“Complete possession of the dancer by the dance is a rare sight, but it is one that can make watching a [Thorson] performance a near-transcendent experience for the audience too.” —New York Times
In Heaven (2009), choreographic mix-master Morgan Thorson and the sublime slow core music of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker (LOW) drew audiences into a meditation on the ambiguities of perfection. In this new Walker commission, Thorson returns with Sparhawk and a brain trust of collaborators for an intervention on western dance culture that interrupts decision-making from a single authority. Resuscitating power as tenderness, Public Love embraces reciprocal touch as an intimate alternative to might and control. Co-created with dance artists Jessica Cressey, Non Edwards, Allie Hankins, Sam Johnson, Alanna Morris-Van Tassel, and Valerie Oliveiro, the work considers consent, action, agency, and connection as a balm for our divisive times.
Public Love will be presented in the McGuire Theater on Thursday – Saturday, December 6-8, at 8pm
ABOUT MORGAN THORSON
Since 2000, Morgan Thorson has generated a body of work that questions the conventions of western concert dance through interdisciplinary collaboration. Engaged in critical dialogue with the form, and inspired by a topic, physical process or point of view, her work honors the body as a complex means of expression as it relates to the site and community in which it is situated.
Twice receiving the Sage Award for Outstanding Choreography, and currently a MacDowell Colony Fellow (2018, 2012), Morgan’s honors also include the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2016), and United States Artist (2012), Guggenheim (2010), and McKnight (2009, 2002) Fellowships. Morgan’s National presentations/commissions include Walker Art Center, Maui Arts & Culture Center, TBA Festival, PS 122, ICA Boston, ODC, On The Boards, INOVA, and Portland Art Museum. She has received support from The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (2016, 2011, 2009) and in 2015 was featured in Local Time, a three-month exhibition at the Weisman Art Museum. In 2012, Morgan was in residence at the Centre Choreographique National De Franche-Comte in Belfort, France.
Certified in Skinner Releasing Technique, she is a 2016 Creative Campus Fellow at Wesleyan where she engages students and professors in interdisciplinary practices, developing pedagogy in Dance, Archaeology, and Religious Studies.
ABOUT ALAN SPARHAWK/LOW
For the last 25 years, Alan Sparhawk has been in the band called Low. The band from Duluth, Minnesota, was formed in 1993 and features Sparhawk on vocals and guitar, Mimi Parker on vocals and drums, and Steve Garrington on bass. Known for their minimalist pop soundscapes and harmonies, Low have ventured beyond the lines of convention, specifically in its work in the past with choreographer Morgan Thorson. In Public Love, Sparhawk delves deep into the physical low frequencies, creating a resonant world as the dance unfolds into wild gestures of power, distance, and intimacy.
Low released its first album, I Could Live in Hope, in 1994 (producer by Kramer) on Vernon Yard Records. Pegged as “slow core,” due to the band’s minimalist soundscapes and the beautiful harmonies of Sparhawk and Parker, their music stood in stark contrast to the era’s fascination with “grunge.” Low released a constant stream of critically acclaimed albums (Long Division, Curtain Hits the Cast, Things We Lost in the Fire), one-offs, collaborations, and other miscellany including a classic Christmas album aptly titled Low Christmas. In September 2018, Low released Double Negative (Sub Pop Records), an unflinching eleven-song quest through snarling static and shattering beats that somehow culminates in the brightest pop song of Low’s career.