Workshop w/ slowdanger: dancing with the ghost of ourselves

This September, Agora Artists is excited to bring local dancers a workshop with the dynamic duo: slowdanger! This workshop, dancing with the ghost of ourselves, is a STORY BALLET companion workshop, facilitated by slowdanger directors taylor knight and anna thompson

Experience Level:🔥🔥🔥 (some experience — I can learn and follow)

The workshop explores the ephemerality of movement expression, how it relates to our state of being, and the ways our bodies interact with imagery, space and the question, “what holds us together?” Research is rooted in orienting movement expression, body based art practices, and somatic facilitation as a mental health resiliency praxis for intersectional communities living through times of abrupt social, environmental, and cultural shifts.

Participants will be guided through somatic based improvisation and devised movement modalities. The goal for this workshop is to allow movement to be a key for unlocking stored and resonant memory within our flesh and bones. These memories, images, emotions will become tools for choreographic play, research and collective movement creation. This workshop is an open level practice for any level of mover but can also be made specific to advanced movement practitioners.

🗓️ Saturday 9/19, 10am-12pm
📍The University of Texas at Dallas — JO Building. Register for studio number and parking instructions.  
🎟️ $10 | Free for UTD students  

About STORY BALLET

Reimagining Berlioz’s landmark 1830 composition through a contemporary lens, STORY BALLET transforms the symphony’s original tale of obsession into a haunting, queer exploration of identity, perception, mental health, and the fragmented selves we carry with us.

A cast of five performers embodies different facets of a central character, moving through a phantasmagoric world where past and present collide. Noir lighting, holographic projections, motion capture, sculptural laser walls, and live sound sampling blur the boundaries between what is real, what is remembered, and what exists only in the mind.

Through a fiscal sponsorship with Agora Artists, STORY BALLET is funded by the Eisemann Edge Initiative Grant at Communities Foundation of Texas and The Eisemann Edge Endowment at the Eisemann Center Foundation.

Performances: September 25–26 at 7:30pm | Sept 27 at 3pm
Location: Eisemann Center for Performing Arts, 2351 Performance Drive Richardson, Texas 75082
Ticket Price: $23-43, Discount code: danger50 ($14.50 ticket + $1 fee)
About the work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1QRp9ee770

Get Your Tickets HERE

About slowdanger

taylor knight and anna thompson are co-founding artistic directors of slowdanger, a multidisciplinary performance organism founded in Pittsburgh, PA in 2013. slowdanger uses systematic approaches to movement, technology, sound, queer world building and ontological examination to produce performance work, utilizing process based practice to delve into circular life patterning including effort, transformation, and death. From engaging a multi-channel sound installation to teaching dance at a queer rave in the woods, they transform their shape to adapt to a variety of different containers. slowdanger has performed across North America and Europe in venues ranging from proscenium theater and gallery to nightclub and dive bar. The name, slowdanger, was inspired by the Pittsburgh road construction signs that signify a demolition of old surfaces to build upon the remnants. They return to this overarching concept cyclically in performance creation; rebuilding, slowing down to examine the remains and re-imagine new futures. Recently, slowdanger was awarded a NPN Creation Fund, New Music USA’s New Music Organization Fund, the inaugural Texas A&M New Work Development Artist in Residence, and Jacob’s Pillow Pillow Lab for the creation of STORY BALLET that will premier in fall 2026. In 2026, slowdanger’s performance methods chapter “Embodying the Apocalypse: spectral strategies for creating performance at the end of the world” will be published in the Routledge Handbook for Health and Environment Humanities. www.slowdangerslowdanger.com