SMALLER: A GRAVITY ACTION, TOUCHING SOUND, GIVING DANCE

SMALLER | Tribute of Small Dance
A performance by Karen (Chuki) Nelson, Nica Portavia, and Evan Strauss.

NOTE: SOLD OUT: waiting list at door. 

SMALLER | Tribute of Small Dance is an improvisational dance and music concert with touring artists Karen Nelson, Nica Portavia and Evan Strauss joined by local performers. The evening concert unfolds in two parts: first, SMALLER, a Contact Improvisation inspired duet danced by Karen and Nica in collaboration with multi-instrumentatlist Evan. The second half, Tribute to Small Dance, is an ensemble work honoring the late post modern dance choreographer and instigator of Contact Improvisation, Steve Paxton.

SMALLER takes its name from Steve Paxton's Small Dance query, "Can it be smaller?” In Contact Improvisation’s partnering and touch communication fashion, Nica and Karen along with Evan's living music, give their current answer. They explore the gigantic space found even within the most seemingly predictable outcomes.

Tribute of Small Dance honors mentor, collaborator, friend and artist Steve Paxton who passed away in February 2024. Steve’s January 21st birthday inspires a chance to recall and review a small sample of his many pointings, physical gestures, writings and performance interactions via video clips and readings translated and brought to life in the moment by the performers of SMALLER joined by local performers in an ensemble improvisation.

Nica and Karen will also be facilitating a two day workshop called “Faking it With Gravity”. The workshop asks the dancers how to discern between the sensation of falling and the idea of falling? It brings collective practices to study and research Contact Improvisation and presence using Paxton’s Material for the Spine which reveals the personal and duet movement discovered in Contact Improvisation including spirals thru the body, energy extension beyond our finger prints and deep anatomical inter-relationship emanating from the small dance, and beyond. And, Lisa Nelson’s Tuning Scores which highlight the dance of the senses, confound our patterns of survival, and the allow natural delight of ordinary compositional choice to reveal wonders of dancing in a dancing world.