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Moving Target Portland w/ Aretha Aoki

  • Maine Charitable Mechanic's Association 519 Congress Street Portland (map)
  • Sunday, Feb 9

  • 1-3PM

  • Mechanic’s Hall

The Dancer is a Haunted House
We will invite the seen and unseen murmurings of past, present, and future to surface in spontaneous dancing, writing, sounding, and speaking—using the principles of automatic writing to structure improvisations that move between language and body mind. We will use our imaginations to extend the boundaries of the self into the unknown so as to be more weathervane than conductor: pointing the direction of the wind, not making the wind happen. We will perform for and with each other. Please bring something to write on and something to write with.

Bio:
Aretha is a choreographer, performer, editor, and occasional curator. She works collaboratively with artists across disciplines to make performances that explore the intersection between dance and other media, while being grounded in a deep physicality—in movement experimentation and research, and in the intuitive logic of the performer. Her current research is an exploration of the body as a medium for the residue of family history. Aretha's work has been presented at various venues throughout New York City, New England, and Canada. The New York Times described her solos as "contemplative and probing." As a performer, she has collaborated with Emily Johnson/Catalyst Dance for over seven years. She has also worked with robbinschilds, Rebecca Serrell Cyr, devynn emory, Vanessa Anspaugh, Heather Kravas, Juliette Mapp, Daria Fain, Maura Donohue, Elizabeth Ward, Martin Lanz, Faye Driscoll, Lisa D’Amour & Katie Pearl, and many others. Her writing has been published in Contact Quarterly, where she was Associate Editor for three years. She was a co-curator of the 2016 Movement Research Spring Festival Hand Written Note(s).