From Blog Director Jill Randall:

Lately, I have been thinking about dance writing and dance publicity. How do we share/invite/entice/preview a work for our potential audience members? Salt Lake City-based artist Molly Heller and I are playing with this idea for the 7 days leading up to her show, very vary, at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley on December 2nd and 3rd. (Get your tickets here.)

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Today we hear from dancers in the project – about risk, rigor, and vulnerability with the work.

Photo credit: Duhaime Movement Project

From Melissa Younker:
Molly challenges the artists to stay inside of something for longer than comfortable, longer than possible…Through this rigorous task, movement can transform. The mind has time to find unknown places, and things can take unexpected shape. It’s a demanding physical state that has surprising outcomes: Does the body take over, does something release, does something bind, does the mind wander, does the task change without you knowing, how does the exhaustion change you, what is left? These are explorations that curiously exist in 'very vary.’

Photo credit: Duhaime Movement Project

From Yebel Gallegos:
I remember seeing Molly’s work for the first time as part of '12 Minutes Max,' which is a monthly performance series in SLC featuring original short works by local artists in many disciplines. I couldn’t take my eyes off the dancers; I wanted to know them and know their stories. They were like open books on stage, and their eyes invited us to take a look into their world. They seemed to be revealing their secrets, telling us about some of their deepest pains, and this as a performer I longed to do. I knew Molly from various colleagues and was more than excited to jump on the 'very vary’ train when she approached me about the project. As dancers, a lot of the time we are asked to make sense of someone's movement and vision. We put their vocabulary in our bodies and try to bring the work to life and make it our own. It is quite the opposite in this process.

There are moments in the work when we deal with fear; Molly has invited us to dig deep into our childhood and explore/revisit those moments and situations that shaped us to be who we are now. What was so challenging, but special about this process, was my inner dialogue – the answers and the movement came from a very sincere place, and for me, a dark place. In this work, I play myself. You would think it is an ideal situation for a performer, but in fact it is more difficult to be genuine and expose an honest you. The weight of vulnerability this produces is what causes something to happen, to move, to change.

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very vary, choreographed by Molly Heller

Shawl-Anderson Dance Center

2704 Alcatraz Avenue

Berkeley, CA 94705

Saturday, December 2nd at 8pm (post show Q&A with Heller and cast, moderated by Katie Faulkner)

Sunday, December 3rd at 3:30pm

Tickets: $20 General/ $15 Student

veryvary.brownpapertickets.com

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Related links:

Artist Profile: Molly Heller

MFA Program Spotlight: University of Utah (Molly is a professor in the program)

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