Kansas City, MO, April 29, 2022: IN ALL FORMS is a dark commentary on the experience of mental illness, explored through the connection between shape and sound. The show premieres May 19th-22nd at Charlotte Street Foundation’s Stern Theater in Kansas City, Missouri.
This performance is supported by Charlotte Street Foundation’s “Open Call” programming. IN ALL FORMS is a co-collaboration by musician and composer Conner Giles, and dancer and choreographer Haley Kostas.
Inspired by their shared experiences of depression and anxiety, Conner and Haley have been working closely over the past six months to create the original score, choreography, and show development. IN ALL FORMS will be performed by eight local and national artists from multiple mediums during its 4-show premiere weekend and open-to-the-public pre-show events. This will be Conner and Haley’s first evening-length work-in-progress, and will launch a new Kansas City multidisciplinary movement company, Kostas Contemporary.
Of the production, Kostas and Giles notes, “Our goal is that this performance will generate more awareness and new conversations about mental illness, especially within the arts. We want IN ALL FORMS to provide not only a deeper understanding of mental illness, but start to provide tools and resources for both participating artists and audiences.”
Participating Artists:
Haley Kostas, Conner Giles, David Steele Overholt, Kimie Parker, Lynnette Paz, Evan Sagadencky, Sarah Magill, and Drea DiCarlo.
Location: Charlotte Street Stern Theater, 3333 Wyoming St., Kansas City, MO 64111
Dates: May 19-22 at 7:30pm
Tickets: kostascontemporary.org or inallforms.eventbrite.com
Campaign to support participating artists: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/kostas-contemporary/campaigns/4567
ABOUT HALEY KOSTAS
Photo by Ali Happer
Haley Kostas, American Choreographer, Dance Artist and Educator based in Kansas City, Missouri. An artist who creates site-specific movements with psychological and social intent, Kostas attended the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC) Conservatory of Music and Dance along with training abroad at The London Contemporary Dance School. Haley’s choreographic works have been presented and commissioned by Kansas City Ballet New Moves, UMKC Dance Conservatory, University of Kansas, Charlotte Street Foundation, Making Moves, Creative Intersections x Owen/Cox Dance Group, and MashUp Dance Company. Kostas’s latest creation, “A Conversation Between Bodies,” is a film supported by a 2021 ArtsKC Inspiration Grant and will premiere early summer.
A recipient of a two-year residency at Charlotte Street Foundation’s 2021 Studio Residency program, Kostas is also a past winner of a Rocket Grant for RubiX, a collaborative performance outlet merging music, movement and visual arts, which landed a 2019 residency at 21c Museum Hotel in Kansas City.
Kostas has worked alongside internationally recognized choreographers to create new works and large-scale productions, such as live performances for The Juilliard School and the TV series SYTYCD. Professionally, she has danced in works by a diverse range of choreographers and companies including Aszure Barton, Peter Chu, Justin Giles, Marguerite Derricks (Nip/Tuck), Jaci Royal (Royal Flux), Andrew Winghart, and Odyssey Dance Theater. She has also collaborated with musical artists such as Quiet Takes, Katy Perry, Capital Cities, Flight of the Conchords and Britney Spears. Kostas has also made her mark in the film industry as a choreographer in the feature DanceOff and is a conversation-starting contributor for {DIYdancer} Magazine. Kostas continues to seek out training under Peter Chu of Chuthis and the Hofesh Shechter Company in London, England. Kostas is currently studying psychology as she continues to expand her own movement research through the combination and intersection of deviance, environment and human behavior.
ABOUT CONNER GILES
Photo by Molly Carroll
Conner Giles is an American multi-instrumentalist and composer from Kansas City. As a guitarist, electronic music producer, and classically trained cellist, among others, Giles has enjoyed a dynamic career in music. Through years of extensive national touring, he has shared the stage with a wide array of artists; from The Voice’s Taylor Phelan to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and many others. He also regularly sits in with regional symphony orchestras, most recently he sat in for the Omaha Symphony on mandolin. In the studio, Giles’ creative acumen is sought to be included in projects ranging from programming in the digital realm to composing music for dance. Giles was also a 2019 Rocket Grant awardee for RubiX, an interdisciplinary collective who completed their formative site-specific performance series in 2019-2020 while in residency at 21c Museum Hotel Kansas City. In 2014, he received a performance degree from the Glenn Korff School of Music at The University of Nebraska.
ABOUT CHARLOTTE STREET
Charlotte Street centers Kansas City’s most forward-thinking visual artists, writers, and performers—acting as the primary incubator, provocateur, and connector for the region’s contemporary arts community, and its leading advocate on the national stage. Since 1997, Charlotte Street has distributed over $2 million in awards and grants to artists and their innovative projects and connected individual artists to each other and to the greater Kansas City community. For more information about Charlotte Street, its awards, programs, and initiatives, visit www.charlottestreet.org.
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