Fast Forward

Curated by Sangeeta Yesley/Creative Performances 

Fast Forward is a dance series curated by Sangeeta Yesley that provides opportunities for choreographers working in all dance forms to workshop longer, more developed pieces that run 25 – 35 minutes. The series will feature 2 choreographers or dance companies each evening on a shared bill. Each evening will be curated around a theme.

Theme: Quiet Alignment

Choreographer: David Cartahena Lee in Collaboration with Dancers
Company: Samaw Dance Company
Presenting: Societal Pressures
Societal Pressures is comprised of two works exploring what it means to move through the world as an Asian American. Risky Business sits with the external weight of assimilation; the pull to fall in line, to self-edit, to survive within expectation. Unseen Unheard turns inward, into the silence and disconnection that builds when you are consistently overlooked, misunderstood, or asked to shrink. Together, the works hold space for both experiences, questioning what it looks and feels like to reclaim your own voice and take up space on your own terms.

Photographer: Kevin Horlavadi 

Choreographer: Shelby Green
Company: Yaroque Dance Theatre
Presenting: Mishegas
Mishegas explores community, both uplifting and destructive, through the lens of Judaism. The work uses guided meditation in Hebrew, Hasidic Yiddish music, and secular pop music to illuminate the vast diversity within one culture and question how belonging can feel like both liberation and constraint. Drawing from lived experience across a wide range of Jewish communities, the work examines the tenderness of tradition and the danger of communities being used for control or coercion. Movement pulls from the hora, Gaga, and American line dances.

Photographer: Mikhail Lipyanskiy