Wortham Theater, Moore's Opera House, Discovery Green, Diverse Works, and the Cunningham Studios in New York City. She has been an adjunct artist with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and currently performs with Travesty Dance Group. Chapman holds a B.F.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an M.F.A. from California State University, Long Beach.

Leslie Scates is a native Houstonian who started dancing in 1989 with Sarah Irwin and has made a career as an independent performer and choreographer in Texas and the US. Leslie is Assitant Director for Dance Programs at Rice University, where she leads Rice Dance Theatre. She also teaches improvisation at the University of Houston and to the local dance community. Leslie has produced outdoor dance works for Houston commuters and in traditional theater settings. Leslie studies and performs improvisational performance with Lower Left Dance Collective in Marfa, TX and has performed with Psophonia Dance Company, Chrysalis Dance Company, Dominic Walsh Dance Theater, Travesty Dance Group, Hope Stone Inc., and with choreographers Amy Ell, Sandy Marcello, and Lori Yuill. Leslie and Tiffany Couser recently started "Flying Legs of Doom" making dances in small bars, parks and theaters. Leslie studied dance and theater at Sam Houston State University and psychology and anthropology at the University of Houston.

Becky Beaullieu Valls (beckyvalls.com) is an Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Houston. In April 2009, she received a National Performance Network residency through the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans with her sister sculptor, Babette Beaullieu, to perform their multi-media, evening-length work, Memoirs of the Sistahood – Chapter One. In December 2007, the sisters received a Performing Artist Residency Grant at Diverse Works Houston to produce Chapter One. The sisters are now working on Chapter Two in the series which will be performed in October 2009. In Louisiana, Valls served as Company Director for Moving South Dance Company (1981-90) where her choreography was funded by numerous state grants from the Louisiana Arts Council and performed in New Orleans, Houston, Washington D.C. and France. Since residing in Texas, Valls' choreography has been presented by Diverse Works, Big Range Dance Festival, Chrysalis Dance Company, JCC Dance Month, Weekend of Texas Contemporary Dance at Miller Outdoor Theatre (4x), San Jacinto College, High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and Rice University where she served as director of the dance program and Rice Dance Theatre. Valls holds a Masters’ of Fine Arts in Choreography from Sarah Lawrence College in New York where her choreography was adjudicated and selected by the American College Dance Festival for the national concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.. She presently serves on the board of the National Dance Education Organization.

This project is funded by grants from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance, the Patillo Foundation, Houston Endowment Inc., Texas Commission on the Arts and Airtran Airways.

Pictured:  Photo of KDNY by Lois Greenfield.