peck peck
dance ensemble
For Immediate Release: Dance/Events
Media Contact: Sean McMahon, Artistic Director
(415)225-3991 or peckpeckdance@yahoo.com
peck peck dance ensemble
Sixth Annual Season
with special guest Huckabay McAllister Dance
at CounterPULSE July 11-12, 2008
http://www.counterpulse.org/press.shtml
May 13th, 2008, San Francisco, CA—How often do you see an evening of engaging
modern dance that involves plastic bags, citrus fruit, knock knock jokes and box fans?
peck peck dance ensemble (PPDE) presents its Sixth Annual Season with premieres by
Sean McMahon and Sarah Sass and a guest performance by Huckabay McAllister Dance.
Clark Buchner, of Mission 17 Gallery says, “It’s hard to find work that compares to that
created by peck peck dance ensemble; it’s sophisticated, complex and accessible.”
The Show
The evening will include several performances pieces by Sean McMahon, Sarah Sass and
guest choreographer Jenny McAllister.
McMahon premieres “blue squares of tape on the floor”, which was inspired by music
from The Somnambulants. The piece begins with the dancers constructing blue squares
of tape on the floor. The rest of the dance happens inside of these squares. The dancers,
dressed in jeans and stripes, weave their way from square to square. They lean on and
support one another to navigate the constricted spaces, and then later move far apart.
They investigate the space inside, and teeter on the outside edges. The piece ends with
the dancers holding each other, hugging in a circle, inside one of the small squares.
Sass' work, titled "Transparent," also makes use of props. It will incorporate a profuse
amount of plastic bags, five electric fans and a pedestrian movement vocabulary. These
elements combine to create a visual environment that is concrete, yet constantly in flux
onstage. The piece is an examination of the multiple meanings and contradictions that are
present in just one material object: a white plastic bag. It will begin with two dancers
onstage repeating a sequence of movements that happens on the floor. The whole time
these dancers are repeating this movement, plastic bag after plastic bag will be blowing
by, sometimes getting stuck on their limbs, sometimes brushing past them without
contact. The plastic bags will gather into big piles until the dancers "clean" them up by
moving the fans to blow them offstage.
In addition to the pieces described above, the show will feature two other premieres by
McMahon. “Lone”, set to the music of Astor Piazzola, is a physically challenging solo
that highlights Tara Fagan’s captivating performance ability and kinetic physical daring.
“Who’s There?”, also by McMahon, which incorporates knock knock jokes, citrus fruit,
and music from Space Ghosts Musical Barbecue.
The evening will also include work by guest choreographer Jenny McAllister and her
company, Huckabay McAllister Dance. It’s a show that promises to please a diverse
audience with a variety of work ranging from thought provoking to humorous, and
starkly serious to ridiculously absurd.
About peck peck dance ensemble
Sean McMahon and Sarah Sass received their BFAs in modern dance and choreography
from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. They first worked together collaboratively as
undergraduates. In 2002, McMahon and Sass decided to commit to creating
choreographic work and formed peck peck dance ensemble as a platform to create,
sustain and produce this work.
One of PPDE’s primary goals in addition to creating and producing choreographic work,
was to create a system of artistic support. PPDE functions as the umbrella under which
McMahon and Sass support each other during their respective creative processes.
Because of the way PPDE functions administratively and creatively, the company has
fostered a working environment where collaboration is intrinsic to the way the company
functions. This exploration of collaborative processes extends to the studio; both
McMahon and Sass value collaborations with other artists and performers; as a result
ppde has established ongoing relationships with a wide range of artists, filmmakers,
musicians and performers.
PPDE has been awarded residencies by the Jon Sims Center for the Arts, as well as
multiple Resident Artist Workshop residencies at The Garage, and at Shotwell Studios.
Mission 17 Galleries produced PPDE’s Second Annual Season at Dance Mission.
McMahon and Sass have shown work in multiple theaters and festivals throughout the
San Francisco Bay Area, including multiple years at the West Wave Dance Festival, the
Dance Is Festival, and the Retail Dance Festival. PPDE has also been produced at ODC
as part of the POP Festival, and the PILOT series.
About the Choreographers
Jenny McAllister has been dancing and choreographing in the Bay Area for more than
fifteen years, and has been a Director of Huckabay McAllister Dance since its inception
in 1994. Her early dance training included Ron Guidi at Oakland Ballet, Cliff Keuter (an
original company member of the Paul Taylor Dance Company), Fred Mathews at San
Jose State University (SJSU), and Gary Masters, Artistic Associate of the Limón
Company in New York. Jenny has studied release technique and partnering extensively in
San Francisco with Joe Goode, Lizz Roman, Scott Wells, and Eric Kupers. Her
performance credits include Lizz Roman and Dancers, Eric Essner Performance Co-op,
Fellow Travelers Performance Group, Potrzebie, Keith Hennesey's Circus of Resistance,
EmSpace Dance, Duncan Macfarland, Gary Masters, and Cliff Keuter. She has
choreographed for San Jose Repertory Theatre and various local musical theatre groups,
and teaches modern dance on a guest-artist basis at San Francisco Dance Center and
ODC School. Jenny holds a BA in Humanities & Arts from SJSU.
Sean McMahon, originally from Utah, holds a B.F.A. in dance from the Ohio University
Honors Tutorial College, Athens. In addition to choreographing continually since his
arrival in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2000, he has performed with AXIS Dance
Company, Huckabay McAllister Dance, Christine Cali, EmSpace Dance and many
others. During his time with AXIS Dance Company, Sean had the opportunity to work
with Victoria Marks, Ann Carlson, Sonya Delwaide, Margaret Jenkins and Kim Epifano.
He choreographed a piece for AXIS, “Room 5600” which premiered as part of the 2006
West Wave Dance Festival.
Sarah Sass earned her B.F.A. in modern dance and choreography from Ohio University,
Athens, Ohio. As an undergraduate she was honored to receive recognition as a student
choreographer of merit and showed work at ACDFA in Maryland. She also received a
PURF Undergraduate Research grant which allowed her to study and complete research
in NYC for her senior thesis. She has shown work as part of ODC’s Pilot Program, raw
and uncut, the Vision Series, Women’s Work and as part of the All Dance/No Tech in the
West Wave Dance Festival 2006. Along with creating her own work, she has performed
with CaliCo, Kate Corby and Dancers, Deborah Slater Dance Theater, Funsch Dance
Experience and Huckabay McAllister Dance.
CALENDAR LISTING:
WHAT:
peck peck dance ensemble—Sixth Annual Season
new work by Sean McMahon & Sarah Sass
with special guest Huckabay McAllister Dance
WHEN:
Friday-Saturday, July 11-12 @ 8pm
WHERE:
CounterPULSE
1310 Mission Street, San Francisco
TICKETS:
$18-20, no one turned away for lack of funds
INFO/RES:
1-800-838-3006 or http://brownpapertickets.com
WEB:
www.peckpeckdanceensemble.com
High-Resolution Digital Images Available for Download at:
http://www.counterpulse.org/press.shtml
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