Monday, April 29, 2013

s t r i c t l y b u s i n e s s

While I try to figure out a more integrated, 2013 way of doing this, I thought I would post this link for subscribing to my email list!

GET RANDOMLY TOPICAL AND INCONSISTENTLY TIMED EMAILS FROM ME BY CLICKING YES!

Here are links to my last two:

Self Contained Underwater Drinking Apparatus - April 25

What Is Going On?  - April 19

The one before that is from 6 months ago, just to give you a fair idea of how they work.
 
Also, lucky me!  One day after finishing a tour, teaching classes, having shows, etc, my business cards arrive.  ISN'T THAT HELPFUL????

HEY!  HERE IS MY CARD! 




Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

SCUBA OPENS FRIDAY

GET YOUR TICKETS!  THEY ARE SELLING FAST!

AT VELOCITY DANCE CENTER


Photo by Tim Summers


APR 26-28 / 8PM
Velocity Founders Theater 1621 12th Ave
>>TICKETS $18 / $15 MVP / $12 students + seniors


+ World premiere MAUREEN WHITING DANCE COMPANY (Seattle)
+ GREEN CHAIR DANCE GROUP (Philadelphia)
+ SHANNON STEWART (Seattle)
SCUBA Master Class

“Ready. Fire. Aim.”Contemporary Dance Practice with Shannon Stewart
Friday April 26 / 9:30-11:15AM

This class fully warms the body and gets the creative juices flowing using improvisation and set material from Stewart’s SCUBA piece: An Inner Place That Has No Place to access technique, freedom and creativity. Open to the community. $15 drop-in.

Happy Hour Speakeasy ConversationNext Wave?
Sunday April 28 / 5:30PM
Boom Noodle 1121 E Pike St

What are the new directions in dance (aesthetic, political, digital. . .) that we see happening in Seattle and the rest of the country? Join the conversation with this year's SCUBA artists then head over to the closing night of SCUBA. Free


Two weeks ago I got back from taking An Inner Place That Has No Place on tour to Philadelphia.  The eight people in the cast and crew landed in a city that was unfamiliar to most of us and were shuttled from hotels to Temple University were we taught and performed.  We shared the bill with the smart and charming Green Chair Dance Group and were presented in a beautiful theater.  The whole thing was a whirlwind and an incredible experience.  It helped me to see my work in a new way and through the eyes of people who have no idea who we are.  The cast rose to the challenge of filling a huge space with their performance.  They worked their butts off and An Inner Place transformed and deepened. One reviewer said it was a “homerun.”

Velocity Dance Center and Philadelphia Dance Projects gave us a small stipend to make this tour happen.  The rest was supported by an amazing collection of individuals, not least of which were the performers, composer and video designer who worked for next to nothing. 

Almost ten years ago, KT Niehoff and Kathleen Hermesdorf dreamt up a partnership that would allow them to take their work on the road and named the program SCUBA. The idea being that motivated, resourceful artists who were used to self-presenting just needed a little boost (like an oxygen tank) to get their work into the national circuit.  Also, they realized there needed to be a network of smaller presenters that could take bigger risks, support emerging artists, and create a bridge to the more established national touring network opportunities. And voila, they created the breathing apparatus with just enough air for artists to pack their sets in their suitcases and venture to new territory.

Since then, many awesome artists from Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Minneapolis have been part of the SCUBA National Touring Network for Dance. Kara O’Toole and Tonya Lockyer have fought to keep the program alive despite major funding cuts from the National Endowment for the Arts and I’m extremely lucky to find myself the beneficiary in 2013, a year when there was almost no SCUBA.

It’s not easy—not for the artists, the performers, the tech crew, the presenters, the fundraisers, not anyone.  There is not enough time, space or money to really make this thing happen.  But somehow it does.  It's hugely important to developing as an artist and understanding how your work connects to a larger field, to other artists and other communities. And it’s totally fucking worth it.

I hope to see you at the shows!

xoxo

Friday, April 19, 2013

This is going on

*|MC:SUBJECT|*
View this email in your browser
I sat down to write and compile a newsletter and found myself lost.

As an unimaginable horror unfolds on the other side of the country, it’s hard to know how to locate one’s own place in an event that is already being framed as “history.” What are the correct actions to take? Is there anything to do? Is there anything that can be known that wasn't before? How much empathy and in what direction?   What does that look like? How does one perceive it?
 
Bodies pushed to the limit and then subjected to unthinkable violence as they neared the Boston Marathon finish line, a man (nineteen years old) being “hunted,” an uncle citing being “losers” as the source of malicious intent, opportunists tossing immigration reform into the discussion about a completely senseless event. 
 
Sometimes in the life of making, performing, and trying to promote art, I find an intrinsic contradiction – a desire and responsibility to signal, frame, and respond to the world around us but at the same time having to disconnect and disassociate, to live in a vacuum, and keep the work progressing, the promotional emails moving forward.
 
What do you do to make sense of this?
 
I’m curious.  Really.
 
I’m celebrating my 36th year on the planet this weekend, embarrassingly mired in my own anxiety about what this means for WHERE I AM AT IN MY LIFE HOW OTHERS PERCEIVE ME WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AGING WOMAN LET ALONE AN AGING WOMAN THAT IS A DANCER WHERE SHOULD I LIVE DO I LOVE AMERICA WHERE IS MY COMMUNITY AM I DOING ANYTHING THAT HELPS OR MATTERS OR MAKES ANY SORT OF CHANGE THAT ALLEVIATES PAIN SUFFERING FEAR AM I AFRAID MYSELF.
 
You know.  That sort of thing.
 
This weekend, I’m taking this (thankfully) well-functioning body as far into the outdoors as possible and far indoors into the interior landscapes of artists I admire (KT Niehoff, Luc Sante, and many others). 
 
 I’ll be celebrating by making things, teaching classes and sharing my work and moving into a very full spring.   SCUBAMaster ClassDances Made to OrderCinco de GyroSeattle International Festival of DanceRisk/Reward.
 
I’m sending my love and energy out to you, people I’m lucky to know, who have supported and inspired me, and for some reason or another ended up on my email list.
 
Thanks for reading,
 
Shannon
 

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Dances Made to Order Film Now Available

While in Philly, Adam, Meredith and I made a short film for Dances Made to Order called "In Transit," wherein Meredith and I get to experiment with being a filmmaker and dancer simultaneously.

Dances Made to Order is a dance film organization that selected Adam to make and curate films for their 22nd edition.  Three artist teams each created a short dance film inspired by concepts the audience chose: broken machine and dive, sharp, fly.

Dances Made to Order presents:
Hummingbird by Tracy Rector, created in collaboration with danza family Kalpulli Tlaloktekuhtl
In Transit by Adam Sekuler and Shannon Stewart
Alternator by Rodrigo Valenzuela and Molly Sides

Visit: www.dancesmadetoorder.com


Here is our trailer:

In Transit (an excerpt) from Dances Made to Order on Vimeo.


If you already purchased a ticket, simply log in to the Dances Made to Order site to view then select "dance films" in the navigation bar and scroll down. If you forgot, you can still buy a ticket for Edition # 22.

Your $6.75 ticket includes all three films.
65% of the ticket revenue goes back to the artists to help support their work.