Upcoming EVENTS:
March 15, 2019 Performance
6PM
Is It Through You
Millennium Stage, Kennedy Center
Katie Sopoci Drake presents an evening of dance featuring the
Mountain Empire Performance Collective in Is It Through You, a multi-artist collaboration directed by Katie Sopoci Drake that takes inspiration from Whitman's poem "To A Pupil"; and her company Spacetime Dance in Awakening which floods the stage with sound and motion designed to awaken our senses to nature. Awakening features special guest company LucidBeings Dance.
This show is FREE and open to the public
MILLENNIUM STAGE LIVE VIDEO FEED
Live Feed via YouTube
If you can't join us, please watch the show through the Kennedy Center's Live Feed!
PAST EVENTS:
FRIDAY, JULY 6, 2016 Workshop
Time TBA
Crocodile Dancing Workshop, CONDUIT, 2505 SE 11th Ave, Ste 120, Portland, Oregon
Crocodile Dancing builds on the work that Eliza has done while in residence at EPDM in Mazatlan, Mexico. This workshop uses the floor as home base, finding new ways of using the ground both as support and catalyst. Through somatically curious movement, we will investigate new ways of moving through the space, tapping into potential for support from the floor and our bodies. With an emphasis on connectivity and flow, we will slip through space and challenge traditional ways of orienting to the world.
Crocodile Dancing is a physically challenging and invigorating workshop. It is a container for dancers to explore and expand their movement understanding and possibility while increasing potential for physical articulation.
Long pants and a shirt with sleeves are recommended. Kneepads also recommended.
APRIL 30, 2016 Workshop
12-1PM
Maryland Day, Grand Pavilion, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Univ of MD, College Park, Maryland
Little Flock of Birds: Make You Own Wings and Fly! with Katie Sopoci Drake on behalf of Mountain Empire Performance Collective. This family friendly dance and craft event will let children of all ages make their own wings, explore how birds move and fly, and then take a turn around the Grand Pavilion as a little flock of birds. See how the movement of nature makes a dance every day!
FREE and open to the public.
APRIL 21-23, 2016Presentation and Performance
Gender, Bodies and Technology Conference, The Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center, Roanoke, Virginia
Mountain Empire Performance Collective will present and perform their work Solo/Solo. Under their 2016 theme, “(In)Visible Futures,” this conference "seeks to enrich these conversations by exploring how forms of technology render both visible and invisible particular kinds of gendered bodies, on what terms, and to what effect."
Conference Registration at http://www.cpe.vt.edu/reg/gbt/
MARCH 11 and April 15, 2016 Class
7:30-9:30PM
Contact Improvisation Class, In Balance Yoga, 401 S. Main Street, Blacksburg, Virginia
Join us for a fun, free contact improvisation class with Rachel Rugh and Barbara Tait! In this beginner class, students will be lead through some basic tools for practicing Contact Improvisation, including falling, rolling a point of contact, weight exchange, counter balance, and physical listening. To practice CI is to practice mindfulness/living in the moment, compromise with others, and allowing yourself to be a vessel for something larger. Many practitioners have found CI principles to be useful in other contexts such as social dancing, mountain biking, and jaywalking. You need not have any experience with Contact Improvisation or any other dance or movement form in order to attend this class. If you bring a friend who is new to CI, you'll be entered into a raffle to win a free pair of awesome dance knee pads! If you have any questions or need more info, email bburg.dance.net-at-gmail.com.
FREE ($5-$10 suggested donation)
MARCH 4, 2016 Poster Demonstration and Performance
9:00AM-5:00PM
In Play Symposium: Games, Aesthetics, Performance - "Telephone Dance Project: Playing with Structure in Collaboration", 2115 Tawes Hall and Ulrich Recital Hall, University of Maryland College Park, Maryland
Join Katie Sopoci Drake for a poster demonstration and performance. Participants will be led through the creative process of the Telephone Dance Project (TDP), a long-distance collaboration that uses letter writing to create dance. No previous dance experience is necessary. This process shakes up traditional ideas of how dance is made, who is in charge, and how aesthetics are applied to the final product. Come see how TDP can be applied to other collaborative efforts to promote creativity and play.
FREE and open to the public.
OCTOBER 7-11, 2015Presentation
National Dance Education Organization Annual Conference, Phoenix, Arizona
Mountain Empire was selected to give a presentation titled Necessity Fuels Creativity: Exploring Long-distance Methods of Dance Collaboration, at the 2015 NDEO Conference in Phoenix, AZ, October 7-11. More info at NDEO.
JULY 8-11, 2015 Performance
7PM & 9PM
Conduit's DANCE+ Performance Festival, Reed College Performance Lab, Portland, Oregon
Presenting Solo/Solo: Bright Abyss, the latest collaboration of Mountain Empire Performance Collective. This performance will feature a virtual duet between Eliza Larson (live) and Barbara Tait (video). More information here.
JULY 9, 2015 Workshop
2-4 PM
Conduit Dance+ Festival, Reed College, Performance Lab, Portland, Oregon
Dance Minus Place/No Limit: Mountain Empire will be co-teaching a workshop on distance creation methods, via long-distance. Since 2013, Mountain Empire has explored ways of making live dance-based performance work beyond geographical limitations, creating anywhere and everywhere including coffee shops, an airplane, the Megabus, in bed, and occasionally even in a dance studio. In this workshop, we will explore long-distance collaborative processes, using both traditional and new technologies to create original movement material, trade phrases, experiment with performance scores, and explore practical logistics. Participants will engage in actual long-distance collaboration, possibly including directive text messages, secret letters, and google hangouts complete with funny hats (which do, in fact, have immense influence on the process). Broader ideas about long-distance collaboration will also be discussed. By responding to the impulse to make art with collaborators near and far, we will work with tools for creating and connecting that both embrace and break down geographic barriers while fostering questions about what performance means in the 21st century. Through the lens of distance and proximity, we will explore creative process from a new perspective. With funny hats. , 20
AUGUST 30, 2015 Performance
2PM & 6PM
Warm Hearth Village, Blacksburg, Virginia
Mountain Empire Performance Collective will be hosting two FREE shows on August 30, 2015 at 2:00 and 6:00 p.m. at Warm Hearth Village in Blacksburg, VA. The performances will feature new works by Barbara Tait and Rachel Rugh, including renditions of their Solo/Solo projects. Free and Open to the Public. For questions or more info please email mountainempiredance.com.
ADDITIONAL PAST PERFORMANCES:
July 10-17, 2014 Capitol Fringe, Washington, DC
July 18-20, 2014 Southern VT Dance Festival, Brattleboro, VT
June 26-28, 2014 PortFringe, Portland, ME
May 10, 2014 H-O-T Series, Philadelphia, PA
May 9, 2014 TDP's Salon-Style Show, Philadelphia, PA
April 13, 2014 Open Flight, Seattle, WA
April 5, 2014 {Re}HAPPENING, Black Mountain College, Asheville, NC
March 29, 2014, Site-Specific Movement Experience at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
March 29, 2014 Salon-style Performance at Brookland Artspace, Washington, DC
March 28, 2014 Improvisation Workshop
January 18, 2014 Workbench Series, Northampton, MA
January 19, 2014 Birthday Salon, Northampton, MA