Kickstarter

Following their recent acclaimed work about the economic meltdown - Stupormarket - The Seldoms present a new evening-length work that grapples with the climate change debate and its divergent positions ranging from denial, skepticism, and indifference to urgency. Within this heated argument, who is talking, who is being listened to, and who is paying for it? 

From early reviews:
"Hanson is among the more fascinating and surefooted of our contemporary choreographers" Chicago Tribune

"Hanson's usual expert mix of somber, precisely calibrated and evocative abstract movement...with humorous dance theater...I can't wait to see the whole piece" seechicagodance.com

The Seldoms conclude their 10th anniversary season with this world premiere by Artistic Director, Carrie Hanson, one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch" in 2012, in collaboration with visual artist Anna Kunz, sound designer Mikhail Fiksel, and lighting designer Julie Ballard.

Your donation directly supports:
> artist pay for dancers and collaborators
> studio space rental and theater rental
> marketing materials and distribution
> costume materials

A note from Artistic Director, Carrie Hanson:
Our current project – Exit Disclaimer: Science and Fiction Ahead – sits alongside two previous works - Monument (2008) and Stupormarket (2011).  With these earlier dance theater pieces, I feel I’ve arrived at a good place of integration as an artist, producer, educator, and citizen. I find satisfaction in this type of issue-based work for the challenge of making dance speak to these subjects, and because they involve research and consideration of situations beyond body/movement/performance.

Exit Disclaimer: Science and Fiction Ahead is really about the debate surrounding climate change, less the situation itself - a debate that has been extended, expanded, funded and misdirected. The issue is aggressively argued with a persistent set of questions: Why is it happening? What will it mean?  What will and can we do about it? Unfortunately, the argument has been hijacked by voices outside of science, from politicians to radio talk show hosts and comedians to powerful corporate interests. With these loud counter-arguments by skeptics and deniers playing through a sort of echo chamber, a complex issue has been clouded.

So, why make a dance about such a staggeringly complex issue?
What can dance say about it?
For my part, I’m generally interested in the tensions that exist between our dual identities as consumer and citizen, and between private goods and the public good. As a choreographer I know that dance can reveal the effects of a situation on a body (person). We can stage a body that is defeated or triumphant, indifferent or engaged, self-involved or supportive, resistant or pliable. As well, space is something we can make meaningful – distances between bodies provide information about relationships, position, and power. And whereas a traditional value in dance is effortlessness, we think it’s compelling to see the effortful body; this is a body we all can recognize and find ourselves in. The working, breathing, problem-solving body.

In making Exit Disclaimer: Science and Fiction Ahead and staging its various postures of denial, gestures of urgency, sequences of innovation, and stances of resistance, we hope to show how dance, theater and the body might inform our thinking about this complex, serious issue and its attendant debate.