Olivier Wevers’ award-winning contemporary dance company Whim W’Him welcomes two new dancers for the 2017/18 Figurate season. Cameron Birts and Adrian Hoffman make their debut at the Choreographic Shindig III, September 8-16, 2017 at the Erickson Theatre Off Broadway. For the 3rd year, Whim W’Him dancers will perform world premieres by choreographers they selected from international applicants.
ABOUT OUR NEW DANCERS
Cameron Birts, a native of Roswell, Georgia, just graduated with a BFA in Dance from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Adrian Hoffman, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, graduated from The Ailey School/Fordham University, with a BFA in Dance and a double minor in Philosophy/Math in 2016. Read full bios below.
ABOUT CHOREOGRAPHIC SHINDIG III
Whim W’Him’s Choreographic Shindig premiered in 2015, and it is already a favorite among the company’s bold community of supporters. This program is curated by the Whim W’Him dancers, each year they select three rising choreographers to work with from hundreds of applications submitted from around the world. The result is a dynamic evening of new dance creations where audiences immerse themselves in the voices and choices of artists.
Performers rarely have a say in the inception of programming; Whim W’Him recognizes this missed opportunity and has made a yearly tradition out of it. The mission of Whim W’Him is to provide a platform, centered on choreography and dance, for artists to explore their craft through innovation and collaboration. Choreographic Shindig is helping us achieve our mission, educate dancers and elevate their artistic voices. “When I was still dancing, I always wished for an opportunity to help select programming.”-Olivier Wevers, Interview with Michael Upchurch, September 10, 2016
The three choreographers selected for this year’s Choreographic Shindig are Adam Barruch, Artistic Director of Anatomiae Occultii, from New York City; Banning Boulding, founder and Artistic Director of New Dialect, from Nashville; and Bruno Roque, a former soloist with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo and Royal Ballet of Flanders, from Portugal.
WHIM W’HIM CHOREOGRAPHIC SHINDIG III
September 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, and 16 at 8PM
Erickson Theatre Off Broadway
1524 Harvard Avenue | Seattle 98122
$30 Advance | $35 day of |$55 premium | $15 Student Rush | $5 TeenTix
Season tickets start at $75
Single tickets and season subscriptions are on sale at brownpapertickets.com
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Whim W’Him company dancers for the 2017/18 season are Liane Aung, Cameron Birts, Adrian Hoffman, Jim Kent, Mia Monteabaro, Tory Peil and Karl Watson.
Cameron Birts, New Company Dancer
GENEROUS | COMPELLING | HONEST
A native of Roswell, Georgia, Cameron began dancing at the age of 5 with Norma’s Academy of Dance. He continued his ballet training with Roswell Dance Theatre and received the director’s scholarship to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he received his BFA in Dance May 2017.
Adrian Hoffman, New Company Dancer
MOLTEN | CURIOUS | FREE
Born and raised Cambridge, MA, Adrian began as a martial artist. After receiving his Black Belt, he transitioned to dance in high school. He graduated from The Ailey School/Fordham University, with a BFA in Dance and a double minor in Philosophy/Math. He also and pioneered a study abroad exchange with Israel’s Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company. He has been an Alvin Ailey guest dancer, danced in music videos for Katy I Perry, and freelanced on stage and film. He regularly also performs with Invertigo Dance Theater, Pony Box Dance Theater and Luminario Ballet in Los Angeles.
Olivier Wevers, Artistic Director
Dedicated to creating works of artistic innovation and collaboration, Brussels-born Olivier founded Whim W’Him in 2009. Before establishing the company, he was a principal dancer with Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. His awards and recognition include the Princess Grace Foundation Choreography Fellowship, the City of Seattle Mayor’s Arts Award, the grand prize award for an unprecedented two years in a row at the annual Dance Under the Stars Choreography Festival in California, and the ArtistTrust/ Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship Award. He participated in the National Choreographers Initiative and the prestigious New York Choreographic Institute. Olivier has created works for companies and festivals around the world, including Pacific Northwest Ballet, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Grand Rapids Ballet, Northwest Dance Project, BalletX, Spectrum Dance Theater, Prix de Lausanne, White Bird’s 4×4 Ballet Project, and Dance the Dream Seattle.
Adam Barruch, Choreographer
Adam started his career as a young actor, performing professionally on Broadway and in film and television before receiving dance training at La Guardia High School for Music & Art and Performing Arts, followed by The Julliard School dance department. He has performed works of many renowned choreographers and worked with Sylvain Émard Danse in Montreal, as well as with The Margie Gillis Dance Foundation. His own creations have been presented at numerous prestigious US venues and in Latin America. Based in Brooklyn, Adam currently creates and performs work for his own company, Anatomiae Occultii. He has also choreographed two music videos for Tokyo- based musical act mishmash and was selected as a participant in the 2011 Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation New Directions Choreography Lab. His short-film collaboration with filmmaker Nel Shelby, Folie a Deux was screened at the Dance On Camera Festival in Lincoln Center in 2012. He received a 2014 Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences and has been an artist-in-resident, most recently at the 92Y (2016-2017). Adam is currently working on a new physical theater production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.
Banning Boulding, Choreographer
A Nashville native, Banning received her BFA in dance from The Juilliard School in 2002 and spent the first 8 years of her career working internationally. During her tenure with Aszure Barton and Artists, from 2003-2010, she was a soloist, master class teacher, and rehearsal assistant. In 2007, she joined Rumpus Room Dance, based in Portland, Oregon and Göteborg, Sweden, co-creating and performing multiple site-specific dance works. She and her Rumpus Room colleagues were nominated one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2010. That year, Banning also returned to Nashville and in 2012 founded New Dialect, a contemporary dance company which explores a wide variety of groundbreaking movement vocabularies. In 2014, New Dialect was named Nashville’s Best New Dance Company, and Banning herself received the Tennessee Dance Association’s Margaret Martin Award for outstanding contributions to furthering the public image and accessibility of dance in Tennessee. In 2015, she won Northwest Dance Project’s Pretty Creative choreographic competition and was selected as an e-choreographer for Springboard Danse Montreal. Banning was nominated in 2016 for the United States Artist Fellowship and received the Tennessee Arts Commission’s Individual Artist Fellowship for choreography.
Bruno Roque, Choreographer
Bruno was born in Lisbon. At 13 he was accepted by audition into the National Conservatory in Portugal in dance. After graduating, he trained on scholarship at the prestigious Vaganova Ballet Academy in Saint Petersburg, Russia, until 1996, when he was offered a contract with the National Ballet of Portugal, quickly becoming a soloist. In 2001 he joined the Royal Ballet of Flanders in Antwerp, and from 2004 to 2016 was a first soloist with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo. During his dancing career, he performed works of celebrated choreographers and worked directly with many of them. Since 2007, when his first creation, Ai Que Vida, was made for a young choreographers evening at Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, his numerous pieces for the company have met with much success. Bruno has also been responsible since 2015 for the choreography, staging and artistic direction of a pedagogical project, supported by the Ballets de Monte Carlo and the Monegasque Ministry of Culture, involving 100 plus children from Monaco primary schools in acting, singing and dancing, giving them the opportunity to experience the demands of creating and performing live in a professional setting.
ABOUT THE COMPANY
Whim W’Him is an award-winning Seattle-based contemporary dance company founded in 2009 by Olivier Wevers, former Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer and choreographer. The company presents all new works and has a mission to be a platform centered around choreography and dance for artists to explore their craft through innovation and collaboration. Since its formation in 2009, Whim W’Him has created 47 new contemporary dance works with 28 global artists. mys.iqs.temporary.site