2023 Motion State Dance Festival features nationally renowned dance artists

The third year’s the charm for the Motion State Dance Festival! This dazzling array of performances, dance films and artist/audience interactions features internationally-celebrated artists rarely presented in the region. Introducing local audiences to the latest in contemporary dance, the Festival gathers emerging and established artists to share their boundary-pushing creative explorations with a growing Rhode Island dance audience.

With live performances from legendary choreographer Bebe Miller with long-time collaborators Angie Hauser and Darrell Jones, all New York Dance & Performance “Bessie” Award winners; Aretha Aoki and Ryan MacDonald weaving dance/punk/glam/goth/synthwave with Kabuki; and “Bessie” Award nominee Doron Perk.

Dance films from Germany, Italy, the UK and the US bring new performance perspectives to the big screen. Plus, an opening night party, post-show talks, classes with the artists, and a Dance Community Conversation round out the three-day extravaganza.

On Thursday, March 10, 7:30 pm enjoy Dance Films & an Opening Night Party. Short films from the fifth season of the Motion State Dance Film Series, by 2Faced Dance Company (UK); Anabella Lenzu (US); Ariel Scott (US); Jennifer Scully-Thurston (US); McKay House & Utam Moses (US); Nattie Trogdon & Hollis Bartlett (US); Simone Rosset (Italy); Verena Billinger & Sebastian Schulz (Germany); Zac James Nicholson & Doron Perk (US).

Enjoy performances on Friday & Saturday, March 10 & 11 at 7:30 pm. A trio, a duet, a solo—this year’s live performances showcase a diversity of aesthetics and approaches to contemporary dance. Interspersed between the live performances are dance films that bring new performance perspectives to the big screen.

Bebe Miller, Angie Hauser and Darrell Jones perform Tether (2022), commissioned by Baryshnikov Arts Center, where it premiered in October 2022. Tether is an improvised dance, sparked by curiosity about choreographer Merce Cunningham and composer John Cage’s manner of exchange with each other and their collaborators, and the evidence of the tethers they have left behind.

Aretha Aoki and Ryan MacDonald’s IzumonookunI (in development, premiering 2024) is a dance/punk/ glam-goth/synthwave show weaving together the lost (her)story of Kabuki and its real and imagined influences and offshoots. MacDonald provides a live soundscape of synth loops, beats, and covered and original songs.

Doron Perk was nominated for a 2022 New York Dance & Performance “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Performer for his Grandfather Visit (2021), a dance solo exploring themes of grief and heritage. Inspired by many visits to his grandfather in the last few years of his life, Perk created this performance to both deal with personal loss as well as his identity as a grandchild of a Holocaust survivor. The dance language ranges from contemporary ballet to free-form improvisation and uses Israeli folk dance to reach emotional climaxes.

Dance films include Baye and Asa’s Suck It Up (2021), a duet confronting the violent fallout of male insecurity and entitlement. Other films to be announced.

On Saturday, March 11, take part in classes & dance community conversation from 11 am-4pm.
Dance workshops with the artists expand audiences’ understanding of contemporary movement-based performance and build dancers’ skills. Bebe Miller, Angie Hauser and Darrell Jones will co-teach solo and duet improvisation, while Doron Perk offers a class in Super Chill Ballet.

The Dance Community Conversation brings together audiences and artists to discuss the desires and realities of building and sustaining a strong dance community for both doers and watchers. This is the second in a series of Dance Community Conversations organized by Motion State Arts and supported by Providence Art, Culture + Tourism.

This year’s Motion State Dance Festival will take place March 9–11, 2023 at the Wilbury Theatre Group & WaterFire Arts Center in Providence, RI. Tickets are $15 on Thursday ($10 student/seniors); $25 on Friday & Saturday ($20 student/seniors); and $15 for Classes.

For more information visit www.motionstatearts.org