Dance Key West invited to participate in New York performance workshop series at Dixon Place

Dance Key West, the non-for-profit dance company founded and directed by Key West performer Kyla Piscopink in 2008, will travel to New York City for a Tuesday, March 19 performance workshop series at Dixon Place with “Fast Forward,” a dance series curated by Sangeeta Yesley that provides opportunities for choreographers working in all dance forms to workshop longer, more developed pieces. The company will perform the third chapter in the ongoing “After These Messages” repertoire series, a work inspired by our culture’s obsession with screens.

““After These Messages” explores the pressures of conformity, pop culture, and social media,” says Piscopink. “As we continuously swipe, like and scroll, the lines begin to blur between our intrinsic, human need for authentic connection and our dismal desire for online validation, which leaves us questioning: what comes next?”

The initial two chapters were performed at The Waterfront Playhouse and The Studios of Key West and explored relationships in the age of technology— the first between a man and woman (Jordan Fife Hunt and Piscopink), the second between two women (Christina Johnson and Angela Harriell) with a focus on “our generally unhealthy relationship with social media,” explains Piscopink. The third chapter involves ten of the company’s members, including Key West dancers Kristen Huffman and Cricket Desmarais, and is a combination of set choreography and structured improv.

“I’m really looking forward to exploring this concept further. It’s going to an experimental piece, and I’m grateful for Dixon Place— hailed as a “Last Bastion of Downtown New York’s long tradition of theatrical experimentation” by The New York Times— and curator Sangeeta Yesley for giving us this opportunity,” she says. “To be able to go full-throttle into experimentation mode is a real dream come true as an artist, a freedom that I can’t explain.”

With roots in both Key West and New York City, Piscopink engages dancers from both locations, finding it beneficial “to bring a piece of the Key West art scene to New York City and vice versa,” she says. “It helps us to maintain a high level of artistic integrity and allows us a unique opportunity to share different perspectives while keeping things fresh and on our toes— pun intended!”

Dance Key West hopes to perform the finalized piece in Key West sometime in 2019 or 2020 with both Key West and New York company dancers. Additional upcoming performances include a March 29 show with Ben Pegg at Key West Theater, an April 12 presentation during the Key West Theater Gala, “Tiny Dances” on April 16 at The Studios of Key West in coordination with the Small Works exhibit, and a retrospective performance celebrating ten years of Piscopink’s work as Artistic Director and Choreographer of Dance Key West, featuring the best of “1969,” “Train in the Distance,” “OUT,” “Cloud Illusions,” “After These Messages,” “Love Letters,” and “Cherry Red,”  TBA.

Dance Key West recently launched a new partnership with Key West Theater and are housed in the theater’s second-floor studio space, where they rehearse and offer a weekly roster of innovative dance and dance fitness classes developed to make movement accessible and fun for all levels of experience. They also offer free outreach programming that includes continued weekly dance and technique classes with Bahama Village Music Program, Autism Movement Therapy— a movement class that supports children on the autism spectrum, the fourth ReMARCable Dance Project performance on April 6, the development of a Florida Keys Outreach Coalition Women & Children’s program, and “CONNECT,” a site-specific community improv dance initiative.

For more information about the company or its programs and performances or to make a tax-deductible donation, visit DanceKeyWest.com or email Kyla at [email protected].

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