Seattle and Beyond--Art & Culture

  Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in Jiri Kylian’s  Petite Mort . PNB opens its 2023-24 season with a triple-bill of works by Kylian and Alexander Ekman, onstage at Seattle Center’s McCaw Hall September 22 – October 1, 2023 (and streaming October 5 – 9.) For tickets and information, contact the PNB Box Office, 206.441.2424 or PNB.org. Photo © Angela Sterling. Between you, me and the clouds of powder, incessantly pouffing around the stage throughout Jiří Kylián's 2 nd piece in the inaugural night—the hilarious Sechs  Tänze (Six Dances). I really wanted to like  the first two works by Czech choreographer Jiří Kylián .  I wanted to switch off my brain and enjoy what was clearly meant to be two light-hearted, bawdy, sensual, mixed-media ballets. And I really would have and I could have, if it hadn't been for those damned semiotics , my own sense of representation and its importance--and also, a general feeling of unease that grew as I watched each pi...

  Vicente Montañez was my first addition to the original On the Edge performers list back in 2016, when Lauren Davis of La Sala asked me if I wanted to put my dreams into action. I had met him just a week before at some art party in Pioneer Square. We hit it off immediately and I was intrigued by his performances which were a unique mix of classic Mexican themes and contemporary technologies. When it came time to move ahead with the second of the series of events, it was clear that NeoVicente had to be a part of this! Xavier: Hello, Vicente, please take a moment to introduce yourself and describe your artwork for us. Do you consider yourself primarily a performance artist? If not, what other forms of artwork do you do? Vicente Montañez: I am an actor and theatre director, primarily. I do mime and pantomime and under my Studio Form Movement “ Laboratory of Physical Actions” I train professional and amateurs in physical expression and physical theatre for mime, acting and danc...

Xavier: Our series on the artists of On the Edge: 2 nd Latine/x Performance Art Festival continues with the amazing Butoh Artist Dhyana Garcia one of the founders of Seattle’s own Daipan Butoh .     Hi, Dhyana, thank you for taking the time to be interviewed for our focus, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your practice? Dhyana Garcia: I am a performing artist and also a teaching artist. My work focuses on the healing process and uses Butoh movement as its primary form. I see movement as a transformative and healing practice. During my performances, my process is about memories, stories, not just from my life but from other people around me also. I have been fascinated by Butoh since 2005 and right now I am exploring performance art and would like to do more visual art. My background is modern, contemporary dance, ballet as well as graphic design. I feel I am in a transitional moment. I don't dance as I used to and right now my...

  Xavier: How would you describe your own performative work? What is performance art to you and what about it motivates you to be a part of its rich history?   Sonia Aguilar : I usually label myself as an obscure ritualistic performance artist.  For me, performance art is about the act of transmutation and creation, being powerful enough to make the audience react in any form, or no form at all.   My motivations are my darkest emotions, my darkest senses, anything that I have always wanted to scream but haven’t dared to.   I create pieces with all my passion, and I just share it with the audience, while encouraging others to create their own art.      Xavier: Wonderful, can you describe the performance that you will be doing with us? How does it fit into the bigger picture of your work?   Sonia Aguilar : This piece is powerful and meaningful to my artistic career right now. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life,...

  Art and other events for September... Katlyn Hubner & Alan Fulle Katlyn Hubner & Alan Fulle Opening Thursday, September 14, 2023 6-9pm Show runs through 9/29/23 These two artists are distinctly different from each other. Both work in very large format with Katlyn's figurative work balancing Alan's materials-oriented abstract work.  Katlyn Hubner  is showing a new series of large scale oil paintings depicting portraits of Seattle drag queens -  their mugs slightly dissolving and finding the beauty between their anatomy and the illusion they have mastered.  About Katlyn Hubner  Hubner is a visual artist, born and raised in Baltimore, and currently living in Seattle, Washington. Their creative endeavors first began as an art model traveling across North America and working with hundreds of artists of different mediums and from this they developed a profound appreciation for the human form - a major influence. W...