Excavating: Practice, Process and Presentation/ Movement Research Week with NMLY.dance and Guest Artist Katelyn Halpern

September 16th - 20th 

Workshop days and times: Monday - Friday 9:30p - 3:00pm

Open House/ Informal Showing: Friday September 20th @ 3:00p

Full Workshop - $150

Day Pass - $30

***MetWork Membership discounts applied at checkout

Workshop Description:

Description:

This week is built on the movement research that informs NMLY.dance's current project "everyday more dystopian", a performance work that aims to spark a renewed interest between humans and the natural world in an effort to inspire a deeper connection to nature, fostering appreciation for its beauty, fragility and the importance of ecological awareness and sustainability.

Through daily classes, movement research and workshop sessions NMLY.dance will engage participants in experiments and explorations of liminal spaces: the space between narrative and abstraction, the space between visual image and moving image, the space between nature and technology.

This week also includes 2 workshops with Guest Artist Katelyn Halpern on Wednesday and Thursday.

• World Building Part I: honestly, when is it not a disaster. - A process talk with the artist on constructing worlds with and within unease (but in a fun way!) with available materials and meticulous intuition. Guided reflection and conversation included. (offered Wednesday September 18th 11a - 1p)

• World Building Part II: whose imagination are you living in? - A sandbox for affirmative world building based on available materials and meticulous intuition. This is a making/doing session (again, in a fun way!) (offered Thursday September 19th 1p - 3p)

Morning Class faculty includes HMD resident artist Persi Mey who will offer their weekly Open Contemporary Practice Classes as part of this movement research week.

Daily Schedule:

9:30a Morning Class/ Somatics

11:00a Morning workshop session

12:00p Lunch Break

1:00p Afternoon workshop session

3:00p Public Showing (Friday only)

About NMLY.dance:

After many years in the studio together Nicole McNeil and Lori Yuill are working collaboratively to meld their creative practices. NMLY.dance is a convergence of their individual studio practices and their intersectional interests. NMLY.dance projects explore multimedia performance using dance, projections, and sound design. 

Nicole and Lori’s inaugural project everyday more dystopian takes a deep dive into the archive to revive and reprise dances and phrases that were created over the last 3 years with the goal to draw out new stories and meaning.  As the work evolves, it is being shaped by a botanical sound score and projection design. They are also entering this project with a desire to deepen their collaborative practice, calling on multiple voices to shape the direction of the new work. Their goal is to meld their different artistic practices together in order to build a new world for the audience to experience.

About Katelyn Halpern

Katelyn Halpern is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and facilitator from Austin, Texas living in Jersey City, New Jersey. Trained as a dancer and writer and self-taught in other media, she works in installations, performance, multimedia visual art, and the written word on subjects of peace/not peace, intimate relationship, space dust, possibility-freedom-futures, and the experience of moving through the world in a feminine body. Hailed as a “compelling conceptual artist,” “mischief maker,” and “born searcher,” (Jersey City Times), she is a 2024 Rabbinic Arts Fellow, a 2024 Interdisciplinary Arts Finalist and 2023 Choreography Finalist with the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a New Jersey Performing Arts Center Jersey New Moves Fellow (2019-2022), a Dresher Ensemble Artist in Residence (2020), Hambidge Fellow (2016), and the inaugural Choreographers in Residency Program (CHiRP) choreographer at County Prep High School (2017). She has presented at galleries, parks, sidewalks, call-in lines, and theaters including BAM Fisher, Deep Space Gallery, Gibney, NJPAC, Gallery Aferro, Philadelphia Contemporary, Omaha's Under the Radar Festival, and San Francisco's Switchboard Presents, and been commissioned by Jersey City's Exchange Place Alliance. She is the founding artistic director of SMUSH Gallery, an art space dedicated to creative and community work in Jersey City. - Website: katelynhalpern.com | Instagram: @katelynhalperndotcom

About Persi Mey

Persi Mey is a movement artist based in Houston, Texas. Their work is informed by a variety of athletic styles including: contemporary, breaking, tap, jazz, modern, muay thai, and ballet. They create for both stage and film; Notably having had their work shown at the Blaffer Museum in Houston, the Tanzahoi Film Festival in Hamburg, Germany, and the Barciff Indie Film Festival in Barcelona, Spain. Persi grew up in Clawson, Michigan and relocated to Houston in 2022 after spending a couple of years in Kansas City, Missouri. They received their BFA in Contemporary Dance from Indiana University ‘20. During their undergrad, they also had the opportunity to spend a year studying on scholarship at The Rothberg International School at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Instagram: @persi_mey

About Excavating Workshops and Research Weeks:

Houston Met Dance offers Excavating workshops and research weeks to support dancemakers  who are interested in sharing their practice and process with the public through workshops and classes that culminate in documented presentations. The program is part of HMD;s choreographic initiative Made In Houston and designed to support artists who are looking to engage with their peers, and expand their roster of dancers while developing a supportive and informed audience for their work.