welter / how many times

In welter, three simultaneous solos emerge out of a prolonged work with color. The performers occupy a viscous dimension of saturated light, their submergence in which, is total. Infected by a color virus and noise making, they exhibit symptoms which evince something ancient and essential to emotional survival; complete with an extra-lingual mode of communication that is evocative of invocation, incantation. The performers do not surrender their agency; rather the spell endows them with a more evolved force unmediated by language. The resultant, feverish state enables a direct, non-abstracted, non-symbolic account of desire and its power. Friction and asymmetry, both auditory and physical, serve to scramble preconceived notions of form and ways of knowing that otherwise inhibit this polyphonic, trancelike condition. This circumstance—of a disrupted surface—forces/pushes/propels the performers to plumb their depths and locate an interstitial space between disappearance and emergence, charged with potential. It is here, in this lingering state of becoming, that embodied force is recovered, uncensored by history, experience or emotion. A new way of knowing is tacitly understood.

how many times, a new quartet by dancer-choreographer Paul Matteson, draws from children’s books of courage to create an intertwining world of dance and story. Visual artist, Rosalyn Driscoll, hangs translucent sculptures within the space that, like the performers, explore the fragility of birth and becoming. Performed Sydney Donovan, Brandon Graf, Matteson and Andrew Smith.

“Performed in spoken word and movement, Matteson gave the most animated and passionate delivery I’ve ever seen. Matteson took on every character, including the seedlings, and blended them into seamless and even jolting transitions. The audience was both clearly touched and humored by Matteson’s physically exhausting performance… I was left feeling deep empathy for well, everything.”
– Kelly Dalton (CVNC)

Run time: 90 min