Winner! Best Choreography for 'NOWHERE' /  by Nathan Webster

Thank you to the readers of City Weekly for voting Charlotte Boye-Christensen 'BEST CHOREOGRAPHY' for NOWHERE in this year's Best of Utah Arts 2015 Awards.

"Charlotte Boye-Christensen, Nowhere, (NOW-ID) The most impressive element of the work by Salt Lake City performance company NOW-ID, founded and directed by Charlotte Boye-Christensen and Nathan Webster, is the company's scope of artistic vision. This summer, NOW-ID presented Nowhere, a site-specific performance set at Libby Gardner Hall. No other work of art in Salt Lake City brought together as many artists and disciplines as this performance. Based around movement choreography by Boye-Christensen, Nowhere included works of original music, light design, film, performance art and an on-site sound installation."

NOW-ID'S SUMMER NEWSLETTER /  by Nathan Webster

To say NOW-ID has had a busy Summer would be an understatement. (see video)

We staged NOWHERE at Libby Gardner Concert Hall in Salt Lake City in July. The performance has been nominated for three CityWeekly awards for best choreography, dance and multimedia production. NOWHERE featured artists from all over the country as well as Denmark and Iceland and ran for two successful nights.
 

GREAT REVIEWS FOR 'NOWHERE':

"NOWHERE was, quite simply, superb! No one in SLC has had the courage, persistence or level of insanity required to pull off something like this. You have absolutely created a standard for dance and multi media."

"Tonight's performance of Nowhere was at once exhilarating, refreshing and thought-provoking. NOW-ID hatched from its fragile shell and developed into a mature masterpiece in front of my eyes this evening. I commend you and all of the fabulous performers tonight on a passionate artful deliverance, and I thank you for infusing SLC (and me) with a strong dose of much needed art and culture!"

"Unbelievably beautiful and moving!"

"NOW ID’s effort to use 19th century history as a unlikely vehicle for transporting local dance and its audience, finally, into the 21st Century... There is little doubt that future productions will continue to reflect the company’s ongoing effort to remove dance performance from its position of splendid aesthetic isolation and integrate it more fully within the broader arts community and regional context which situate and sustain it."

In August we did a residency at Tanner Dance for a week and then went on to host/direct and curate 'Space As Collaborator' 

– a Summer Intensive directed towards Designers, Dancers and Choreographers. In Five days we managed to produce 11 pieces by 24 artists and had three showings for the public. Participants came from Portland, Chicago, Allentown, Wichita, NYC, California, Vancouver and of course Utah. Participants worked collaboratively in five spaces for two days and then were switched around, given a new theme, a new team, a new space and another 48 hours to solve and present their work. Amazing creativity emerged and our intention is to build on this for next year.

Now Charlotte goes off to Miami and Singapore for three weeks to complete two residencies and then...

September 26th is NOW-ID's inaugural Gala HOUSE OF APOCALYPSE (not to be missed!)

We will have extraordinary auction items and entertainment. The 'Apocalypse' takes place at Addictive behavior Motor Works in Salt Lake City's Granary District. To purchase tickets, please go to:

www.now-id.com/gala

See you there!

Thank You to the photographers, who shot photos and helped document "Space as Collaborator": Dena Eaton, Jeff Juip, and Tyler Smith.

Summer Intensive off to phenomenal start! /  by Nathan Webster

Our Summer Intensive Space As Collaborator is off to a phenomenal start. See photos from the first of three exhibitions by Dena Eaton of work co-created by five teams in short two day rotations. Designers work with choreographers after picking each-other, a theme, and raw materials out of a hat. We could not be more pleased with the participants who've traveled from as far as Portland, Ohio and Canada to participate in our first workshop. Some people feel it may be the first of its kind.

Things we heard about NOWHERE... /  by Nathan Webster

Some comments and review snippets FROM NOW-ID's third major site-specific production 'NOWHERE':

"NOWHERE was, quite simply, superb! The cast was astounding. The choreography was compelling, wide-ranging, and gorgeous. The space was transformed and activated in such an extraordinary way. The Wheel was a brilliant choice. The score and soundtrack were riveting and so diverse, unlike anything I’ve encountered. You should be incredibly proud. No one in SLC has had the courage, persistence or level of insanity required to pull off something like this. You have absolutely created a standard for dance and multi media."

"The best performance I have ever seen here in Salt Lake City!"

"Tonight's performance of Nowhere was at once exhilarating, refreshing and thought-provoking. The event was cohesive and fluid and the execution by the dancers was beyond my wildest expectations. The dancers, live musical duo, music compilation, videography, lighting design, artist collaboration and interactive life-sized prop [The 'Infinite Wheel’] were all integral pieces in this sensorial interdisciplinary experience. NOW-ID hatched from its fragile shell and developed into a mature masterpiece in front of my eyes this evening. I commend you and all of the fabulous performers tonight on a passionate artful deliverance, and I thank you for infusing SLC (and me) with a strong dose of much needed art and culture!"

"The show was inspired! Beautifully done."

"I felt priviledged to be in the audience for your performance last night. I admire the effort you put into bringing together so many elements to create an experience that was thought provoking, emotional, and artful. The lighting created such mysterious shadows that seemed to extend the space as well as a variety of moods. One of my favorites moments was when the horizontal lighting of red and blue subtly shifted to all blue gray. That time during morning and evening when everything loses color. Most of all, I loved the choreography and the beautiful, haunting performances of each dancer. They all powerfully represented your aesthetic with nuance and insight. I have to say, Salt Lake needs you so much more than it knows!”

"Unbelievably beautiful and moving!"

"NOW ID’s effort to use 19th century history as a unlikely vehicle for transporting local dance and its audience, finally, into the 21st Century... There is little doubt that future productions will continue to reflect the company’s ongoing effort to remove dance performance from its position of splendid aesthetic isolation and integrate it more fully within the broader arts community and regional context which situate and sustain it."

 

Grooves 2.3 /  by Nathan Webster

Katherine

We are animals who seek patterns. The up and down of the breath, the sun, the pulse of the moon, the seasons and their connected symbols. Even before we add meaning to the events of our lives, our bodies construct interlocking melodic units built of the rhythms of those events. “Rhythm is one of the most powerful pleasures,” says poet Mary Oliver, “and when we feel a pleasurable rhythm we hope it will continue. When it does, it grows sweeter.” Our bodies long for this. Rhythm is one of the body’s nutrients.
 
Seasons layer into a kind of polyrhythmic experience, with days, weeks, and months tapping their overlapping meter into our bodies and our psyches. Rituals and holidays bring together the beats of culture, family, and seasons; patterns resolve, refresh, and begin again. Our earliest traditions and rhythms carve us permanently and each year in a place, with a people, reinforces the pattern. That becomes our mother tongue, something like our body’s accent.
 
Perhaps there is a certain kind of wisdom that can only be gained by staying in a place, so that you can learn to parse the long resultant patterns that can only be seen after decades of the same culture, people, and place. Some patterns are built at the rate of coming-of-age ceremonies, babies born, and generations turning over. The long swoop of planetary orbits.
 
And yet… it seems like there’s a counter-longing that, if not deeper, is brighter: The bright flash of freedom that comes from breaking the pattern altogether. Perhaps it’s because there’s another kind of wisdom that can only be gained by stepping out of the pattern, leaving a place, leaving the people, letting go of home. 
 
Do some people not long for the path they have already chosen?

Text by Amie Tulius and photograph of Katherine Lawrence by Nathan Webster. NOWHERE this weekend.

Migration 1.3 /  by Nathan Webster

Steamy

This Is the Place: Winding down Parley’s, right around the 215 split, the canyon opens up and suddenly you have an expanse of lavender sky in front of you, with billows of blood orange thunderclouds edged with tangy apricot wisps. And then at the mouth of the canyon—just before the Foothill turnoff—the whole valley opens up just as the sun is setting in the clouds over the lake, and it’s turning the whole western sky an embery red, the color of a low growl. The Salt Lake is glowing bright crimson, like it’s lit from within. You’re struck by the fact that it’s always there, even when you’re not thinking about it, all that gorgeous weirdness. The smell from the sycamores and the dry grasses, warm from the day, mingle into a heady sunset musk. And the whole valley, with the Oquirrhs culminating in that smokestack, and the tufts blooming up from the factory to the north, make it seem simultaneously like it’s a terraformed Martian landscape, and in the same breath—more like a gasp—the most bizarrely beautiful place you’ve ever seen. 

This blog post is part of a series in support of the NOWHERE performance.  Migration 1.3 words by Amie Tulius; Photo Still from film by Nathan Webster.

Mountains & Temples 3.2 /  by Nathan Webster

“Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts.” --John Muir

Mountains are home to gods and they are gods. They are the mothers of gods. Mountains pierce the sky with their peaks, the outtie belly buttons of the earth. Their peaks represent enlightenment, their peaks poke holes in the universe and are the points around which the sun, moon, and stars revolve. Their summits are named after perfect meditative states. They are living entities,  the incarnation of the earth spirit itself. Mountains are the home of the father of all humans as well as demi-gods, the dwelling of the wind goddess. Tombs for the dead and bestowers of fertility. Sites for sacrifice, enlightenment, and spiritual cleansing. Sacred borders to ancestral land, or center of history and cultural identity. Mountains too sacred to step upon, circumnavigated 32 times. 108 times. Summitted at dawn. Sites of revelation and repository for souls. Sacred water, sacred glaciers, sacred meadows. Sometimes a body, sometimes a symbol, sometimes a vehicle.

Text by Amie Tulius, inspired by the NOWHERE project.

Grooves 2.2 /  by Nathan Webster

Kamas Stars

It is surprising to fall in love with a place that was not yours from the beginning. You moved here for a summer, a winter, for a man, a woman, for a job. You never expected you’d stay.
You do the things that one does in this place. Go on the hikes, learn the cafes, the restaurants, visit the parks, the concerts, the museums. At first it is giddy, this place opening up for you. These flowers that are native to here, the warm smell of these trees by this creek, this snow comes early then autumn returns and the light slants golden but still new. Sometimes it is novel and exciting, sometimes it feels wrong. Winter should be different. It is different than the winter your body knows and you are exhilarated by it, then frustrated with it, but hold it lightly and at arm’s length because you are only here for now.

And then the flowers that are native to here. The smell of these trees by this creek. The snow. The slant. And your body remembers. You begin to learn how water moves in this place—the direction of the rivers and how they connect to other places. You know automatically where to turn to see if the moon is rising yet. How late the sky will continue to glow and where to watch for the constellations. There is Cygnus: rising over the same part of your home as last July.

The flowers that always bloom here this time of year—you know their names and when they are at their peak. These trees and the creek like every year. The first snow! That certain gold of the light that cues you to get out the sweaters. You learn the stories of the place, the history. You vote with its best interests in your heart. You defend it to people who come here who don’t know it and want to mock its quirks. Those are your quirks. Your favorite restaurant closes and it is like a little death.

Your body anticipates the flowers weeks before they bloom, and then they bloom. You realize they are the reason you sneeze this time of year but you don’t care. The trees. Creek. Snow. You arc to them. The light in the fall. Winter and all its anticipated pleasures and you can fight it or enjoy it—it will happen as it happens. This is how it is here. You learn about the geology of the place. The politics and prehistory. You wonder how deep this can go. And then you wonder how much you are willing to give to this place. And perhaps that’s the only question that matters.

The flowers bloom and they bloom and they bloom. Just like last year. And the year before that, and the one before that until the seasons are layered with sensory memories that become a kind of clock your body is tuned to. And you can exalt in it or wrestle with it, it doesn’t matter, we each love how we love.

Artist, Adam Bateman walking the final six miles with friends from Immigration Canyon to downtown Salt Lake on July 11, 2015.

Artist, Adam Bateman walking the final six miles with friends from Immigration Canyon to downtown Salt Lake on July 11, 2015.

Text by Amie Tulius in support of the NOWHERE project, with photo still from video by PerryLane Decker above. 

The performance is this coming weekend on July 17 and 18 at Libby Gardner Hall.  Get your tickets here.    

AND, yes, it is true: Our friend and collaborator Adam Bateman is home, as seen here on the final stretch.

 

 

 

Migration 1.2 /  by Nathan Webster

Sego Lily.jpg

“Like a mirror, a place can hold anything, on any scale.” Gary Snyder writes in Practice of the Wild. “I want to talk about place as an experience and propose a model of what it meant to “live in place” for most of human time, presenting it initially in terms of the steps that a child takes growing into a natural community. (We have terms enculturation and acculturation, but nothing to describe the process of becoming placed or re-placed.) In doing so we might get one more angle on what a “civilization of wildness” might require. . . Our place is part of what we are. . .A place is a mosaic within larger mosaics. . . Recollecting that we once lived in places is part of our contemporary self-rediscovery.”

Snyder talks about how we grow up speaking a home language, a local vernacular. In our homes, we hear histories of the people and tales involving rocks, trees, and mountains. We grow bold and explore outward taking small trips on foot. We explore our neighborhoods, playgrounds, and trails. We traverse to larger regions. We venture outward always going wider and farther to unexplored, distant places, but we always return to the hearth, to the campfire to share our stories.

"For most Americans, to reflect on “home place” would be an unfamiliar exercise,” Snyder continues. “Few today can announce themselves as someone from somewhere. Almost nobody spends a lifetime in the same valley, working alongside the people they knew as children.“


Words gathered by Amie Tulius, by Stefanie Dykes + Gary Snyder, as part of NOW-ID's blog series leading up NOWHERE, taking place on July 17 and 18 at Libby Gardner Hall.  Photo by Adam Bateman.

Mountains & Temples 3.1 /  by Nathan Webster

Chimney Rock

In aesthetics, the sublime (from the Latin sublimis) is the quality of greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual, or artistic. The term especially refers to a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement, or imitation. -- Wikipedia

Maybe we find mountains holy because of their size. The scale of a mountain floods a human-sized consciousness with awe… mountain-sized is just the right size of large and the right size of awe. It’s awe you can wrap your mind around. Plains, for example, are certainly sublime but  problematic--  not for a lack of beauty, but for the vastness.  Awe so huge can tip into existential terror. From a design perspective, plains are all prospect and no shelter.

Or maybe there is just something about mountains. Something about that soaring feeling, that sensation of the sublime which is a call-and-response between human hearts and the heart of the world. Maybe we don’t have to break it apart. We go there and we can’t help but leap toward it. Or mountains provide a kind of spiritual heat, as in chemistry where sublime refers to a solid that becomes a vapor when heated. There is something vaporizing about the presence of mountains.

This post is part of a series leading up to NOW-ID's show NOWHERE on July17/18, 2015.  The series' headings are: Migration, Grooves, and Mountains and Temples. 

Mountains and Temples 3.1 text by Amie Tulius, with photograph by Adam Bateman.

Grooves 2.1 /  by Nathan Webster

Grooves

Before they were metaphors, they were actual wagon wheels. And before that it was just feet and hooves moving overground, tamping the grasses. A few fur trappers, explorers, and mountain men. At first it was a fairly random westward trickle. There were no centers to move toward, no cities.

Others followed, their feet pressing a faint hard line into the earth-- an improbably long line across the continent. That line. To travel such distances changes the size of an individual. Looking down at the continent from above, the scale renders a human invisible; turns people into nearly imaginary specks moving across the landscape. Like the slowest of neurons carving a path through the brain of the country.

But the wheels: the path created by the feet and hooves forged a way for wagons and soon a surge of those deployed, and the path widened, became a proper trail. A few hundred wagons, and then thousands, and the trail deepened, cut grooves into the earth, until what at first could have gone any number of routes turned into what felt like inevitability.

At first it was just an idea. Then it was a groove. Tracks went down, and came trains, then freeways.

This post is part of a series leading up to NOW-ID's show NOWHERE on July17/18, 2015.  The series' headings are: Migration, Grooves, and Mountains and Temples. 

Grooves 2.1 text by Amie Tulius, with photograph by Adam Bateman.

YOU ARE NOW HERE – PREVIEW PERFORMANCE AT KIMBALL ART CENTER JULY 10th /  by Nathan Webster

NOW-ID is excited to be collaborating with the Kimball Art Center in Park City for the first time on a small performance in connection with Kimball's "YOU ARE NOW HERE" exhibition.

This performance of 6-7 minutes each will be taking place at the Kimball July 10th at 7pm and 8.30pm and will be an intimate preview of a larger production that NOW-ID is producing at Libby Gardner Hall in Salt Lake City the following weekend titled "NOWHERE". NOWHERE is an exploration of what it is to be of a place, and to not be of a place. It is about learning, loving and leaving a place, about the perceptual absence place and coming back. It is about this place, specifically, and the contrasting active and passive sensory experiEnce of what it means to settle. Audience, local/international artists, and original contemporary dance and live music will push and pull at where our West is now.

Audiences at Kimball Center will be able to experience "YOU ARE NOW HERE" both from outside and inside the building and the piece will be staged in the context of the exhibition, adding layers of interpretation to the work. We hope you will join us for a physically charged yet poetically subtle performance.

FRIDAY JULY 10TH , 2015
AT 7:00 PM AND 8:30 PM
Free | no RSVP required

Performances will take place in the Kimball’s window display on Heber Avenue and can be viewed from inside the gallery or via the sidewalk and street.

For more information visit:
WWW.KIMBALLARTCENTER.ORG/EVENTS/

 

MISSION: NOW-ID IS A CONTEMPORARY DANCE AND DESIGN COMPANY BASED IN SALT LAKE CITY, THE COMPANY IS GUIDED BY A PASSIONATE BELIEF IN THE POWER OF ART TO ENGAGE AND MOVE PEOPLE AND FOSTER SOCIAL CHANGE. IT CREATES FORWARD THINKING, INNOVATIVE AND ENCOMPASSING WORK FOR BOTH ARTISTS AND AUDIENCE, WORK THAT GROWS FROM SPECIFIC SITES AND IN COLLABORATION WITH LOCAL, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS FROM A RANGE OF CREATIVE FIELDS. NOW-ID SUPPORTS THE COMBINED VISION OF CHOREOGRAPHER CHARLOTTE BOYE-CHRISTENSEN AND ARCHITECT NATHAN WEBSTER.

Migration 1.1 /  by Nathan Webster

What causes you to say stop. This is it. This is the where I stay.

And then how do you tune your body to a new geography?  What does it take for your body to know the rhythms of a place, for you to become of that place? How many seasons? 5 years? 7 years? A generation? Do you have to be born there, to spend your childhood there, to build rituals into the seasons? Or is it further back? Do you need ancestors to be of a place before it is really yours? How many generations? Several? Enough to weave your family stories and history into the place? Or is it further? Do you need to stay long enough that the sunlight or lack of sunlight darkens or lightens your skin? Or, like moth, your wings change to match the bark of the trees. Like a bird your bill is shaped just perfectly to fit the flowers that grow only here. Somewhere in the span of three and three thousand years you find that you can no longer separate the landscape from who you’ve become.

Migration 1.1

 

This is the first in a series of posts inspired by and in support of the NOWHERE project.  Text by Amie Tulius.  Photograph by Nathan Webster

NOWHERE coming soon... /  by Nathan Webster

A site-visit to Libby Gardner Concert Hall in Salt Lake City. We are using the extraordinary organ there in our multidisciplinary contemporary dance performance - it will be played by local organ player Laura Cutler and the compositions are going to be evocative. Join us there July 17, 18, 2015.