This week we are sharing several previews before the premiere of Let Slip the Witches, with Bellwether Dance Project, at the ODC Theater in San Francisco, April 4-6, 2019. We will hear from choreographer Amy Foley as well from her collaborators.
Kaitlyn Ebert. Photo by Stephen Texeira.
Today we hear from several of the dancers and collaborators for the project. They share about risk, vulnerability, endurance, and exertion.
Tanya Bello: There was always a plan to what I thought my artistic life should look like. But life happens, priorities change, and your artistic life shifts. As you get older, you question your body, your relevance in the community, but Amy trusted me. She invited me to return to the stage after a long hiatus. I went back into the studio and felt vulnerable. I move differently now, but the process reminded me of the contributions I can make as an artist. The collaboration between Nol and Amy has truly been a blessing. The risk was well worth it.
Karla Quintero: As a dance, LSTW demands a lot. It has the feeling of a very important ritual, one you might perform to stop the world from ending. Right now, rehearsals are a practice of toggling between intense repetition, assertiveness, and deep listening. As we bring this ritual into performance, I imagine this will shift. My hope is that it will open a portal to an organic unity that I've been craving.
Juliann Witt: Amy’s work has been challenging me to move low and quick. Channeling the beastly witch inside this long lanky exterior.
Caitlin Hicks and Elena Martins. Photo: Stephen Texeira.
Kaitlyn Ebert: In "Let Slip the Witches" and "Thighs and Wages," the concept of endurance as it relates to resistance has come up for me a lot. Physically, both of the pieces are very challenging in that respect, but furthermore the works have encouraged and continue to push me to explore the concept of work, vitality, and sometimes exhaustion (as Amy has described it) as a performance element and what that contributes to the work as a whole and how this idea of physical endurance translates to the idea of emotional resistance and persistence that embodies the female experience.
Elena Martins: It has been easy to dive into the vulnerable sides of this work. The process of working with a group of strong, independent, and supportive women has felt empowering, and I can’t wait to continue taking risks with these ladies throughout the run of the shows.
Caitlin Hicks: I love “Thighs and Wages” for the honesty it allows me as a performer. There is room for and celebration of strength and struggle that are realities in dance and life but that we often are encouraged to hide or act out superficially. This work has allowed me to embrace exertion in a really gratifying way.
Kelsey Gerber: Adapting to a work set on bodies that move differently than your own has its own quirks and challenges. You have to be open to moving in new ways, yet choosing moments to redirect the flow and move the way that feels most organic to your body. This has brought up some vulnerable moments for me, trying to find sense and comfort in the material that is at first foreign. I feel outside of my body, my comfort zone, yet working in this state brings new opportunities for risk taking you may not have been pushed to before.
Life as a Modern Dancer 
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