RADicle 22/23
PC: Benjamin Cheney Artist from left to right: Jamie Kleinchnitz, Maggie Costales, and Bre Short.
Three performers connect in a sloped pose. One is supporting the other while a third pours water over the supported performer. The performer on the left is white. She has long brown hair, and is wearing a light brown short sleeved shirt and dark green pants. She is facing the right side of the image. She is leaning into the performer in front of her. Her hands are above her head assisting in holding a white enamel bowl that is pouring water over her head and down her back. Her shirt, hair, and pants are covered in water. The performer she is leaning against is also white. Her hair is also long, and a lighter brown. She is wearing an orange long sleeve top and blue pants. Her shoulder rest against the the other performers sternum/ Her hands support the other performer by pushing into her pelvis.Her face can be seen looking into the distance. She is also wet from the water that is running down the other performer. The Third performer is also white. She has long brown wavy hair, and is wearing a taupe colored cardigan and pants. She is facing the two performers who are supporting one another. She is watching the water pout out of the bowl that she is tipping on top of the first performers head. She is tilting the bowl with her right hand at the top of the bowl and her left hand supporting the bottom. In the background a railing, trees, and a lake can be seen out of focus.
The 22/23 RADicle recipient was Thryn Saxon. She was in residence at The Croft in 2022. She was a featured artists at RAD Fest 2023 with a half-evening showcase.
Thryn Saxon Bio
THRYN SAXON: is a free lance dancer, film maker, choreographer and teacher based in NYC. Saxon’s work under the moniker has been performed at venues across NYC such as The Craft, GreenSpace, Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center and The Actor’s Fund Theater. Saxon has also had the privilege of teaching at the Cameron Dance Center in FL, DanceWave ASDI Summer Intensive, A Different Drum Dance Group at Yale University, Connecticut College, Gibney Dance Center and Peridance Capezio Center. As a dancer Saxon has performed with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Sleep No More, Kate Weare Company, and is currently working with Helen Simoneau Danse. Saxon’s dance film work has been screened across the US including LA, NY, and Miami. Her debut dance film, “all of her”, was an official selection for the 2018 LA Dance Shorts Film Festival, and The MarDel Presents: Dance on Film Festival (nominated for Best Choreography) among others. In 2019 Saxon was selected as one of 8 resident choreographers to participate in the Mare Nostrum Elements: Emerging Choreographer Series as well as an Artist in Residence at The Church in upstate New York. Saxon also shares a choreographic project with Brad Beakes and together their work has been performed at The Perez Art Museum in Miami, FL, Windhover Performing Arts Center, Dumbo Dance Festival, and others. In Spring of 2020 they were selected as 2 of 8 choreographers in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna, FL. Saxon has been featured in Dance Spirit Magazine, DIYDancer Magazine, and “Left With Only Rain”, a feature film directed by Todd Bogin. Saxon is thrilled to have been selected for the RADicle 22/23 Residency at The Croft in Michigan.
Project Description
This piece will investigate gender equity and the reductive forces of the western male-dominant cultural structure we live in through the lens of Plato’s Symposium and the folklore of Selkies, - half-woman, half-creature. Throughout history women have been told that our individual parts are so powerful that they cannot exist simultaneously without risk of societal confusion. Overtime we were either forced to reduce our complexity or were cast out for living too honestly in our truths. Those radically honest women were canonized into myths and fables as fantastical creatures or cautionary tales, seductive but dangerous. I believe those that created the legends of these half-humans intended as cautionary tales were instead reimagining the power of our duality as Plato saw us, “we were once all twice the people we are now, but…our threat to the gods prompted Zeus to cut us in half”. In some ways Selkies are beckoning us, with their haunting allure, to rediscover the power of our multidimensional selves – an elevated attunement to the divine. The dance will focus intently on action and reaction and symbiotic response. Bodies gravitating toward and away from each other in an effort to synthesize our need for individualism amidst our yearning to rejoin with our other selves. Further inspired by the seductive powers of the songs and incantations commonly associated with folklore creatures, the piece will explore whispered text and songs, composed and sung by Bre Short, evoking a haunting feeling of living memories and missing parts.
While in residence Thryn, Maggie, Jamie, and Bre worked on two different works, “seolh” and “Mother Tongue”. Most of their time was spent in organizing and cultivating “Mother Tongue”. They created choreography and set scores/frameworks for the embodiment of the work. They recorded sounds in nature to be a part of the sound score for “seolh”. Bre also continued to compose for “seolh”. Their informal sharing had to be cancelled due to COVID related circumstances. We will be working on a way to share some of Thryn’s work with the local community.