Season 11 continues with Choreographic Shindig VI, featuring two new dance films fueled by the brave imaginations of fan-favorite Annabelle Lopez Ochoa–creating virtually from Amsterdam–and Madison Olandt & Mike Tyus, who are taking our dancers’ places they’ve never been before with music by Emmit Fenn. This trailblazing program puts the power of creation into the hands of our dancers while supporting emerging talent. Both films were created in collaboration with filmmaker Quinn Wharton.

Dancers: Michael Arellano, Liane Aung, Jane Cracovaner, Ashley Green, Jim Kent, Andrew McShea, Karl Watson
Special thanks to Jill Cronauer, Hunters Capital, LLC, Kathy Gerlich, Pike Building, LLC, Paris Sakas, Sam & Nancy Whiting

GRASSVILLE is the 5^th piece Annabelle Lopez Ochoa has created for Whim W’Him.
This spring she started out with an exploration of a completely different topic, but the intimacy and physical interaction required were simply not available to masked dancers six feet apart in a Seattle studio and a choreographer in Amsterdam. “So why not,” Annabelle thought, “make a piece showing people not touching each other? Maybe a piece on lack of contact with nature?”
The answer is a surreal take on our reaction to being locked inside our walls during the pandemic and our longing to reconnect to nature—which happens mostly in (or on*) our heads.

*The lavish headpieces are the flowering of ever-inventive Mark Zappone’s imagination.

Inspired by the idea that we live in a simulated reality, Madison & Mike take us on a journey from inside the screen world to ELSEWHERE, a place that is neither here nor there but the place we escape to.
In normal times, many of our greatest pleasures derive from our desire to escape reality. Yet in this age of sequestration, social media, and ever-present screen modalities, it’s the return to what is real that feels more like an escape. Physical human contact and grass between your toes are more transcendent than any Oscar-Winning movie.
In creating this dance film, Madison & Mike have found themselves capturing bits of reality, but then transforming them into data points and storing them on screens for people to consume.

Is this the new normal? Will we one day fully disconnect from the natural world to find escape within the digital realm? Or will we choose, yet again, to redefine Elsewhere?

Season 11 Choreographers: Joseph Hernandez, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Robyn Mineko Williams,
Madison Olandt, Penny Saunders, Mike Tyus, Olivier Wevers.

These films were created and filmed following strict adherence to the CDC
and WHO guidelines for physical distancing and safety protocols.
Read Whim WHim Covid-19 policies and procedures for rehearsals.