SEEDS Mid-Week Research Project and Workshops
SEEDS Mid-Week Research Project and
Workshops
with K.J. Holmes and
Pedro Alejandro
July 12th (Monday) to July 15th (Thursday)
You have options! For this four-day mini-festival, you can sign up for all of the workshops and do a research project in your spare time, you can sign up for one workshop and use the rest of the day for a project, or you can spend these four days immersed in the Research Project—we leave it up to you.
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K.J. Holmes: Weathering
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SEEDS Research Project |
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Pedro Alejandro: Soft Body/Soft Terrain (Open Artist's Project) The eco-imagination is the gateway, if not the destination, of our creative powers in movement making and place-making. The “soft body” creates inroads from streams of sensations/perceptions to tap the eco-imagination and expand the pleasures of the performative body everywhere. This open artist's dance-making project includes a soft sculptural/architecture outdoor component-building with mud, straw, sand, as well as scavenged earth materials-and a site-specific movement/performance component that includes an indoor/outdoor “threshold practice” of the soft body. Threshold practice includes embodiment of skills/pleasures to ensemble oneself with others in making at large. No previous dance-making experience necessary, just a willingness to make space to discover new inroads for shaping performance; to define and upscale a self-study of the soft-space in continuity; AND a willingness and desire to get muddy and dirty while dancing. |
K.J. Holmes is an independent dance artist, singer, and actor exploring improvisation as process and performance since 1981. Her influences include Contact Improvisation, BMC®, Yoga, Authentic Movement, Release techniques, Martial Dance, world vocal studies, and contemporary dance and theater. She teaches and performs throughout the world and has collaborated with Simone Forti, Image Lab, and Steve Paxton, among many others. K.J. is a 1999 graduate of the School for Body-Mind Centering® and has a private practice in Dynamic Alignment and Re-integration in Brooklyn, NY, where she lives. She is adjunct faculty at NYU/Experimental Theater Wing, and continues to teach through Movement Research. She finished a two-year acting training in the Sanford Meisner technique at the William Esper Studio in NYC in 2009, and is currently developing an evening length piece This is where we are (or take arms against a sea of troubles) , which looks at where language and the body meet.
Pedro Alejandro has a longstanding history of creating mixed-media and sited performance. He attended Cornell University where he received a B.S from the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. His dances and videodances have been seen in experimental and at large venues, including the International Festival of Arts & Ideas (New Haven, CT); EDANCO (DR); MOMA (Chicago), AFEST/Nippon Kan Theater, (Seattle,WA); HERE & Dixon Place (NYC). He is the 2009 recipient of the New Haven Arts Council "Enduring Spirit" award, which recognizes him among other things as an “ascendant visionary.” Pedro currently teaches dance ethnography, composition, technique, and site-specific performance at Wesleyan and collaborates with scenic designers, visual and music artists, making performances that explore the meaning(s) of strange beauty in unusual places.
These workshops are a part of the SEEDS Festival. In addition to the workshop, you are invited to attend evening performances, discussions, jams, and films during the timeframe of your workshop. You are also welcome to register for other SEEDS workshops (see the Schedule) and to participate in the Saturday Community Day.
