Friday, October 22nd from Monday, October 25th, 2010
Premiering Friday, October 22, 8:30 pm and recurring nightly at 8:30pm through Monday, October 25 at la Esquina, 1000 West 25th Street, SEE SAW is an installation-based performance (or a performance-based installation) created by director/composer/musician/performer Mark Southerland, and choreographer/dancer Jane Gotch. Co-collaborators and performers, in addition to Southerland and Gotch, include Shay Estes, Tuesday Faust, Shawn Hansen, Mike Stover, and Matt Tady.
The piece will last approximately one hour and fifteen minutes. Doors open at 8 pm each night. Admission is $15/$10 for students and seniors. Note, seating is limited – first come, first served.
Through movement, sound, and installation, SEE SAW will examine the moments when the body meets the mind—self-realization, personal epiphanies, and modern coming-of-age stories. Told using an array of tools – often elaborate and abstract; other-times pointedly simple and straight forward – this tale involves a large seesaw and a “trophy playground,” from which music and movement will evolve. Situated in-the-round, the audience itself will become part of the installation and actively engaged in the event.
About the Artists
Mark Southerland has used the saxophone as a medium for exploring sound for over 26 years. He has played experimental music locally, nationally, and throughout France and Germany. Projects include Malachy Papers, Snuff Jazz, and Wee Snuff, the latter two involving a constantly changing musical cast as well as collaborations with visual artists. Southerland’s horn sculptures have been exhibited at Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, the OSP, Boston, the Stray Show, Chicago, and Bridge Art Fair during Art Basel Miami. A 2008 Charlotte Street Generative Performing Award Fellow, Southerland completed an Avenue of the Arts public art commission encompassing installation and live performances in 2009; presented his “Urban Noise Camp” as part of the New Genre Festival at Living Arts Center in 2010, Tulsa,, and at the Kemper Museum Crossroads; and served as Musical Director for the Nick Cave Soundsuit performance at Kansas City Art Institute’s 125th Anniversary Gala.
Jane Gotch has been an Urban Culture Project Performing Artist Studio Resident since 2009 and is a 2010 Rocket Grant recipient for her collaborative project WE!. In 2009, she presented Jutting and Swerving, an evening of new dance works at la Esquina, in collaboration with choreographer Tiffany Sisemore, and presented The Four Seasons at Paragraph gallery in early 2010, created in collaboration with visual artists Timothy Amundson and Erica Mahinay. She has also served as the director of City in Motion’s annual choreographer’s showcase, “A Modern Night at the Folly.” Gotch studied at UMKC’s Conservatory of Dance from 1996-98, then received a Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey scholarship to study at the Ailey School in New York. She finished her degree and graduated from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia with a BFA with honors in Modern Dance Performance in 2000. While in Philadelphia she danced professionally with Myra Bazel’s Scrap Performance Group and the Sylvan Opera Company. In 2001 she returned to New York and danced with independent choreographers including Neta Yeruashalmy’s Dancing People, Jen Abrams, and as an apprentice/ assistant with Tere O’Connor Dance. With these choreographers, she performed at venues including Judson Church, St. Marks Church, and the Kitchen. From 2001-02 she choreographed for and curated a collaborative dance performance, NYC: The Girl Projects, which performed at the Fifth Stop Open Studios in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and at the 2002 Philadelphia Fringe Festival.
