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Guest curator: Zornitsa Stoyanova/Current

Saturday, February 27, 8 p.m.

Performances by:

Kate Speer
Lisa Rothstein
Annie Wilson
Kelly Adorno /coExist dance
Melissa Putz / Pima Group
Plus a short film by Philippe Decoufle

Come to a wonderful night of Philly’s best emerging choreographers. Kate Speer’s newest solo work touches on themes of childhood and growing pains as well as continues her explorations in presence and performance improvisation. Annie Wilson goes to a more unusual places with her newest piece called”Lovertits”, a trio of women who create a steak dinner out of their oversized breasts. Annie’s influences include: Peaches, Mae West, filet mignon, postmodern dance, granny panties, 1920′s-style burlesque, and awkward amateur porn.

Lisa Rothstein’s beautiful performance you may have seen in a lot of other people’s dances this past year. However, this is going to be her first choreographed piece after graduating College. Lisa says about her work: “I’ve been exploring the lucky instances where humor, specificity, and hysteria collide.”

Kelly Adorno’s “Window” displays a relationship between two people in which negative, repetitive habits effect and alter the initial feelings between the two.

The lovely and much more established PIMA Group will show their latest duet between Melissa Putz and musician Thomas Clark.

All in all, it would be a great mixture of must see young choreographers. We will top it all off with short film by Philippe Decoufle. For those who do not know him, he is the creative genius behind the opening and closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics Games of 1992.

Cost: $5
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BIOS:

Kate Speer’s work ranges from performance and choreography to research scholarship. She holds a BA in dance and biology from Swarthmore College and has studied with such artists as David Dorfman, Michael Foley, Robert Een, Odile Duboc, Leah Stein, and Lisa Kraus. Speer is a 2009-2010 New Edge Mix Artist and an artist-in-residence at Mascher Space Co-op. Currently, she is dancing with Anne Marie Mulgrew and Dancers and Philly Contact Collective. In Philadelphia, she has performed in the 2009 Philly Fringe, Please Touch Museum’s Dancing Days, the first annual GLBT Arts Festival, and Willi Dorner’s bodies in urban spaces in the 2008 Live Arts Festival. Speer’s newest research project which examines the choreographies of David Dorfman, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, and Jérôme Bel was presented in 2009 at Dance Under Construction XI Conference at UCLA. Her own choreography has been presented at ETC Performance Series and React/Dance’s South Philly Solon.

Anne MacGillivray Wilson is a Philadelphia-based choreographer, director, performer and author. She is a graduate of University of the Arts and the Headlong Performance Institute. She is a co-director of the local dance collective Pink Hair Affair, in which she directed the site-specific evening in memory of the deathtrap. Anne has recently, or is currently working with Sarah Gladwin Camp, Zornitsa Stoyanova, Sarah Lowry, Zach Svoboda, Erin Shanti Desmond, Curt Haworth, and New Paradise Laboratories. This piece is part of a full-length show, Take It Off, performed next weekend, March 5th and 6th, at 8:30 PM. So grab a bottle of wine and head down to the Mascher space to see more burlesque/modern dance mash-up.

Lisa Rothstein earned a B.A. in dance and mathematics from Connecticut College. There she trained in various release modern techniques as well as contact improvisation. While studying, Lisa performed in works by professional choreographers Alexandra Beller, David Dorfman, Doug Elkins, Heidi Henderson, Adele Myers, and Lisa Race. Originally from Havertown, PA, she has selected Philadelphia as the first stop on her path to a career in dance. In 2008, Lisa performed bodies in urban spaces by Austrian choreographer Willi Dorner. In Philadelphia, Lisa is currently making art with Here[begin] Dance Co., as well as with Erin Foreman-Murray. She is further thrilled to occasionally venture to NYC to create with Rebecca Elias and BE Dance Collective. Also, Lisa loves avocados, lavender, and the moon.

Kelly Adorno recently completed her Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in Dance from Temple University with a minor in Business Management. As a student, she has choreographed and performed in various shows including ETC. Performance Series, Philadelphia Fringe Festivals 2008 and 2009 and John Moores University in Liverpool, England. She also interned with the Community Education Center in Philadelphia throughout the summer of 2008. Upon graduation, Kelly has been serving as the administrative assistant at a local dance studio while pursuing her pilates certification. She is thrilled to be a part of a successful Temple dance collective, RealLivePeople, who performed SHRUG in the 2009 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. She has been dreaming and foreseeing her own dance company since the mere age of nine and she couldn’t be happier to direct coEXISTdance with Kathleen Glynn.

Melissa Putz is a dancer, choreographer and educator based in Philadelphia, PA. She is co-founder and artistic director of PIMA Group, a music and dance performance company founded in 2001. She received her dance training through the Professional Training Program at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio in New York City and received a full dance scholarship to attend the Strictly Seattle Dance Intensive in Seattle, WA. Melisa has studied with Lisa Kraus, former dancer with the Trisha Brown Dance Company, and performed in her work entitled The Partita Project. Melisa also studied with choreographers Anouk Van Dijk (Amsterdam) and Jeanine Durning (NYC) through Professional Development Grants from Dance Advance.

Melisa offers dance classes and workshops to beginners through professionals. She currently teaches dance full-time at the Chester Upland School of the Arts. Her dance teaching experience includes director of the pre-professional Modern Company and co-director of Ballet Concerto, a pre-professional ballet company at the Pennsylvania Performing Arts Academy. Melisa continues to teach dance, yoga and composition workshops locally, nationally and internationally. In November 2005, Melisa taught a 3-day yoga workshop at the National Dance Center in Bucharest, Romania made possible through support from the Trust for Mutual Understanding and Dance Advance. She returned to Romania in August 2007 through support from Dance Theater Workshop Suitcase Fund and Project DCM Foundation to teach a 7-day dance workshop and perform a site-specific work as part of the 2007 Sibiu Dans Festival.

Melisa has been awarded a Leeway Foundation Grant Award (2002), a Rocky Dance Award (2002), Temple University Space Grants (2002 & 2004), Professional Development Grant Awards from Dance Advance (2004 and 2007), and selection for the Susan Hess Choreographer’s Project (2004-2005). She has been Dance Artist-In-Residence at the Community Education Center in Philadelphia during the 2006-2007 performance season. During 2007-2008 she was Artist-In-Residence through the Philadelphia Society for Preservation of Landmarks at the Historic Powel House in Philadelphia and a co-op member at Mascher Space in Philadelphia. She is currently involved in Team Office, a cooperative management support system with funding support from Dance Advance, an initiative of the Pew Center for Arts and heritage.