Monday, March 4 at 7pm
The popular, long running monthly works-in-progress series.
Come see a roster of Philly’s most talented artists perform new material from shows they are working on in this fast-paced sampling of contemporary theater, dance, performance art, and everything in between. Scratch Night is hosted and curated by a different artist each month, and features four to six short performances by local companies and artists, offering an inside look at the future of performance.
This month’s performers include Zornitsa Stoyanova, Anita Holland, Luisa Donovan, Mira Treatman and Paige Phillips.
60 minutes
Free RSVP, $5 Suggested Donation
Featured Photo: Depicting Zornitsa Stoyanova, Video by Gregory Dunn
About the Host
Annie Wilson makes performances. Her work has been presented by Fringearts, Bryn Mawr College, JACK, thirdbird, the Center for Performance Research, and Mascher. Recent work includes: At Home with the Humorless Bastard, Lovertits, The Remix Festival, At the Gloaming with the Hipster Shaman, and Solo. She is an Associated Artist at Applied Mechanics, and an incubated artist at Headlong. Artists she hasworked with include: Meg Foley/moving parts, Lucinda Childs, Nichole Canuso Dance Company, Almanac Dance Circus Theater, Pasion Y Arte, Mary Tuomanen.
She received a 2017 Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a 2015 Independence Fellowship. She bartends Sunday nights at Lucky 13 Pub in South Philly and is assistant property manager at Simpson Mid-town. You can hire Hipster Shaman for events.
About the Artists
Photo by Zornitsa Stoyanova
Untitled and Solo by Zornitsa Stoyanova a.k.a Here[begin] Dance
Untitled and Solo by Zornitsa Stoyanova is part of her ongoing research with Mylar material. She is fascinated by the cultural meaning behind the material that keeps the international space station together, is used in indoor farming to grow food, keeps runners from freezing, keeps injured from going into shock, is given to immigrant children taken away from their parents at the U.S. border instead of a real blanket. Mylar becomes a metaphor for humanity – a shiny, magical material – that could suffocate the preserved and never ever disappear. It is cheap and cheaply made …trash.
Photography by Jen Kertis-Veit
Untitled by Paige Phillips
Collapsing, descending, sliding. Force, thrust, momentum. This work in progress began by asking six performers to explore the physicality of falling, and has spiraled into a dichotomous community that feels isolated, yet requires the full support of the group to complete tasks. It is perhaps a metaphor for contemporary life, as we propel ourselves forward together despite ceaseless crashes around us. Supposing we’re all still around by then, the work will premiere May 10 & 11 at Mascher Space. Performed by Ani Javian, Katherine Kiefer Stark, Ashley Lippolis, Celine McBride, Kate Seethaler, and Mary-Carmen Webb.
Photo by David Brick
Lizard Sports by At Attic
Choreographers: Luisa Donovan and Sarah Marks Mininsohn
This dance-theater piece will highlight the presence of intuition, emotion, and empathy in often-masculine settings of play, mining athletic and aggressive movement for tenderness and vulnerability. In an unfamiliar rendition of American sports, it will queer both the raucous craze of fans and the polite composure of artistic audiences while asking spectators to question their kinesthetic empathies to each event. This next big queer sport imposes competition on intimate actions of hugging, fondling hands, and touching toes to critically examine masculine passion. Performed by Julia Bryck, Shreshth Khilani, and Nasya Gay.
Photo by Dietmar Busse
V by Anita Holland
V is a multidisciplinary reimagining of the classically white male epic trope. It is loosely autobiographical, shaped around the transformation of creator/performer Anita Holland. V is the story of a life still being lived, engaging the senses and intellect through movement and language. The core of the show is multiplicity — the disinterest in telling one narrative, in order to embrace and many versions of a complex identity and story.
Duet #2 by Mira Treatman & Vitche-Boul Ra
Ra and Mira met for the first time on February 6, 2019 at 954 Dance Movement Collective as part of “Duets By Strangers,” an ongoing performance project by Mira. In this experimental series, Mira curates duets by artists who have never met before to create and present a new work within one week. With an odd number of artists involved and based on gut feelings, Mira paired herself with Ra. They performed a duet on February 15, and are now doing so again still less than a month after meeting.