Update: resident artist Tori Lawrence

I finally got around to getting the b/w film developed that I took of my recent live dance performance “Progress.”  [as you can tell, I’m a total amateur at photography.]

Tori Lawrence’s “Progress” (dancers: Ellie Goudie-Averill, Taryn Griggs)

dress rehearsal of “Progress” (dancers: Ellie Goudie-Averill, Taryn Griggs)

dress rehearsal of “Progress” (dancers: Ellie Goudie-Averill, Taryn Griggs)

I started working on the concept of “Progress” when I was in grad school last year at the University of Iowa.  The piece was originally set on two student dancers (Anthony Pucci and Calvin Windschitl).  I then added in a third dancer (Flannery McAdam) when we took the piece to the American College Dance Association.  This past Fall, the Lawrence Arts Center wanted me to create a work for their stage, so I decided to extend “Progress” and set it on professional dancers Taryn Griggs and Ellie Goudie-Averill.  I had a budget this time, so I decided to design a much larger set and work with CSF resident musicians Shiny Jets.  Tucker and Shanté were awesome musicians to work with and I’m hoping that we can perform the piece again soon (it all depends on funding).  I think that the piece is still unfinished and that there’s probably another section to create (and maybe a larger cast appears halfway through the piece). It keeps turning out to be one of those projects where I think it’s at its final stage and then I realize on opening night that it’s still not done.

Shiny Jets are hidden behind a white wall for the first half of the piece… the wall then gradually lifts all the way up to reveal the band

early stages of “Progress” when it was set on undergraduate dancers at the Univ. of Iowa

 

About torilawrence

Tori Lawrence is a choreographer and filmmaker who creates immersive site-specific dances, interdisciplinary performance installations, and dances for the camera. She currently teaches at the University of Kansas. Known for exploring the space between media and the relationship between body and environment, her work inspires an imaginative and sustainable way of looking at, thinking about, and using space. Her live performances and films have been presented nationally and internationally, including three site-specific performance commissions by the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and a recent commission for the stage by the Lawrence Arts Center. Other presenters include: Philadelphia Dance Projects, Stockholm Screendance Festival, Screendance Africa, Portland Maine Film Festival, Ireland's Light Moves Festival of Screendance, Legion Arts/CSPS (Iowa), and Cyprus International Film Festival, amongst others. Residencies include: Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Charlotte Street Foundation, Dance Ireland, Workshop Foundation (Budapest, Hungary), and the Ucross Foundation. She received a M.F.A. in Choreography at the University of Iowa, where she was a recipient of the Iowa Arts Fellowship. www.torilawrence.org

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