Whim W’Him Announces 2015-2016 Season Programming

Whim W’Him Announces 2015-2016 Season Programming
Whim W’Him’s Most Ambitious Season Yet

Season expanded to three productions featuring nine world premieres. New works by returning favorites, big names, and familiar faces, including Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Dominic Walsh, and local Mark Haim, and the Seattle debut of James Gregg, Maurya Kerr, Joshua Peugh, and Ihsan Rustem. Artistic Director Olivier Wevers will present two new creations.

The season also features two collaborations for artistic director Olivier Wevers: the Seattle premiere of his full length A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Grand Rapids Ballet and a new work for Seattle’s Music of Remembrance.

Season tickets on sale mid-June through BrownPaperTickets.com

Seattle, WA—Olivier Wevers’ award-winning contemporary dance company, Whim W’Him, announces its biggest season yet, expanding on its tradition of innovating, curating, and presenting groundbreaking contemporary dance here in Seattle. Fans will have more opportunities to see the company in action, with the addition of a third production in the season, performances spread over two weekends, and more performances at each production. And, for the first time, Whim W’Him will be selling season subscriptions, allowing Whimmers to secure seats for all three productions and gain access to a variety of new insider events.

The season kicks-off with the inaugural Whim W’Him Choreographic Shindig at the Erickson Theatre Off Broadway, September 11-20, 2015. In the dancer- curated program, we’re supporting emerging choreographic talent and simultaneously empowering our dancers by placing them at the helm of the curating process. The first crop of dancer-selected choreographers includes three award-winning artists hailing from Texas, San Francisco, and Switzerland: Joshua Peugh, founder and Artistic Director of Dark Circles Contemporary Dance; Maurya Kerr, founder of tinypistol and winner of the 2011 Hubbard Street National Choreographic Competition; and Ihsan Rustem, the winner of Sadler’s

Wells Global Dance Contest in 2012. The three choreographers will be in residence in Seattle starting June 1 and extending through the summer.

October and November will see the company in collaboration with two partner organizations: Grand Rapids Ballet and Music of Remembrance. Grand Rapids Ballet will bring Whim W’Him Artistic Director, Olivier Wevers’ “astonishingly original” Midsummer, a contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to the Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center, October 8-11, 2015. Then in November, Olivier will create a new work, performed by the Whim W’Him dancers with Music of Remembrance for their winter program, November 7-8, 2015 at the Nordstrom Recital Hall.

The subscription season picks back up in 2016 with the company’s return to the Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center for IN-spired, January 22-30, 2016. IN- spired will premier new creations by the Seattle choreographic veteran, Mark Haim; the director of Dominic Walsh Dance Theater and winner of the 2008 Princess Grace Choreography Fellowship winner, Dominic Walsh; and Whim W’Him artistic director, Olivier Wevers. OUT-spoken, also at the Cornish Playhouse June 3-11, 2016, will feature new creations from international star and Seattle darling, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa; resident choreographer for L’Ecole Superieure de Danse de Quebec, James Gregg; and Olivier Wevers.

Whim W’Him dancers include: Kyle Johnson, Jim Kent, Mia Monteabaro, Tory Peil, Thomas Phelan, Justin Reiter, and Lara Seefeldt.

Season subscription packages will be on sale in mid-June through BrownPaperTickets.com. All programming and dates are subject to change. For more information, visit whimwhim.org.

Whim W’Him’s 2015/2016 INSIDE OUT SEASON

Whim W’Him Choreographic Shindig**
SEPTEMBER 11-20, 2015
ERICKSON THEATER OFF BROADWAY 1524 HARVARD AVENUE | SEATTLE 98122

Choreographers:
Maurya Kerr | Joshua Peugh | Ihsan Rustem

Grand Rapids Ballet in Seattle
October 8-11, 2015
CORNISH PLAYHOUSE AT SEATTLE CENTER 201 MERCER STREET | SEATTLE 98109

Olivier Wevers’ full length, Midsummer, a contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Music of Remembrance
November 7-8, 2015
Nordstrom Recital Hall

New work choreographed by Olivier Wevers and performed by Whim W’Him with the Music of Remembrance

IN-spired**
January 22-30, 2016
CORNISH PLAYHOUSE AT SEATTLE CENTER 201 MERCER STREET | SEATTLE 98109

Choreographers:
Mark Haim | Dominic Walsh | Olivier Wevers

OUT-spoken**
JUNE 3-11, 2016
CORNISH PLAYHOUSE AT SEATTLE CENTER 201 MERCER STREET | SEATTLE 98109

Choreographers:

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa | James Gregg | Olivier Wevers

** Denotes Season Subscription Performance

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Olivier Wevers:
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.

Maurya Kerr
Maurya Kerr founded tinypistol after a twelve-year career with Alonzo King LINES Ballet. tinypistol has been honored by a 2011 Hubbard Street National Choreographic Competition award, a 2012 CHIME grant, and a University of Minnesota 2014/15 Cowles Visiting Artist grant. Her project beast (2014) was funded by grants from the Rainin Opportunity Fund at ODC Theater, the Zellerbach Family Foundation and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Lighting Artists in Dance, Theatre Bay Area CA$H, and the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation. Maurya’s work has been commissioned and presented by (selected) Ballet Nouveau Colorado, the Aspen Fringe Festival, WestWave Dance Festival, and the Black Choreographers Festival. Maurya is on faculty with the LINES Ballet educational programs and conducts residencies nationally as a visiting guest artist with (selected) BODYTRAFFIC, Hollins University, University of Minnesota, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and The School at Jacob’s Pillow.

Ihsan Rustem
Choreographer Ihsan Rustem was born in London, where he trained at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance. He began his professional career in 2000, at the age of 17, joining Matthew Bourne’s Adventures in Motion Pictures, followed by engagements with Germany’s BallettTheater Munich and Introdans, in The Netherlands. Since 2007, Ihsan has been based in Switzerland, as a founding member of both the Berne Ballet and the Tanz Luzerner Theater.

During this period, Rustem had works created on him by Wayne McGregor, Hofesh Shechter, Alexander Ekman, Matthew Bourne, Stijn Celis, Patrick Delcroix, Cayetano Soto, Guilherme Bothello, Karole Armitage and worked with choreographers Mats Ek, Jiri Kylián, Paul Lightfoot / Sol Leon, Hans van Manen and William Forsythe, amongst others.

In 2010 Sarah Slipper invited Ihsan to Portland, Oregon USA, where he created ‘State of Matter’ for the Northwest Dance Project; a piece which went on to win both the 2012 Sadler’s Wells Global Dance Contest and the Audience Choice Award at the 25th International Competition for Choreographers Hannover. In 2015, after three creations for the company, Slipper invited Ihsan to become the first Resident Choreographer for NWDP; a position he will hold through to 2018. Rustem was also the 2014 recipient of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s International Commissioning Project, and created ‘Long Story Short’ for HS2.

To date, Ihsan has created works for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago2, Northwest Dance Project, Istanbul State Ballet MDT (Turkey), Tanz Luzerner Theater (CH), Würzburg Ballett (DE), National Youth Dance Company (UK), Aksanat Istanbul, DSC Company Faenza (IT), BYU Contemporary Dance Theater (USA), BYU Theatre Ballet (USA), Interdans (BE), Palucca Schule Dresden (DE), ArtEz Dansacademie Arnhem (Highschool for the Arts Arnhem, NL), Arnhem Mode Biennale (NL), Dance Art Studio Luzern (CH) and the choreographic workshops of BallettTheater Munich (DE), Introdans (NL), Dance Made-in Bern (Bern Ballet, CH) and Dancemakers Series: Tanz Luzerner Theater (CH).

Joshua Peugh
Joshua L. Peugh is the Founder and Artistic Director of Dark Circles Contemporary Dance. After graduating from Southern Methodist University, Joshua moved to South Korea to join Universal Ballet Company. Since then, he has created work for festivals in Asia, Europe, and North America winning awards for his choreography in Korea, Japan, Canada, and the USA. He has been chosen as one of Dance Magazine’s 2015 “25 to Watch,” and was recently named “an important discovery” by The New York Times. Joshua has been commissioned to create for BODYTRAFFIC, BalletX, and Company E, among others.

Mark Haim
Mark Haim has choreographed over 100 dances in his career of 30 years. He was Artistic Director of Mark Haim & Dancers from 1984-1987, and the Companhia de Danca de Lisboa from 1987-1990. Mark has created new works for many dance companies in the US, Europe, and Asia, among them the Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballet Frankfurt, the Jose Limon Dance Company, the Joffrey II Dancers, the Rotterdamse Dansgroep, the Silesian Dance Theater, the Companhia de Danca de Lisboa, CoDanceCo, the TRANS Dance Co., and Ballet Pacifica. His latest project, This Land Is Your Land, has been seen at the ADF, the ArtDanThe Festival in Paris, the Joyce Theater in NYC and the Poly Theater in Beijing.

Dominic Walsh
In 2002, Dominic Walsh, Principal Dancer and Choreographer with Houston Ballet, founded his contemporary ballet company, Dominic Walsh Dance Theater. Today, the company’s roster includes dancers of the highest caliber and its repertoire features inventive works by Walsh and choreographers such as Mats Ek, Jiří Kylián, Mauro Bigonzetti, and Matthew Bourne.

Walsh was born in Elgin, Illinois in 1971 and started his training at an early age with Lisa Boehm, Warren Conover, and Larry Long in Chicago. He joined Houston Ballet in 1989, was promoted to Soloist in 1993, and Principal Dancer by 1996. He danced Houston Ballet’s entire contemporary repertoire, and Ben Stevenson created numerous roles for him including Marc Antony in Cleopatra. Walsh was the inspiration for the lead roles in Natalie Weir’s Steppenwolf and In a Whisper. In 1998, Walsh created Flames of Eros when Ben Stevenson invited him to choreograph on Houston Ballet. This work won the prestigious Choo-San Goh Award for Choreography. He created three more works for Houston Ballet and Houston Ballet Academy. In June 2004, after 17 years with Houston Ballet, Walsh left to pursue Dominic Walsh Dance Theater full-time.

For Dominic Walsh Dance Theater he has choreographed works including The Miller’s Daughter (2003), Romeo & Juliet (2006), Le Spectre de la Rose (2006), I Napoletani (2007), The Sleeping Beauty (2007, The Trilogy: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (2008-2009), The Dying Swan (2009), Victor Frankenstein (2011), Clair de Lune (2011) and Sound of Cells (2013). Walsh continues to receive commissions to set and create works nationally and internationally including Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, Italy, Medea (2009) and The Sleeping Beauty (2011); American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, Alchemy (2004); London Studio Centre, Sub-Luminus (2010); Asami Maki Ballet Tokyo, À Bientot (2006); New National Theatre, Tokyo, Orfeo ed Euridice (2007) and Wolfgang for Webb (2010). Walsh is also the Resident Choreographer for Sarasota Ballet of Florida, creating/staging Wolfgang for Webb (2008), The Trilogy (2009), and Time out of Line (2011).

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa
Annabelle Lopez Ochoa is a sought-after choreographer that has created works for numerous dance companies around the world such as the Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, Dutch National Ballet, Djazzex, Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, The Royal Ballet of Flanders, Gran Canaria Ballet, the Gothenborg Ballet, Modern Dance Theater Ankara, BalletX, Pennsylvania Ballet, Luna Negra Dance Theater, Ballet National de Marseille, Ballet Hispanico, Le Jeune Ballet du Québec, BJM-Danse Montréal, Jacoby&Pronk, Saarbrucken Ballett, Chemnitzer Ballett, Whim W’Him, Incolballet de Cali, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, Compania Nacional de Danza, Scottish Ballet, The Washington Ballet, Ballet Nacional Dominicano, Ballet Austin, Atlanta Ballet, Augsburg Ballet, Ballet Nacional Dominicano, Ballet Nacional de Cuba , Grand Rapids Ballet, Ballet Moscow, West Australian Ballet, Ballet Manila, Ballet Nacional Chileno and Danza Contemporanea de Cuba.

James Gregg
James Gregg trained with Ballet Oklahoma, Cece Farha’s Range of Motion, Houston Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet Academy, Lou Conte Dance Studio and The Edge Performing Arts Center. Mr. Gregg then moved to Chicago to dance with River North Dance Company in 1999. He was with RNDC for several years and then moved to Montreal in 2005, where he is currently dancing with Les Ballet Jazz de Montreal. James also is a member of Aszure and Artists, and guests with other dance companies around the country.

Gregg started choreographing at a young age, but really found his passion when he arrived in Chicago. He has, since then, set works on River North Dance Company, Impetus Dance Company, Instruments of Movement, Elements Contemporary Ballet, Les Ballet Jazz Workshop, Domain Forget, North West Dance Project (PCCC), Springboard Danse Project Montreal and is also the resident choreographer for L’Ecole Superieure de Danse de Quebec. Most recently, Mr. Gregg won the 2011 International Choreographic Competition at Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur for his piece, Radio Kids.

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, that showcases innovative dance in collaboration with global artists. www.whimwhim.org

Publicity Contact
Catherine Bombico/ bombico@whimwhim.org / whimwhim.org/contact Schedule and programming subject to change. For further information, please visit whimwhim.org.

WHIM W’HIM
PO Box #70285
Seattle, WA 98127
whimwhim.org

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