8pm Friday – Sunday
November 13-15, 2009 | FREE

Join us for the first edition of a quarterly performance + discussion series centered on topics that the WPM artistic team encounters during the DANCE IS HARD TO SEE choreography lab.

We have lots to talk about. Right now!

Each evening presents the same fresh material developed during the company’s recent intensive at The Festival Studio, and is followed by a different conversation led by humanities experts and experimental artists across disciplines.

From the calibrated procedures of SUPERROGER, to the layers of memory and presence in THE SCORE OF THE FORGOTTEN DANCE, and the ditty to Passion Pit’s “Little Secrets” that hints at Busby Berkeley style fantasias, these new works offer a lot of surprises for the most adventurous lovers of tiny, fans of Workshop for Potential Movement, and experimental artists looking for fresh blood.

Friday +split bill with Jen McGinn

Philadelphia-based art choreographer Jen McGinn tackles Les Sylphides in its centennial year. Watch as she expertly wrangles seven renegade dancers into the ballet’s archetypal structure. Against a backdrop of iconic 1950’s pop-rock, McGinn re-imagines the first major “plotless” ballet to help you consider your own lust for timelessness and uniformity. Learn more about Jenn at www.jenmcginn.org

Saturday +listening party with Dustin Hurt

If you want to hear what DANCE IS HARD TO SEE might sound like if it were experimental music, then check us out Saturday. Composer and Bowerbird director Dustin Hurt throws a new music listening party-mixer for local dancer/ choreographers and musicians/ composers. And while it’s true that we’re dancing to Passion Pit – Mia – Lyle Lovett (!?) in the studio right now, we want to find music that is hard to hear. So Dustin Hurt is coming in to expose us to the bleeding edge. See what else Dustin Hurt brings to Philly at www.bowerbird.org

Sunday +discussion with neurobiologist Dr. Paul Grobstein

“Dance is the purest form of knowledge” echoes through our minds after Paul visited the studio last week. Bryn Mawr College professor Paul Grobstein is equal parts neurobiologist and philosopher, and on Sunday he opens a conversation with you-we about the mind-body connection. Fierce! Preview the possibilities at Serendip