Vanessa Owen and Gavin Stewart. Photo by Andrew Bowen
On Friday and Saturday, May 1 and 2, at 7 p.m., the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts presents Stewart/Owen Dance + Guests in the Diana Wortham Theatre. Resident artists Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen, who comprise Stewart/Owen Dance, will host Eric Mullis and New Dialect, nationally recognized Southern choreographers, for guest performances. The program includes Mullis’ Instancing Network, Banning Bouldin of New Dialect’s Echo Mother and Stewart/Owen Dance’s Comfort Creatures and The Front.
All of the performances fall into the category of contemporary dance, but, says Stewart, they offer different approaches as well as challenges to assumptions about contemporary dance. “Eric Mullis creates with technology as a choreographic tool, generating movement from systems and spatial logic in combination with his background in Chinese Kung Fu and Tai Chi Chuan,” Stewart says. “His work, Instancing Network, is a duet with a precise, almost surgical physicality and an unexpected special logic. Banning Bouldin’s work seems to emanate from the inside out. Echo Mother (world premiere) is a duet based on her experience as a parent navigating an invisible disability. It transforms everyday gestures of care into a layered physical language of labor and love.”
Their own performances, Stewart says, will touch on the theatrical. “Each is inspired by human behavior,” he says. “The Front is an electrically charged satire that examines the so-called ‘masks’ people wear, and Comfort Creatures is a wild exploration of the instinctive pull toward comfort.” These May performances mark a world premiere of Comfort Creatures and an Asheville premiere of The Front.
“What sets Stewart/Owen Dance apart is how we work,” Stewart says. “Our process is demanding, but it’s not heavy-handed. We pay attention to the people in the room, meet them where they are and build the work together. That tends to show up in what we present on stage or what unfolds in our classes.”
The Wortham Center for the Performing Arts is located at 18 Biltmore Avenue in downtown Asheville. To learn more, visit WorthamArts.org or call 828.257.4530. For more about Stewart/Owen Dance, visit StewartOwenDance.org.
