BQDanza performs Rat Race in NWDS' JunkNation - April 25th and 26th, 2009.

General Admission $18 / Students & Seniors $15

Tickets available at the door and online at www.brownpapertickets.com

NorthWest Dance Syndrome (NWDS) presents JUNKNATION at the Erickson Theater Off Broadway on April 25 and 26 2009 at 8pm. The Erickson Theater Off Broadway is located at 1524 Harvard Ave. Seattle, WA 98122. General Admission $18 and students/seniors $15. Tickets are available at the door and online at www.brownpapertickets.com. NWDS will share the stage with local dance company BQdanza directed by award winning choreographer, Carla Barragan.

JUNKNATION, created by NWDS is a dance centered on waste and reusability. Trash encountered during everyday life turns into physical sculpture, creating interesting pictures and unique movement possibilities. The dance begins with subtle hints of movement and sound. Ghostly dancers skitter in and out of harsh light as a pulse begins to take form. Movement and sound were sourced from ideas, impressions, and images of junk. From hanging industrial size hydrogen tanks to fast food, plastic bags, windup toys and TVs littered through the space, JUNKNATION offers a different look at the ways in which we re-use or waste. Set to original music by local composer Jeff Huston, JUNKNATION takes on the re-invention of the useless. Junk sculpture created by Seattle artist, Paul Haugland.

BQdanza will perform Rat Race. This piece focuses on mankind’s propensity to fight against each other and against time to get ahead, eventually becoming manic in the pursuit of power, destroying one another, regardless of the cost to the planet or other living things. The choreography incorporates intricate murals by Ecuadorian artist Paula Barragan, and is set to music by renowned composer Amy Denio. The dancers’ movements, as well as the projections, depict striking images of half-human, half-animal characters devouring or mutating into one another. They represent a symbolic degradation of the environment and its creatures as a result of our behavior and the ever-expanding explosion of the industrial revolution.

NWDS is a non-profit 501(c)3 Seattle based collaborative modern dance company. With a long history deeply rooted in modern dance, contact, and improvisation, artistic directors Teresa Cowan-Kuist, Anne Motl and Maya Soto have been creating and presenting work as a collaborative team since 2003. NWDS has performed in venues such as: On the Boards, Bagley Wright Theater, Velocity MainSpace Theater, Broadway Performance Hall and the Firehouse Performing Arts Center. NWDS has been featured in festivals including: Northwest New Works Festival, Bumbershoot, The Smoke Farm Festival, SITEWORKS and The Juan De Fuca Festival of the Arts. As a company, NWDS has created 3 full length collaborative dance works: Americanism, Red Tent, and JUNKNATION, a dance film entitled Nocturne and numerous shorter dances. NWDS has commissioned work from local choreographers Jill Leversee (re: Collect(ed) 2006) and Ellie Sandstrom (move me/you move me 2007). In 2007, NWDS was a recipient of the Walrus Performance Productions Space Grant. With this grant, NWDS created Perch, a dance set to symphonic Radiohead. NWDS’s latest collaborative work, JUNKNATION is partially funded by the Allied Arts Foundation. An excerpt of JUNKNATION was performed in the 2008 Northwest New Works Festival at On the Boards in Seattle, WA.

BQdanza collaborates with artists of different media and cultures to continuously reinvent the company’s own language of movement. “BQ” is an abbreviation of Birlibirloque, the previous company name which was founded in New York City in 1991 by Carla Barragan. Birlibirloque refers to the way things magically appear or disappear. Barragan chose this old Spanish word to represent the ephemeral nature of dance. Carla Barragan is an Ecuadorian dancer, choreographer and educator working between Seattle, Mexico and Ecuador since 1998. In 2008, Barragan won the Margaret K. Williams “Excellence in the Arts” award in Pierce County. In 1993 she received an MA in Dance Education from teachers College, Columbia University and in 1990, a BFA in dance from SUNY Purchase, NY. The Seattle Children’s International Festival, The National Dance Company in Ecuador, UDLA Danza in Puebla, Mexico, and others, have commissioned her work. BQdanza received the 2008 4Culture Arts Group Project Award. It was selected amongst 10 best arts events in 2007 in Tacoma, (Tacoma News Tribune). Other awards include: Tacoma Artist Initiative Program 2007, the former Seattle and King County Arts Commissions, The Thurstan Foundation, The Secretary of Culture in Puebla, Mexico, and the Parrot Foundation in New York.

(photos by Tim Summers)

Contact: Teresa Cowan-Kuist

Phone: 206-354-4659

Email: nwdancesyndrome@yahoo.com

Website: www.nwdancesyndrome.com