We are building a new piece....
JKTM has been creating a new work in collaboration with some amazing artists that we are premiering this fall in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. I am very excited to be working with new and returning dancers, with costume designer Barbara Rain, visual artist Diana Baumbach, and using music from the Los Angeles based band Wolvez.
Joining the company this season are dancers Paige Amicon, Haihua Chiang, Marissa Sands, and Haley Weishaup in addition to seasoned JKTM dancer Briana Masson. It has been such a pleasure to work in the studio with these artists!
My friendship with artist Diana Baumbach stretches back to dancing together growing up in Chicago, and it has been fantastic to collaborate with her together with designer Barbara Rain in creating costumes for this project!
Diana and I have both drawn inspiration from moon cycles and circular patterning in our process of creating for this piece. The looping phases of these cycles, and the gravitational pull and trajectory of the moon as it travels in space have made their way into my floor patterns for the piece as they have into Diana's design work that will be printed on the costumes created by Barbara. Below are some preliminary design ideas by Diana:
We will also be featuring Diana's artwork in the lobby at ARC Pasadena as part of the Los Angeles premier of the piece. Check out her beautiful artistry here: http://dianabaumbach.com/
I was inspired additionally by the looping structure of the music by Wolvez. The four compositions used in the work hold a sense of weight and space that fill the environment in which the dancer's inhabit. Though the tracks I am using are quite ambient in sound, most of the music Wolvez plays is West Cost experimental rock and roll and I encourage checking them out at: https://wolvez1.bandcamp.com/
I hope you enjoy a few moments from the piece below - and please join us November 4th and 5th at ARC Pasadena where we will present this piece along with new works from Weslie Ching Dance (https://www.wesliechingdance.com/), and live music from Wolvez.
Cheers,
Jessica