SPRING 22

NEW CREATIONS BY MAURYA KERR, MICAELA TAYLOR & OLIVIER WEVERS

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May 20 & 21, 2022 | CORNISH PLAYHOUSE
May 25, 2022
| VASHON CENTER FOR THE ARTS
May 28, 2022
| WHIDBEY ISLAND CENTER FOR THE ARTS

Excite your senses and nourish your soul! Whim W’Him is thrilled to be back live in the theater presenting three world premieres by Maurya Kerr, Micaela Taylor and Olivier Wevers brought to life by our extraordinary dancers. Join us for a night you won’t forget!

Scroll down for more information and tickets.

Live performances are subject to COVID-19 reopening guidelines and public health and safety mandates.

May 20 & 21, 2022 | CORNISH PLAYHOUSE
May 25, 2022
| VASHON CENTER FOR THE ARTS
May 28, 2022
| WHIDBEY ISLAND CENTER FOR THE ARTS

Closing our twelfth season with the world premieres of two new dance creations by the Artistic Director of tinypistol, Maurya Kerr, and Micaela Taylor, Artistic Director of The TL Collective in Los Angeles, CA.

I remain deeply invested in movement processes because I believe the body is a site of liberation. Bodies in motion have the potential to offer us all, both mover and witness, alternate futurities and ways of being within our own bodies, and in community.
Maurya Kerr

[Expand practice] comes from this idea that we are moving out from our core and using all the shapes we can make; this idea that it’s not one idea that we are after, and it is not one style of dance. We are always expanding.
Micaela Taylor, Dance Magazine

Scroll down for more information and tickets.

Live performances are subject to COVID-19 reopening guidelines and public health and safety mandates.

May 20 & 21, 2022

CORNISH PLAYHOUSE
AT SEATTLE CENTER

May 25, 2022

VASHON CENTER
FOR THE ARTS

May 28, 2022

WHIDBEY ISLAND
CENTER FOR THE ARTS

May 20 & 21, 2022

CORNISH PLAYHOUSE
AT SEATTLE CENTER

May 25, 2022

VASHON CENTER
FOR THE ARTS

May 28, 2022

WHIDBEY ISLAND
CENTER FOR THE ARTS

CHOREOGRAPHER

MAURYA KERR

she/her/hers

Maurya Kerr is a bay area-based choreographer, poet, educator, filmmaker, performer, and the artistic director of tinypistol. Much of her artistic work, across disciplines, is focused on Black and brown people reclaiming their birthright to wonderment. Maurya was a member of Alonzo King LINES Ballet for twelve years, an ODC artist-in-residence from 2015 to 2018, and holds an MFA in dance from Hollins University. Maurya’s poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, is featured or forthcoming in various publications, and was recently chosen by Jericho Brown as runner-up in Southern Humanities Review’s 2021 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize. Maurya is currently a 2021/22 UC Berkeley ARC (Arts Research Center) Poetry & the Senses Fellow. www.tinypistol.com

Photography by Alan Kimara Dixon

CHOREOGRAPHER

MICAELA TAYLOR

she/her/hers

Micaela Taylor is a professional dancer, choreographer, and Artistic Director of The TL Collective. She is the recipient of the Inaugural Springboard EMERGE Choreographic Award and was recently named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” 2019, and appeared on the cover of Dance Magazine in May 2020. She is trailblazing in the city of Los Angeles and beyond. Alongside the launch of The TL Collective, Taylor has been commissioned to choreograph and teach by BODYTRAFFIC, Springboard Danse Montreal, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, B12 Festival Berlin, Carlos Acosta’s Acosta Danza, and more. Taylor’s work has been presented at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, The Broad Stage, Ford Amphitheatre, The Barclay Center, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, and more. Her quirky style of facial expressions and athletic theatricality sets her work apart. SNAP, a commissioned work created for BODYTRAFFIC set her mark as a choreographer that transcends one style of dance. She formed a new movement style called Expand Practice, which allows individuals to expand their mind, body, and narrative.

CHOREOGRAPHER

OLIVIER WEVERS

he/him/his

From ballet training in his native Belgium, Olivier learned the beauty, passion and discipline of the art. On coming to North America at age 19, he discovered the exhilaration of many new dance forms. As a principal dancer, first with Royal Winnipeg Ballet and later, for most of his dancing career, with Pacific Northwest Ballet, he acquired his strong conviction that dancers are the heart and soul of a company. As such they, and artists in general, must live at the very center of the process, their dignity, psychological and creative growth and safety deemed just as essential as their technical accomplishments.

During his years of performing in classical and contemporary works by choreographers from around the world, Olivier also discovered the thrill of making dances and how imaginative story-telling and movement exploration connect to caring about individuality and physicality. Creating dances fed his perennial curiosity. It became my way to express myself and, during the process, to be able to learn more about the human condition, start dialogues, touch people and share ideas, reflecting on our times and our humanity.”

Click here for more

CHOREOGRAPHER

MAURYA KERR

she/her/hers

Maurya Kerr is a bay area-based choreographer, poet, educator, filmmaker, performer, and the artistic director of tinypistol. Much of her artistic work, across disciplines, is focused on Black and brown people reclaiming their birthright to wonderment. Maurya was a member of Alonzo King LINES Ballet for twelve years, an ODC artist-in-residence from 2015 to 2018, and holds an MFA in dance from Hollins University. Maurya’s poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, is featured or forthcoming in various publications, and was recently chosen by Jericho Brown as runner-up in Southern Humanities Review’s 2021 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize. Maurya is currently a 2021/22 UC Berkeley ARC (Arts Research Center) Poetry & the Senses Fellow. www.tinypistol.com

Photography by Alan Kimara Dixon

CHOREOGRAPHER

MICAELA TAYLOR

she/her/hers

Micaela Taylor is a professional dancer, choreographer, and Artistic Director of The TL Collective. She is the recipient of the Inaugural Springboard EMERGE Choreographic Award and was recently named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” 2019, and appeared on the cover of Dance Magazine in May 2020. She is trailblazing in the city of Los Angeles and beyond. Alongside the launch of The TL Collective, Taylor has been commissioned to choreograph and teach by BODYTRAFFIC, Springboard Danse Montreal, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, B12 Festival Berlin, Carlos Acosta’s Acosta Danza, and more. Taylor’s work has been presented at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, The Broad Stage, Ford Amphitheatre, The Barclay Center, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, and more. Her quirky style of facial expressions and athletic theatricality sets her work apart. SNAP, a commissioned work created for BODYTRAFFIC set her mark as a choreographer that transcends one style of dance. She formed a new movement style called Expand Practice, which allows individuals to expand their mind, body, and narrative.

CHOREOGRAPHER

OLIVIER WEVERS

he/him/his

From ballet training in his native Belgium, Olivier learned the beauty, passion and discipline of the art. On coming to North America at age 19, he discovered the exhilaration of many new dance forms. As a principal dancer, first with Royal Winnipeg Ballet and later, for most of his dancing career, with Pacific Northwest Ballet, he acquired his strong conviction that dancers are the heart and soul of a company. As such they, and artists in general, must live at the very center of the process, their dignity, psychological and creative growth and safety deemed just as essential as their technical accomplishments.

During his years of performing in classical and contemporary works by choreographers from around the world, Olivier also discovered the thrill of making dances and how imaginative story-telling and movement exploration connect to caring about individuality and physicality. Creating dances fed his perennial curiosity. It became my way to express myself and, during the process, to be able to learn more about the human condition, start dialogues, touch people and share ideas, reflecting on our times and our humanity.”

Click here for more

LIGHTING DESIGNER

MICHAEL MAZZOLA

he/him/his

Michael’s critically acclaimed lighting and scenery has been seen in venues all over the USA, Europe, and Asia, ranging from opera houses to amphitheaters to circus tents to hay barns. The 3-time New York Dance and Performance Award winner has designed lighting and scenery for many dance companies, in the USA, Australia, Finland, Sweden, Cuba. He designed lighting and video for the 2015 Presidential Scholars Awards, at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Michael has also been Senior Scenic Designer on two Comedy Central Celebrity Roasts, as well as the 2015 Lincoln Awards at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall for Uplight, Inc, based in NYC. Some of his performance photography has been published in Liz Lerman’s book “Hiking the Horizontal”, as well on the websites and marketing materials for Bebe Miller Company and Rachel Tess Dance.

LIGHTING DESIGNER

MICHAEL MAZZOLA

he/him/his

Michael’s critically acclaimed lighting and scenery has been seen in venues all over the USA, Europe, and Asia, ranging from opera houses to amphitheaters to circus tents to hay barns. The 3-time New York Dance and Performance Award winner has designed lighting and scenery for many dance companies, in the USA, Australia, Finland, Sweden, Cuba. He designed lighting and video for the 2015 Presidential Scholars Awards, at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Michael has also been Senior Scenic Designer on two Comedy Central Celebrity Roasts, as well as the 2015 Lincoln Awards at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall for Uplight, Inc, based in NYC. Some of his performance photography has been published in Liz Lerman’s book “Hiking the Horizontal”, as well on the websites and marketing materials for Bebe Miller Company and Rachel Tess Dance.

VISION

Enriching lives by investing in imagination,
illuminating that art exists within each and everyone

DANCERS

  • MICHAEL ARELLANO
  • LIANE AUNG
  • TONY CARNELL
  • JANE CRACOVANER
  • NELL JOSEPHINE
  • ANDREW MCSHEA
  • KARL WATSON

BEHIND THE SCENES

Exploring, intimately and in wider perspective, the creative process of Whim W’Him and our many collaborators—in the studio, behind the scenes and onstage.

DANCERS

  • MICHAEL ARELLANO
  • LIANE AUNG
  • TONY CARNELL
  • JANE CRACOVANER
  • NELL JOSEPHINE
  • ANDREW MCSHEA
  • KARL WATSON

BEHIND THE SCENES

Exploring, intimately and in wider perspective, the creative process of Whim W’Him and our many collaborators—in the studio, behind the scenes and onstage.

SUPPORT US

SUPPORT NEW DANCE CREATIONS & THRIVING ARTISTS

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Thank You for Your Generous Support!

Your support makes our work possible and we are deeply grateful for all the ways you continue to show up for Whim W’Him, our artists and each other – by donating, joining us for online creations and conversations, and sharing the work we do with families, friends and neighbors.

Thank you for being part of the Whim W’Him family!