The Wortham Center for the Performing Arts will present Stewart/Owen Dance and guest artists on May 1 and 2 in the Diana Wortham Theatre. The performances, scheduled for Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m., will feature resident artists Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen alongside Eric Mullis and New Dialect, who are recognized as Southern choreographers.
The event highlights contemporary dance through a variety of works. According to Stewart, each piece offers a different approach to contemporary dance and challenges assumptions about the genre. “Eric Mullis creates with technology as a choreographic tool, generating movement from systems and spatial logic in combination with his background in Chinese Kung Fu and Tai Chi Chuan,” Stewart says. “His work, Instancing Network, is a duet with a precise, almost surgical physicality and an unexpected special logic. Banning Bouldin’s work seems to emanate from the inside out. Echo Mother (world premiere) is a duet based on her experience as a parent navigating an invisible disability. It transforms everyday gestures of care into a layered physical language of labor and love.”
Stewart also described their own performances as theatrical explorations inspired by human behavior: “Each is inspired by human behavior,” he says. “The Front is an electrically charged satire that examines the so-called ‘masks’ people wear, and Comfort Creatures is a wild exploration of the instinctive pull toward comfort.” The program includes the world premiere of Comfort Creatures and Asheville’s premiere of The Front.
Discussing their creative process, Stewart said: “What sets Stewart/Owen Dance apart is how we work,” he says. “Our process is demanding, but it’s not heavy-handed. We pay attention to the people in the room, meet them where they are and build the work together. That tends to show up in what we present on stage or what unfolds in our classes.”
The Wortham Center for the Performing Arts is located at 18 Biltmore Avenue in downtown Asheville.
