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FEAST
When: 7:30 pm, May 24, 2014
Where: The Great Saltair, Utah
Who: NOW-ID
Founded in 2013 by Choreographer Charlotte Boye-Christensen and Architect Nathan Webster, NOW-ID is a performing arts and design company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Both internationally positioned and reflecting the unique beauty and culture of its western base, the name/logo/brand NOW functions as mission statement and mantra that reflects the company’s commitment to constant renewal and the space of engagement when creating or viewing art. The company is a framework for collaboration between local, national and international artists, designers and thinkers.
Following the highly acclaimed first performance The Wedding, NOW continues its exploration of place and turns its gaze toward the surreal and salty remains of prehistoric Lake Bonneville and the Great Saltair. FEAST will be an immersive experience for the audience, layering dance, theater, live music and design.
Once again, NOW-ID is gathering a collaborative force of local and international creative artists. Returning collaborators include Salt Lake dancer Jo Blake and Chicago’s Joffery Ballet’s Yumelia Garcia. New collaborators include actors Alexandra Harbold and Robert Scott Smith, co-founders of Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory; New York dancer, teacher, and choreographer Jenn Freeman; and Danish composer and musician Jesper Egelund Pedersen.
With FEAST, NOW-ID renews its commitment to the exploration of place by turning its focus to Utah's austere, unique, and iconic landscape.
FEAST will be a celebration of the place and time in which we live, and the stories that reside here, ultimately on the bed of an ancient, former inland sea. We see the ancient lake bed as our table, and are setting it with performers and audience, for one evening... one moment in an ongoing story. FEAST speaks to palates and appetites, hunger and satiation, tradition and experimentation, shared customs and the private experience. FEAST will be a celebration of the senses, of thresholds and of human gathering.
Through dance, theater, music and installation, we will explore together the possibility of clean slate and pause amongst history and decadence. In body and sense, we will offer a haunting and primal human beauty.
Why we need your help?
At our previous crowdfunded event, The Wedding, one of the most common (and excellent!) comments we received from the audience was how powerful it was to feel they were a part of the show - both the event AND its creation. Part of this feeling was very much due to the successful crowdfunding campaign and we want to re-create that and more!
We are a young company and are working hard to establish ongoing financial support, but we need your assistance to further establish us a performing art organization unlike any other. In order to be able to materialize projects of the scale and depth of FEAST, we need your help, and all amounts are appreciated.
We have some amazing gifts available - both material and experiential – and all of your contributions will go towards the production of this show and support NOW-ID's mission, to bring national, and international contemporary artists together with some of Utah's local best, to create powerful and ambitious works for artists and audience, to explore unexpected venues and engage our community - people, buildings, city and region. Funds given will go primarily to the artist fees, but there will of course be costs allocated to stage set, light and sound - to bring out the best of our unique, challenging (and rewarding) venue.
Note that all pledges will receive a tax receipt, as NOW-ID is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non‐profit arts service organization, and contributions for the charitable purposes of NOW-ID are tax‐deductible to the extent permitted by law.
About FEAST Artistic Collaborators:
Charlotte Boye-Christensen
received her formal training at London Contemporary Dance School and at the Laban Centre in London (where she won the annual choreography award) and completed her MFA Degree at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.Charlotte has been commissioned to create new works for: Ballet West, The Milwaukee Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre, The Arts Fissions Dance Company, Ballet de Camaguey in Cuba, New Danish Dance Theatre, Tisch School of the Arts’ Second Avenue Dance Company in NYC, London Contemporary Dance School’s Edge Dance Company, Compañía Danza Contemporánea Ccu and Verb Ballets in Cleveland. As a soloist, she has performed at the International Choreographic platform in Almada, Portugal, at the Marato de l’espectacle in Barcelona, Spain, at the Metropolitan Museum of photography in Tokyo, Japan, at the Bellas Artes International Choreography Competition in Mexico City and more.She has choreographed at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, the Universities of Texas-Austin, Wichita, TCU, Sam Houston, Princeton, Rutgers, Utah, at The National School for Contemporary Dance in Denmark, The Kuopio and Oulu Conservatories in Finland, Arnheim Academy and EDDC in the Netherlands, University of the Americas in Mexico. Charlotte has been invited to participate in The Yard Dance Colony in Massachusetts, The International Course for Professional Choreographers and Composers in England and to teach and choreograph at the International Dance Competition in Seoul. She has staged her work at the Kaleidoskop Theatre, at the New Opera house and “Den Nye Scene” in Copenhagen and at the Alliance Francaise in Singapore. She has worked with Utah Symphony on Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale and Renard, directed the stage workshop at the famed Bauhaus Institute in Germany and more. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and grants from the Theatre and Arts Councils in Denmark, Germany, Mexico and Singapore amongst others, as well as a recipient of the Choo-San Goh Award for Choreographic Excellence.In 2002 she joined Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, located in Salt Lake City, Utah to assist in the artistic direction of the company. She became the Artistic Director in 2008 and has created and re-staged 26 works on the company. In April 2013, she stepped away from that position in order to form NOW and to pursue more International commissions. NOW-ID created The Wedding in July of 2013 and now FEAST.
Nathan Webster is a native of Vancouver, Canada, studied architecture at McGill University in Montreal and in Grenoble, France before embarking on a professional career that has led to architectural practice based in British Columbia, Ontario, California and now Utah—Yes, Utah.
Nathan has been working on award winning and green architecture and design for 15 years. He is one of the organizers of our Salt Lake City’s Pecha Kucha Night and has collaborated on sets and conceptualization on several contemporary dance pieces with life partner Charlotte Boye-Christensen and formed NOW-ID with her in 2013.
Jesse Walker is an award winning DJ, designer and artist who's helped shape underground culture in Utah for two decades. Founder of New City Movement (NCM), a production entity and online journal, Walker has become a unique and alternative voice in one of the most strangely beautiful places in America. When he's not playing host to some of the most respected DJ's in the world, Jesse can be found mixing his own signature blend of intelligent music at everything from art galleries, music festivals and fashion shows, to discotheques and late-night warehouse parties. DJ credits include guest performances at the 2002 Winter Olympics, Sundance Film Festival, SLC Gay Pride, and top billing with acts Empire of the Sun, Brazilian Girls, Devotchka and WAR. He also received early support from the crossover EDM artist KASKADE.
Gary Vlasic brings it! As an accomplished artist, performer, art director, and event planner, Gary brings an extraordinarily diverse background of mediums together to create unforgettable visual experiences. These encompass large scale events, interior design, art direction, performance, site specific design, and image making. For 12 years Gary performed with and was co-director of A Company of Four – C04. For the past 20 years Gary has worked extensively in the event and production design arena. His clients include notable organizations such as the Olympic Games, Novell, Samsung, Skyy Vodka, Sundance Film Festival, and the International Sculpture Center.
Amie Tullius is a writer, instigator, and visual artist. Her work includes fiction, essays, and criticism as well as curatorial/collaborative projects and artist books. Tullius moved to Utah from San Francisco after finishing an MFA in Writing at California College of the Arts. After becoming involved with the local art scene—including a turn as director of the Women’s Art Center in Salt Lake followed by arts writing and art consulting—she created a pop-up literary journal to connect her creative communities across the country. She paired writers and artists and sent the results of their collaborations across the continent by Amtrak train. Tullius also produced synchronized swimming attacks in the Nevada desert in collaboration with her husband—the artist Jared Gallardo’s—mobile sculpture/tech marvel The Amazing Jellyfish from the Year 12,000. In 2009, after writing about Ernesto Pujol’s work, she participated in his 12 hour sunset to sunrise durational performance piece Awaiting at the Utah State Capitol. She is the director of sales of J GO Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in Park City. She is in the process of finishing her first book-length project.
Robert Scott Smith is the Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory. He recently moved back from NYC to serve as Creative Director at The Leonardo, where he developed the POPUP@LEO program. With POPUP, Scott co-created and performed in SENSES 5, LOVE, and the upcoming MIND OVER MATTER. As a professional actor, his NYC credits include Keeping Ishmael (Workshop); Pericles (SLANT); and the co-development of Roger Benington’s new work, Mormon Bird Play. SLC acting credits include Shhh! Burlesque, Pains of Youth, Santaland Diaries with Tooth and Nail Theatre; CHARM (World Premiere), Swimming in the Shallows, Six Years, Big Love, BATBOY: The Musical, and Gross Indecency with Salt Lake Acting Company; and BASH with Plan-B. Film and TV credits: Blessing, Animae, “Guiding Light”. Print: The Unfortunate Moment of Misunderstanding (Jim Fiscus). Education: MFA Old Globe Theatre San Diego; BFA Actor Training Program University of Utah.
Alexandra Harbold is Co-Artistic Director of Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory. Prior to founding Flying Bobcat with Robert Scott Smith, she co-created and directed SENSES 5, LOVE, and the upcoming MIND OVER MATTER for POPUP@LEO. She served as Artistic & Literary Associate at Salt Lake Acting Company where she directed the world premieres of (a man enters) and The Persian Quarter. Other SLC directing credits include The Righteous and Very Real Housewives of Utah County (Alligator Press Productions), The Eccentrics, and Love Alone (University of Utah), A Slight Discomfort, Spark (Pygmalion TDB reading), Betrayal, Three Days of Rain, Rabbit Hole, and Romeo and Juliet (Pinnacle Acting Company) and SLAM (Plan-B). Dramaturgy: Of Mice and Men (Pioneer Memorial Theatre). Education: Masters, University of London Goldsmiths College; BA, Middlebury College, Vermont; SITI Summer Intensive, Skidmore College, New York; and BADA Midsummer at Oxford, Balliol College.
Jenn Freeman is a dancer, teacher, and choreographer based out of New York City. Professionally, she has danced in works by choreographers: Kyle Abraham, Larry Keigwin, Brook Notary and many others. Jenn has appeared in live performances for The MTV Video Music Awards, The Jimmy Fallon Show, Comedy Central’s “The Comedy Awards”, and The Rolling Stone's 50th Anniversary Tour. She has assisted in the mounting of large scale productions for Florence and the Machine, Madonna, and Cirque du Soleil. She is currently a faculty member for The Dance Sessions and Broadway Dance Center.
Musician Jesper Egelund, together with opera singer Helene Gjerris founded the music/theater ensemble "Figura" in Copenhagen in 1993. Trained at the Royal Danish music conservatory and the music academy of Bratislava, he has performed and toured internationally for a number of years. Early on with the Gustav Mahler Jugend orchestra and the Danish National Radio Orchestra and now with Figura of which he is the Artistic Director. Charlotte and Jesper have worked together before and will continue this collaboration in the near future with a performance at Marselisborg castle North of Copenhagen in August of 2014.
Jo Blake received his BFA in Modern Dance at the University of Utah (2003). After nine successful seasons dancing with internationally acclaimed Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Jo is completing an urban residency in NYC, and relocating to Jackson, Wyoming. For the past nine seasons Jo has worked with great artists such as Charlotte Boye-Christensen, Alberto del Saz (Alwin Nikolais), Carolyn Carlson, Leah Cox (Bill T. Jones), Nicole Wolcott (Larry Keigwin Co.), Odette Hughes (Random Dance), Brook Notary, John Utans, Keith Johnson, Eddie Taketa and Daniel Charon (Doug Varone & Dancers), Darrin Wright (Susan Marshall), Alicia Sanchez, as well as Shirley Ririe and Joan Woodbury.
Yumelia Garcia was born in Venezuela and received her professional training in Caracas at the Escuela de Ballet Gustavo Franklin. She joined the National Ballet of Caracas at the age of 15 under the direction of Vicente Nebrada and was promoted to soloist one year later. Ms. Garcia began her U.S. Career with Heinz Pohl at Ohio Ballet. She then performed as a principal dancer with the Milwaukee Ballet where she had a ballet created for her: Scheherazade by Katherine Possen. Ms. Garcia then moved on to Ballet Florida where she was featured in principal roles in contemporary and classical works, most recently as Ben Strevenson’s Cleopatra. Her remarkable versatility, technical prowess and intensity have led her to perform classical roles in full length ballets such as Kitri in Don Quixote, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Giselle and Carmen in their title roles. Ms. Garcia has also performed contemporary lead roles in pieces by George Balanchine, Alonzo Ving, Cho San Goh, David Parson, Jean-Paul Comelin, Lar Lubevich and Christopher Weeldon. She was invited to be a part of The Trey McIntyre Project at White Oak in 2006, and has performed at prestigious festivals such as Jacob’s Pillow, Vail International Festival and Wolf Trap. Ms. Garcia is in her fourth season with The Joffrey Ballet and has hit the stage to critical acclaim in roles such as Valencienne in The Merry Widow and Ashton’s Cinderella. She continues to bring her style and presence to Chicago audiences and looks forward to the artistic opportunities and challenges at The Joffrey Ballet.
