Rehearsal notes from Shannon

"Anger and physical aggression in girls and women is typically deemed inappropriate. We are taught to deny, suppress and hide these feelings. When they do show up, we tend to feel shame or guilt and try even harder to rein them in. This doesn't always work out so well."  Tabby Biddle

In rehearsal I keep falling into a place of aggression. Not an "I'm frustrated" and being aggressive toward myself but rather aggressive performances start to burst out of the seems of the structure every time I blink. This place scares me and simultaneously I feel confident that it is entirely appropriate. Today I started thinking about violence and if I am interested in representing violence in any form. I wonder if aggression (in performance) can bring us somewhere else. Can performed physical and verbal aggressiveness be used to make balance? Can we see the violence as an effect caused by the opposition, the desire to please and conform?

Meet Megan Wilson Stern and Beau Hancock

Megan Wilson Stern will be presenting a new work which is currently untitled. The piece is a solo, performed by Megan, that explores sense of place and relationships to space- the seeking out, the digging in, conforming to, shaping, remembering, re-imagining... Megan is focused specifically on memories of spaces and landscapes from her childhood and with the space(s)/place of her own body.

Having taken break from choreographing to focus on performance and improvisation, this is the first piece Megan has choreographed in two years and her first time showing work in Philadelphia. She is excited to be re-engaging with the choreographic process and re-examining her relationship to improvisation, choreography, and performance practice.

For his new dance Mooring Field, Beau Hancock found inspiration in the drifting rhythms of boats moored in Maine harbors. Dancers Marie Brown and Melissa Chisena complete the complex choreography without moving through space, tethered to a single spot. The work also includes a haunting new score from composer Jason Carr and costumes subtly dyed with patterns of the world’s ocean currents from designer Patricia Dominguez. 

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Meet Katherine and Shannon

Katherine Kiefer Stark is a philadelphia-based dance artist and artistic director of The Naked Stark.

Photo Credit: Bill Hebert

As a performer, choreographer, and teacher Stark is committed to movement as expression, movement as re-invention, and movement as power.   Her work openly explores her personal experiences with people, ideas, and social phenomenon. 

Katherine will be presenting a new work Invisible LUs (working title) 

Shannon Murphy, co-director of idiosyCrazy productions, is a Philly based dance artist and Franklin Method educator.

"My process feels like research for truths in a fantastical world where truth is a dynamic frame for the plasticity of reality"

Necessary Efforts will present Shannon's newest solo, City Bird Sings the Car Alarm. The work explores the presentation of the feminine, and is inspired by the Northern Mocking Birds flamboyant dances performed to protect their territory.

Welcome to Necessary Efforts

The Naked Stark presents a mixed-bill of dances that fill the Performance Garage with bold and intimate movement. Join us for four works by Beau Hancock, Shannon Murphy, Katherine Kiefer Stark, and Megan Wilson Stern and witness effort emerge through raw and honest physicality that propels bodies through space.