MCA Studio: The Seldoms, Power Goes
The Seldoms
Photo: Andrew MuschAbout
Choreographer Carrie Hanson’s ensemble The Seldoms perform a work-in-progress that explores power: how it is acquired, taken, and wielded. This work was commissioned by the MCA and premieres at MCA Stage in March 2015.
The work in progress completes Hanson's eight-day design residency at the MCA with her collaborators to develop Power Goes, as part of a multiyear collaboration that includes archival research and regular studio rehearsals. Hanson was inspired to create Power Goes by Robert Caro's biography of former US president Lyndon Baines Johnson. Playwright Stuart Flack joins Hanson, her dancers, and longtime collaborators—sound designer Mikhail Fiksel, visual artist Sarah Krepp, and designer-typographer Bob Faust—to explore how power is acquired, taken, and wielded; how it is expressed by the body; and how it can be deployed for progressive action or block progress.
Funding
The Seldoms Residency is generously supported by Elizabeth A. Liebman. The Seldoms: Power Goes is supported by a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by the MCA Chicago in partnership with Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and NPN. Additional support comes from the NPN Forth Fund and Performance Residency Program.
Power Goes is supported in part by Audience Architects' New Stages for Dance Initiative. Leadership support for the New Stages for Dance Initiative is provided by MetLife Foundation and Dance/USA.
Major contributors of NPN include the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.