Lauren Kearns, an associate professor of dance, is presenting her professional dance company's first full season as well as the premiere of two new works from Nov. 14-15, 2014, at Durham's PSI Theatre.
Lauren Kearns, associate professor of dance and coordinator of the dance program, as well as the artistic director of The Kearns Dance Project, is presenting her professional dance company’s first full company season as well as the premiere of two new works at Durham’s PSI Theatre.
The concert is Friday-Saturday, Nov. 14-15, at 7:30 p.m. The show runs one hour at the Durham Arts Council (120 Morris Street, Durham NC 27701).
The first new piece is Kapow…Pow…Bam…Zap! a quirky, fun, athletic, and slightly off-beat duet that pays homage to our favorite superheroes from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The second is A Hot Topic of Conversation, a 30-minute fast moving work that takes text from Margaret Atwood’s “The Female Body” and turns it into a witty, absurd, theatrical, physical, and entertaining piece of feminist driven dance-theatre. The seven-member mixed gender cast effortlessly weaves full-bodied dancing with speaking, singing, and interacting with movable set pieces. The dancers change character as easily as they change costume; all while the audience watches the piece unfold. The piece is an imaginative, humorous, poignant, and defiant journey of female-hood: all performed with a wink and a smile, but with a palatable underlying layer of truth and political statement. While A Hot Topic of Conversation utilizes Atwood’s text as the script, the choreographer has reimagined the physical and visual environment of the text to conceptualize a theatrical world that spans a TED talk scene, a PBS Nature Show on steroids, a Female Factory, and an absurd Survivor like reality TV Show. The featured text is “The Female Body” by Margaret Atwood, from Doubleday 1994 and is used with permission of the Author. Mature material – not suitable for under 18. In addition to the two new works, the company will perform two of their signature duets Swinging on a Bench and Twister.
Tickets are $15 general admission, $10 students/seniors. Tickets can be purchased at the door. Mature material – not suitable for under 18.
The L.A. Times has described Lauren Kearns’ choreography and dancing as strong partnering, joyful leaps & energetic unisons and the Wilmington Star News has written Twister is an athletic duet with a face-off between two dancers…primal and earthy. Noted dance criticism and choreography specialist Larry Lavender has written her works are polished and vibrant, the dancers are extremely well-coached, and the conceptual/emotional content of each work is sophisticated.