Ahead of next Thursday night’s world premiere performance of Minneapolis-based choreographer Chris Schlichting’s Walker-commissioned dance piece Stripe Tease, we asked his collaborators, including visual artist Jennifer Davis and art-rockers Alpha Consumer, to answer a few 8-ball-style questions. The artists discussed their histories with Schlichting, the other projects they’re working on, their favorite hidden spots in the Twin Cities, and much more.
Krista Langberg (Dancer)
When or how did you meet Chris ?
At the bus stop on the corner of 62nd and Lyndale
What’s your best kept Twin Cities secret that you don’t mind sharing?
The Lock Up mega self storage on American Blvd
What’s your most vivid memory from childhood?
The La Brea Tar Pits
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Honesty
What have you been reading lately?
The Haynes manual “so you own a volvo…”
What else are you working on?
SHORE with Emily Johnson/Catalyst
Mike Lewis (Sound)
Describe Stripe Tease in one sentence or less.
Ever evolving.
When or how did you meet Chris?
Through Jeremy Ylvisaker, before Alpha Consumer performed as a part of his piece for the 25th anniversary of the Sculpture Garden.
What’s your best kept Twin Cities secret that you don’t mind sharing?
Succotash, a small vintage furniture shop in St. Paul. The owners, Paul and Noreen, are beautiful and welcoming people with a learned and nuanced aesthetic, and prices always seem respectfully balanced between keeping the doors open and building a devoted clientele.
What global issue most excites or angers you?
The slow death of culture, thought, and individuality via corporate monopolization of food, media, and commerce as a whole.
What artist turned your world upside-down as a teenager?
Public Enemy. Mingus. Kubrick. Rothko. Jim Henson.
What have you been reading lately?
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie and The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra.
What question do you wish we asked you?
Why do you wear that tape on your nose?
What else are you working on?
Making time for solitary musical explorations and cooking eggs.
Jennifer Davis (Visual Design)
Describe Stripe Tease in one sentence or less.
I give up. I can’t do it. I just can’t!
When or how did you meet Chris?
I’ve known Chris for 24 years! We went to high school together. We briefly lost touch but were later reacquainted via mutual friends.
What artist turned your world upside-down as a teenager?
Axl Rose =0)
What is one of the most unexpected influences on your art?
Vintage carousel animals.
What’s your most vivid memory from childhood?
Playing for long hours in a weird, partially below-ground, playground built in the ruins of an old barn across the street from the house where I grew up in Jonathan (Chaska), MN. I have only my memories because I can’t find any photos of the place.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Getting plenty of sleep.
What else are you working on?
I’m currently working on a series of paintings inspired by an ad for vintage paper mache masks, but after Stripe Tease I’m taking a short break to work on my tan.
Tristan Koepke (Dancer)
Describe Stripe Tease in one sentence or less.
Erratic, elegant, hysteric, compulsive, and exquisite hypnosis.
When or how did you meet Chris?
We met casually through the community in 2007, but our relationship became official in 2009 when he mentored a project I created at the University of Minnesota. I quickly told him that if he was in need of any tall, blond, awkward dancers, I was his guy.
What’s one of your guilty pleasures?
Writing on bananas with ball-point pens.
What have you been reading lately?
In Bed with Gore Vidal by Tim Teeman
What else are you working on?
I work full-time for Zenon Dance Company. Touring with luciana achugar’s Otro Teatro. I also begin my training at the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration in Boulder, CO in May, 2015!
Dolo McComb (Dancer)
Describe Stripe Tease in one sentence or less.
Calculating Cool Cats Coming Constantly Candy
When or how did you meet Chris ?
In June 2014 at the Bryant-Lake Bowl after I danced a little solo for 9×22 Dance/Lab!
What artist turned your world upside-down as a teenager?
John Maus. Still. Every day.
If you could throw a dinner party for anyone in the world, who would you invite?
Charlie Chaplin; my mother.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
I can only think of patience.
What have you been reading lately?
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
What else are you working on?
I am creating a piece for the Red Eye Theater’s Work-In-Progress Festival this May. Also, working with BodyCartography Project on their work called closer.
Dustin Maxwell (Dancer)
Describe Stripe Tease in one sentence or less.
Stripe Tease is a meticulous dance of gestures and short stories.
What artist turned your world upside-down as a teenager?
Eiko and Koma changed my life
What’s one of your guilty pleasures?
Chocolate…and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
What is one of the most unexpected influences on your art?
New Mexico.
Fill in the blank. What the world needs now is _________________.
Love. No, really, love.
What else are you working on?
I’m also working on Still Life with Morgan Thorson to be performed this summer at the Weisman Art Museum.
Jeremy Ylvisaker (Sound)
Describe Stripe Tease in one sentence or less.
Parallels
What is one of the most unexpected influences on your art?
Distraction. It seems if I skate on top of my ideas, I’m less likely to get lost. I have 2 kids and a dog. This helps.
What’s your favorite place to people-watch?
24 hour casino in the middle of the night. I’ve only done it once, but I recommend it.
What is your favorite place in the world?
My cousin’s farm in Norway.
If you could throw a dinner party for anyone in the world, who would you invite?
I think Louis C.K. and Brain May should hang out. I don’t need to be there, but I want credit if they hit it off.
What else are you working on?
A bunch of solo recordings, Alpha Consumer, Guitar Party, The Suburbs.
Laura Selle Virtucio (Dancer)
Describe Stripe Tease in one sentence or less.
It is craft and candy. It is meticulous and precarious. It is arithmetic and heart, clean and broken.
When or how did you meet Chris ?
Chris and I had a class together at the University of Minnesota in the late 90s. I remember seeing him swing dance and sing in a punk band around that time too…
What have you been reading lately?
Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See (my son’s favorite book) and I just started Silas Marner by George Elliot
What’s one of your guilty pleasures?
I’ve recently binge watched The Killing and The Fall on Netflix.
What else are you working on?
Shapiro & Smith Dance at The Cowles Center for Dance, April 2 – 4, 2015.
Max Wirsing (Dancer)
Describe Stripe Tease in one sentence or less.
It’s a dance piece that is almost fractal in its composition– the deeper you look into its details and nuance, the more it reveals.
When or how did you meet Chris?
Chris and I toured Heaven (by Morgan Thorson and Low) together– so many of my memories of Chris are in a long white skirt.
What artist turned your world upside-down as a teenager?
So many to choose from: Robert Rauschenberg, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Yayoi Kusama, John Cage, Meg Stuart, Sasha Waltz—though I guess many of those obsessions started in my 20s. In high school I went through a jazz phase—so Miles Davis, Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald….and Fauvist painters.
Who is your favorite villain of fiction? Of non-fiction?
Ronald Reagan
If you could throw a dinner party for anyone in the world, who would you invite?
Tilda Swinton, Jeff Koons, Dan Savage, Solange Knowles, my sister Liz, Bjork, Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, Jean Nouvel, Bob Vila, Pema Chodron, Myra Kalman, Malia Obama, and someone who knows how to read tarot cards. Holy cow, that’d be awesome.
What’s your most vivid memory from childhood?
I once swallowed the entire contents of my sister’s piggy bank.
What else are you working on?
Over the summer I’ll be a part of a performance installation at the Weisman Art Museum that Morgan Thorson is creating. And somewhere over the next year I’ll be working on a solo for the McKnight “Solo” show—choreographer TBD. I’m also taking a math class right now.
JT Bates (Sound)
Describe Stripe Tease in one sentence or less.
An honest search.
What artist turned your world upside-down as a teenager?
Max Roach.
What’s one of your guilty pleasures?
Melted cheese.
What is your favorite place in the world?
Oh c’mon, it’s Minneapolis!
What is one of the most unexpected influences on your art?
The opposite of art/opposite of individuality. Like, the brand new awful condo high rises everywhere.
What else are you working on?
I’m always working on the Jazz Implosion series.
….
Stripe Tease will be performed in the Walker’s McGuire Theater Thursday–Saturday, February 19–21, 2015 at 8 pm.
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