DESCRIPTIONS
National Intimacy Month
collaboration with BS Movement and Chelsea and Magda
Commissioned by DANCE NOW, National Intimacy Month is a collaboration between performance artists Chelsea Murphy and Magdalene San Millan; choreographers Bryan Strimpel and Shaina Branfman of B.S Movement, and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly with his troupe the feath3r theory. Combining choreography, improvisation, text, live podcasting, and sketch comedy to create an evening of the cute and aggressive; the differences and similarities; and the popular with the underrated and complete with commercial breaks and apple pie, NIM promises the close, familiar and intimately friendly performance you’ve been waiting for.
Friday and Saturday, Nov 4 and 5
Oh
A bodily expression that distills movement into drama. Created in collaboration with Sara Gurevich, Bryan Strimpel, Kalin Imar, Lindsay Head, Anne Sexton, and Andy Warhol Performed by Sara Gurevich.
Premiered October 26-27 at Triskelion Arts Center as apart of Damn Good Work Series- DAMN GOOD is a performance series that brings together artists who resist categorization and invite experimentation.Through varied takes, perspectives, and approaches, the artists represented raise provocative questions, eliminate the tight grip of expectation and replace it with freedom, risk, and communication.
Lyrical Dances For a Lost Generation
A roulette of genuine dance numbers to popular music. Curated by Raja Feather Kelly, 16 choreographers make lyrical dances to pop music.
Premiered February 4+5 2016 at GK Arts Center
Featuring Choreography by : Nicole Wolcott, Cori Olinghouse, Gierre J Godley/Project 44, Lisa Fagan Dance Problems, Larissa Velez-Jackson, Melissa Toogood, Jordan Isadore + Edward Sturgis, B.S. Movement, Dante Brown, Colleen Thomas, Cameron McKinney/Kizuna Dance, Effy Falck + Mel Gallo, VIM VIGOR DANCE COMPANY, Gallo Lungo, and Mersiha Mesihovic/CircuitDebris.
PRESS "Raja Feather Kelly's evening of curated performance, Lyrical Dances for a Lost Generation, lived up to its promises"
Court Tropico
This work exist in 2-parts.
A duet with Sara Gurevich and a group piece of 9 dances. Court Tropico focus on bodily expression that distills movement into drama.
Run time 15 minutes; 2/8 performers; Performances: March 11 SDCT Boston; Palisades Brooklyn January 13, 2016 ; APAP- GK ArtsCenter January 13, 2016
Lana Del Rey's 37 Reason's
Created and Performed as a part of DanceNow's 25th Anniversary Season in 2015. A 5 minute excerpt of Another 37 Reasons to Cry set to the music of Lana Del Rey. An eerie, scene in set in a bar in slow motion, it's the relationship of people comign together and falling apart.
REVIEW " the most intriguing selection. Defying the strict confines of time and space" - NY TImes
Run time: 5 minutes; 7 performers
James Meets Anne
A trilogy in 5 parts James and Anne is a series of intimate, emotionally intense, and choreographed experiments that emerged organically from ideas for smaller works. The work features title personas loosely based on poet Anne Sexton and actor James Dean.
Run time 18 minuets; 8 performers; Performed in 2015 at Gowanus Art Project, Trikselion Arts, Roulette Brooklyn, Dance Now Joe's Pub and Dixon Place.
VIDEO
THE AQUARIUM- Collaboration with B.S. Movement
We conjure and amplify the “everyday” into virtuosic and surreal worlds where the unlikely comes together and the unexpected breaks away. The goal is to achieve an environment for audiences to experience how people come together and why they fall apart, this is — the feath3r theory.
Run time: 60 Minutes; 11 Performers, Music By: Various Artist Including Tito Ramsey, Grey Haines, And An Original Score By Bryan Strimpel Text By: Ami Garmon, Ann Sexton, And Raja Feather Kelly Lighting Design By Andy Dickerson , Performed At Triskelion Arts (New York City, NY) May 2015
MUTT
This duet of 11 characters is only prepared to offer you the raw, uncensored, director’s cut, of a highly rambunctious, movement, text, video performance about deceit, hopelessness, worry, confusion, and relentless desire--loosely based on fiction.
Run time 70minues; 2 performers; Music By Various Artists. Created And Performed In Residence At REMEDY, Studio Berlin September 2011 And At Triskelion Arts (Brooklyn, NY) October 2012
Flee On Your Donkey
A collaborative performance essay, Flee on Your Donkey observes the results of Scofield and Kelly's amorphous relationships to those who inspire us and us to each other. This essay is about the power of influence and the struggle between inspiration and creation. We play each others demons and we commit to supporting one another as well.
Run time: 20 minutes, premiered at North West New Works / On the Boards (Seattle, WA), June 2012
Show Stoppers
A physically epic journey of brothers, or lovers, or friends: not strangers, who always wanted to be together and now know why.
Run time: 13 minutes, previewed at Bates Dance Festival (Lewiston, ME) Summer 2013, premiere at Amherst College (Amherst, MA) Fall 2013
SuperWe
An Oppressively Constant (Choreographed) Movement Journey That Intends To Parallel The Relentlessness Of Contemporary Life. SuperWE Is An Extremely Fast And Interminable Performance Of Rhythm.
Run time 60 minuets. Previewed While In Residence At University Of Florida (Gainesville, FL) Spring 2013, Premiered At Kennedy Center /Millennium Stage (District Of Columbia), May 2013, New York Premiere: January 2015
REVIEW "with SuperWe, the dancers Raja Feather Kelly and Tzveta Kassabova really made something of it."
VIDEO
Another 7 Reasons
Commission from Hunter College Dance Department and Harkness Choreographers in Residence Program 2015
Run time: 9 minutes; 7 performers
The Firebombers
Commission from the University of Florida Dance Department Resident Choreographer Program 2013
Run time: 12 minutes; 10 performers
We need to talk about Jane
Commission from the University of Florida Dance Department Resident Choreographer Program 2014
Run time: 12 minutes; 3 performers
25 Cats Named Sam and One Blue Pussy or Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth or How Can You Dance When Every 7 Minutes Human Conversation Lapses Into Silence
25 Cats uses bright colors and inventive costuming to produce surrealistic, cinematic effects. using a number of systems and strategies (choreographic games) based on numbers, alphabets, and the physical geography of a square stage space, I layer movement patterns as the structure for this solo. These systems determine, for instance, which body parts move and how I repeat or vary phrases over time. My movement is physically demanding, and I hope gives the audience a sense of encountering the unexpected.
Run time: 13 Minutes, Solo, Original Music By Tito Ramsey. Premiered At Velocity Dance Center (Seattle, WA) December 2012, Performed At The University Of Florida (Gainesville, FL) And The Kennedy Center / Millennium Stage (District Of Columbia) Spring 201
Blind Acts (Film)
A live interactive performance with musician, Tito Ramsey. For Blind,the video footage was found by random acts of engagement in parks, in clubs, having left the camera on in a studio. The editing and music is scored to follow the structure of Pink Floyd's 'Us and Them'. In this performance the video and music meet for the first time.
Run time: 9 minutes, Editing by Jordan Isadore, live music by Tito Ramsey. Screened and presented by Dragon’s Egg at the Construction Company (New York City, NY) Fall 2011 and at The Kennedy Center (District of Columbia) Spring 2013
BASIC INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE LEAVING EARTH
Commission from Princeton University Resident Choreographer Program 2013
Run time: 12 Mins., 12 Performers, Music By Michael Wall. Premiered At The Lewis Center For Arts, February 2013
Anne and Andy Stage a Film
A meeting of Anne Sexton and Andy Warhol on the set of Edward Albee’s‘Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf’ They have a script, they have each other.
Run time: 30 Min. Duet With Christiana Axelsen, With Original Music By Tito Ramsey. Performed At Triskelion Arts (Brooklyn, NY) Split Bill Series Fall 2011, TBA Festival 2013
VIDEO
FANMAIL
An experiment in Repetition and color, FANMAIL is a letter in the medium of performance. Dear Andy, what would life be like inside one of your paintings? FANMAIL introduces, the feath3r theory’s interest in POP-FACE, a pop-culture minstrelshow where the characters’ faces are painted bright blue, yellow, and pink to resemble Warholian pop-portraits.
Run time:, 12 Minutes, Solo + Quartet, Music By Portishead. Performed At T:BA Festival /Ten Tiny Dances (Portland, OR) (Sept 2012) Presented By Dragon’s Egg At The Construction Company (New York City, NY) Fall 2010
the feath3r theory @32bps
Developed after writing his novel, the feath3r theory. Kelly creates this performance while you watch. In pursuit for how people come together and why they fall apart. Inspired by Cunningham’s ideas about chance. Each dancer is following a set of rules that are given to them though an ipod attached to them while performing. Each track is recorded before the performance. At 35 beats-per-minute, the dancers hop 365 times in a dictated grid, they bark like dogs, the eat apples, the kiss each other and they complete dance phrases. They come together and they fall apart.
Run time: 15 minutes, 9 performers, music by Morgan Henderson. Created at Bates Dance Festival (Lewsiton, ME) Summer 2009, performed at Dance New Amsterdam (New York City, NY) Fall 2009
VIDEO