7 DUETS | JAN 2023
PRESENTED BY THE SOUTHERN THEATER - MINNEAPOLIS, MN
Presented as a Paid Partnership by the Southern Theater, Slo Dance Company shared two premieres at this historic venue. 7 duets, previously shared as a work-in-progress as a Happy Hour Artist in ARENA Dances Candy Box Dance Festival (2021), was shared in its 60-minute entirety with live music. Dancers included Noelle Awadallah, Emilia Bruno, Alexandra Eady, Emma Marlar, Leslie O’Neill, Jamie Ryan-Karels, and Sarah Steichen-Stiles with live music collaborator Patrick Marschke. This improvised work follows a set structure of seven consecutive “solos” that are interwoven by moments of group connectivity. With very little off-limits, the piece takes a unique shape in each performance with dancers responding to the moment, music responding to the dancers, and dancers responding to all the information around them. It is build from a practice of heightened listening and honoring the practice of holding space for each other to process.
The second premiere of the evening consisted of an entirely improvised duet between Artistic Director Laura Osterhaus Rosenstone and Patrick Marschke titled everything we know until now. Following the structure of Osterhaus Rosenstone’s Slo practice, the two use music and dance to find something new in each iteration.
Photos by Isabel Fajardo
HOLDING / FOLDING / FREE | DEC 2022
PRESENTED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MN-DULUTH - DULUTH, MN
Commissioned by the University of Minnesota—Duluth, holding / folding / free is a collaboration made with 7 U of M—Duluth students while Artistic Director Laura Osterhaus Rosenstone was the Department of Theater Arts & Dance’s Artist in Residence during the fall semester of 2023. Created over a two-week intensive period, holding / folding / free explores how we hold change in our own bodies and witness change within each other.
This piece included dancers Samuel Blazevic-Seibert, Emily Bolles, Sandi Flahn, Haley Gales, Ayana Greene, Olivia Nelson, Abby Shelby and an original recorded composition by Patrick Marschke.
CUSP | FEB 2022
PRESENTED AT SMITH COLLEGE, MFA THESIS CONCERT - NORTHAMPTON, MA
As the culminating thesis project of Artistic Director Laura Osterhaus Rosenstone’s graduate studies, CUSP was performed to a live audience at the Mendenhall Center for Performing Arts at Smith College in Northampton, MA. This 18-minute work included an original cast of three dancers, Di’ Anna Bonomolo, Emma Frank, and Laura Osterhaus Rosenstone, and live music collaborator Patrick Marschke.
Osterhaus Rosenstone’s thesis research asked questions of embodied time: How can we shift performer and audience perception of time? What can we create as we slow down to listen to one another in every step of the creative process? How does a spacious relationship to time influence our perception of our own becoming? How does our individual sense of becoming influence the becoming of one another?
This creative process was heavily influenced by the written work of adrienne maree brown, the approach to music and dance collaboration of Dianne McIntyre, and the visual art of James Turrell. Video footage of this performance can be found here.
Photos by Derek Fowles
RELATIVE | FEB 2019
PRESENTED AT THE SUMMIT CENTER FOR ARTS & INNOVATION - ST. PAUL, MN
“RELATIVE” served as the company’s first public premiere. This work was inspired by and set to composer Ernesto Lecuona's “Andalucia Suite Espagnole”. The 40-minute piece was comprised of six dancers, including Osterhaus, moving through a series of six vignettes played live by pianist Sam Rosenstone.
Collaborating with a new combination of artists, this process was an even deeper investigation and development of the Slo Dance Company practice and artistic vision. The solo, duet, trio—trio, duet, solo structure of the work aimed to encourage the audience to consider the people, places, and things they find themselves in relationship with, offering shifting combinations of movers and movement amongst contrasting and complimentary stillness and meditation.
Also acting as the premiere dance company to perform in a newly re-designated space, The Summit Center for Arts & Innovation, Laura and the company were delighted to share their continuous investigation of innovating the dance performance experience in this space.
Photos by Isabel Fajardo
GENERATING ROOM PROJECT | AUG 2018
PRESENTED AT THE COWLES CENTER FOR DANCE & THE PERFORMING ARTS - MINNEAPOLIS, MN
During the summer of 2018, Laura was granted the opportunity to use space and resources of The Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts through the Generating Room: Open Proposal Initiative in which she proposed a three-month residency to explore the seed of an idea that Slo Dance Company was. In this residency, Laura brought together nine dancers and local funk group, Purple Funk Metropolis, to build an evening-length work to a continuous set of the band’s music, imagining this creative process and performance to act as a launching pad for the company.
The three-month period allowed for deep exploration of what would serve as the foundational practice for the company, an opportunity to build a community around those ideas, and research in order to begin construction of movement vocabulary. This summer of pure fun, joy and friendship accumulated into a 35-minute dance piece. Full of life and rich human-to-human connection, this colorful work was shared at an informal showing in August of 2018, accompanied by the six-member band, acting as a soft opening for the company to a small group of supporters and mentors from the Twin Cities artist community.
Photos by Isabel Fajardo
Photo Credit: Isabel Fajardo