The 2017 Right Here Showcase Artists are:
weekend - one
Memory and Desire:
the artist imagines his death Ben Kreilkamp has been making theater in the Twin Cities since 1971, both freelance as an actor in such places as the Children’s Theatre Company, Pangea, Nimbus, Bedlam and Red Eye, and also as an original playwright/producer performer in experimental groups such as the Palace Theater, Theater Zero, and The Theater for a New Democracy, producing work at Patrick’s Cabaret, and with community groups like The Seward Theater Project.
Ben has won awards as both playwright and actor, from the NEA, the Bush, McKnight, and Jerome Foundations, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. But that was all many years ago. |
Ben Kreilkamp - theater artist
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The Animal Corridor
“Sellers, whose theatrical style and tongue-in-cheek bawdiness are juxtaposed with her proficient choreography and sharply conceived conceptual work, questions how feminism can survive in the 21st century"…Sheila Regan, CityPages'
"It’s wonderful that you have pulled something out of me your audience. The primal scream was more than cathartic; it unleashed things I had been living with." - Audience Member Tofte Lake Ctr Residency
April's Website
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April Sellers - dance artist The Animal Corridor is inspired by female icons Janis Joplin, prize fighter Ronda Rousey; and T.V. sportscasters. This darkly humorous, post-apocalyptic world is devised to smash open expectations as we move towards a new gender utopia.
Also supported generously by the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, Fidelity Charitable / James K Spriggs Foundation, and Purdue University. Animal Corridor was workshopped while in residency at the Tofte Lake Center, MN, and at Purdue University. Set Design - Samantha Johns "Provocative, raw, tender, powerful; I don't believe anyone left the room untouched at a core level."
- Audience Member Purdue University Residency |
weekend - two
GRIEF
Paris1919 (Chris Strouth, Mike Croswell, Randall Davidson, Drew Miller, Tim Ritter, David J. Russ, Mykl Westbrooks and myself)
"Chris Strouth has been a pillar of the Twin Cities music scene for years, both on and off stage, as a performer, designer, producer, head of Twin/Tone Records, and prime mover of museum-friendly dub experimentalists Future Perfect Sound System, among other hats. His most recent project is Paris 1919, an electronic collective that grew out of his studio-bound, largely solo sonic collages into a live band." - City Pages
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Chris Strouth - composer/director
There are experiences that are universal in every life, and of them grief just might be the hardest. Death is never an easy topic, the loss of a life , and how we deal with it are often the things that tell us what it means to be alive, and who we are as a person. Grief, is about that, what it means to lose someone and survive and the 5 stages of it defined by the Kubler-Ross model : denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
This piece, built with live music, recorded sound, and performance goes through each of these stages, as they unfold, intersect, collide into each other and repeat. Using a combination of live action, film and music we will tell a story of loss and discovery. While not offering resolution may offer, a certain sense of peace and forgiveness. Dark and minimal, sad but not depressing, this is a human story. |
Bruja // Fugitive Majesty
"Taja Will’s “Bruja//Fugitive Majesty,” also found inspiration from witches (“Bruja” is Spanish for witch) and (their) work examined the idea of international adoptees as “cultural fugitives.” Danced within and alongside a string of lights (like a landing strip), (their) solo referenced a journey that begins within one space and ends up in another, disconnected from the very source of self. It was a dance about displacement and searching for a way to negotiate that radical state of being." - Caroline Palmer
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Taja Will - dance artist 'My work animates questions of identity, it attempts to remind us of essential human qualities and potential for a dynamic relationship with all that surround us.'
Taja Will’s Bruja // Fugitive Majesty is evening length solo woven from her personal mythology. Will creates the magical world of their genetic and artistic identity. As a queer, transracial adoptee they has come to know themselves as a cultural fugitive, taking on personality as it fits; shape-shifting as way to escape displacement; this is the preservation of identity. Bruja, meaning Witch in Spanish explores the archetypal characters of the Queen, Warrior, Lover and Healer. Through these archetypes the mythology of the soul is allowed to emerge, Will does this with the support of her Energy Medicine practice, ritual and improvisation. A long time devotee of improvisation, Will creates an aesthetic of spontaneity with the body and voice, resulting in dynamic, three dimensional, contemporary performance. A short segment of Bruja was performed at the 2017 Choreographer's Evening. 'I aim to reflect humanity and reveal a universal desire for embodiment and the most sensual and sensation states we have potential for.' |