Photo by Niki Singleton.

Thea Little, choreographer, performer, and music composer, is holding an audition on Tuesday July 12 from 2-6pm. Thea is looking for dancers of all genders, sexual orientations, and ethnicities to join her new dance-theater work called Control Equinox. Dancers and performers must be interested in learning set movement phrases and choreographic structures as well as being experienced in experimenting with movement and text improvisation. A big plus is if dancers are excited to climb inside and be creative with three 15-foot sculptures on wheels which will be a significant part of the piece.

See below for rehearsal and performance times. Please only come to the audition if you can make those times. Please RSVP to the audition at Thea_Little@yahoo.com and Thea will tell you the location. Please send a photo, resume, website, and/or video links. Each dancer will be paid for this project.

The dates for performing at the BEAT Festival 2016 are at The Brooklyn Museum on September 15, Metro Tech on September 16, and Triskelion on September 21st.

The concept for this work is Control and this new work called Control Equinox will build on research from the past two years. We will be making three sister-pieces in collaboration with visual artist Niki Singleton's 15-foot sculptures on wheels. At The Brooklyn Museum, we have the opportunity to do a 2 1/2 hour durational work. At Metro Tech and Triskelion, we will perform the 15-minute work once through. The piece will be physical but we will sensitively make it so that repeating the dance for a couple hours, with rests choreographed in, will be feasible.

There will be twice a week rehearsals: From July 14 to August 2 (5 rehearsals), it will be Tuesdays 6-10pm and Thursdays 10-2pm in Brooklyn, NY.  From August 4 to 17th, performers will participate in IMAR residency located on 50 beautiful acres in Lakeville, CT in the Berkshires. From August 18 to September 13th, rehearsals will be Tuesdays 6-9pm and Thursdays 10-1pm back in Brooklyn, NY. The hours of the performances on September 15, 16, and 21st are TBA but performers must be flexible on those days.

At the IMAR residency, the focus will be on making this dance work with the sculptures. Performers will rehearse this project everyday with one free day in between the two weeks. Dancers can also take the initiative to teach classes if they want to, as well as going on biking, swimming, hiking, and town excursions. Bringing one's own bike or car to CT is highly recommended. Dancers also have the opportunity to use the dance studio or site-specific areas to work on their own projects. Here is a link to the IMAR website:

http://www.i-m-a-r.org/

Please view links to Thea's choreography and read her artist statement below to see if this is the right project for you before contacting her at Thea_Little@yahoo.com.

https://vimeo.com/135194727

https://vimeo.com/172152274

Thea Little's dance and performance works are abstract yet they relate to the audience on a humanistic and moving level. Having an emotional connection with the audience while upholding obscurity and individualism as well as humor, zaniness, and joy are central to her work. Thea is primarily interested in and inspired by feminism, queer understanding, transcending social class and status, and interacting with the audience in a playful manner. Psychological and sociological memories and situations are often the impetus of Thea’s works. Her abstract aesthetic is paired with a meaningful anchor - expanding the personal to the universal.

Thea is inventive with movement, often arranging recognizable steps in a bizarre and unpredictable way. The influence of ballet, Cunningham, and Forsythe techniques can be perceived, and the clean lines and direct simplicity are the architectural structure of her work.  This architecture is blanketed with an accepting and collaborating warmth that is experienced by the performers and palpable to the audience. 

Text is often used in a very direct and open way that is revealing yet non-theatrical. In Thea's overall works, there is a plain-statement quality, balanced with a lot of understated flair and flashes of pizzazz. Thea likes to see images, emotions, situations, and characters transform, and these developments are mysteriously emphasized without choreographic buildup. Her scenes progress very smoothly with each shift being both unexpected yet still related. Because Thea is also a music composer, she is sonically-oriented and she encourages her dancers to use their bodies and voices to make sound.

Thea Little, born and bred in NYC, is a Brooklyn-based performer, choreographer, musician, composer, and director. Little has presented her work throughout New York City, the larger US, England, and Europe. She has been supported by The Field Residency, Lanchonete Residency in Sao Paolo, Brazil, the Leimay Fellowship, and is currently one of the artists in the Lift Off Residency with Karen Bernard and New Dance Alliance. She received her BA from Columbia University and her MFA from Hollins University and she was also a student at the School of American Ballet for six years where she regularly performed with The New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, and The Royal Danish Ballet. From 2013-2015, Little worked and performed consistently with Lindsey Drury and Panoply Lab on an improvisatory, experimental dance-opera that was presented in various durational forms based on the many venues including a six-week run at Momenta Art. Since 2013, she co-Directs and co-Produces with Niki Singleton and Stephanie Tack, a multi-disciplinary, collaborative residency in the Berkshires called IMAR. Little has been collaborating with visual artist Niki Singleton since 2012. Little has been researching the topic of Control through performance and choreography since the Summer of 2014 and has made 4 productions in the past two years, 2 of which she co-choreographed with Stephanie Tack. Upcoming Control Equinox is the culmination of this intense research.