The Walker Art Center and guest curator SuperGroup invite Minnesota dancemakers working in all forms to perform as part of Choreographers’ Evening 2019 on Saturday, November 30.
An annual event celebrating dynamic Minnesota dance and performance communities, Choreographers’ Evening began in 1972 as a showcase of work by independent choreographers and has continually evolved thanks to its guest curators. This year Supergroup, the Minneapolis-based performance collaboration of Erin Search-Wells, Sam Johnson, and Jeffrey Wells, curates the event’s 47th year.
Since forming in 2007, SuperGroup’s work has been seen throughout the Twin Cities, including a 2013 commission by the Walker, and at venues nationally. It has a long history with several presenting organizations, most notably the Red Eye Theater. The group’s latest project, Research COUNCIL, is wrapping up a year of monthly performances at the Bryant Lake Bowl Theater and follows its recently published In Which _______ and Others Discover the End, co-created with Rachel Jendrzejewski and available through Plays Inverse. SuperGroup’s next performance will be developed in part through an upcoming Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography Residency with a premier expected in the fall of 2020.
SuperGroup has appeared in three previous Choreographers’ Evenings and as this year’s curatorial team looks forward to working with Minnesota performance makers.
From the Curator: Our Approach
We, as SuperGroup, are elated to curate this year’s Choreographers’ Evening and are so excited to see the amazing performance y’all are making! By performance we mean dance, and by dance we mean bodies/selves, or the lack of bodies/selves. We mean movement, but we also mean voice, thought, sound, emotion, abstraction, story, conversation, comedy, the virtuosic, and the mundane. If you consider what you do dance, we want to see it!
Here are some of the things we’ll be thinking about as we curate the evening. As you prepare your audition, we encourage you to think about these things, too:
How does your work embrace, push against, or exist outside of Choreographers’ Evening’s container in terms of its physical space, time, power, and contexts? What unspoken rules of this specific container are important for you to uphold, shift, expand, and/or subvert? How does your work compel the audience to question assumptions about identities, bodies, forms, and/or interactions? Works will be presented in the McGuire Theater; however, if you have a proposal for a public space outside of the theater and in the Walker, we’d love to hear it.
Audition Information
• Choreographers must live in Minnesota.
• Works typically range from three to six minutes in length and should not exceed seven minutes.
• Collaborations, new, old, and in-between, are encouraged.
• Works-in-progress are accepted. This can include a live sketch, video viewing at audition, images, fabrics, or other materials to communicate the work in its completion.
Audition in person
To sign-up for an audition time slot, please click here and submit this In-Person Audition Form by Sunday, August 11, 2019, 11:59 pm.
• Sign-up for an audition time slot is on a first-come, first-served basis.
• Auditions are held in 10-minute intervals.
• Live auditions are strongly preferred; however, video submissions will be accepted.
Auditions dates:
• Sunday, August 18, 1–5 pm
• Monday, August 19, 5–9 pm
• Tuesday, August 20, 5–9 pm
Location: McGuire Theater, Walker Art Center, 725 Vineland Place, Minneapolis, MN 55403
Audition by video
To send a video of your work, please submit this Video Audition Form by Sunday, August 11, 2019, 11:59 pm.
• Video submissions must provide a URL link and passcode, if protected.
• Videos will be viewed up to 10 minutes. Please include start and end times if the video is longer.
Tech Support
For details on the tech support provided to artists for the in-person auditions and performance event, please review the Tech Support Guidelines 2019.
Participation Requirements
The selected artist must be available to participate in the following event activities:
• Two-hour group photo shoot on Saturday, October 5. Please hold this date. Time to be determined.
• One-hour technical rehearsal on Tuesday, November 26 or Wednesday, November 27, between 12–10 pm. Date and time to be determined.
• Dress rehearsal, at 10 am through performances at 4 pm and 7 pm, on Saturday, November 30.
Notification
Artists will be notified of final decisions from the curator by mid-September.
Contact
For more information about the auditions, please contact SuperGroup at performingarts@walkerart.org. Additional questions can be directed to Kayva Yang at kayva.yang@walkerart.org.
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