ARTIST INFORMATION

Gretchen Garnett & Dancers

Since its formation in 2008 Gretchen Garnett & Dancers has created and presented new modern dance in San Francisco and beyond. The company's first work, Edited For Time, premiered at the SpectorDance Emerging Choreographers Showcase in July 2008. Since then it has been performed in San Francisco at The Garage and Dance Mission Theater, at the Tempe Center for the Arts in Arizona as part of CONDER/dance's Breaking Ground, and at the John Ryan Theater and Brooklyn Bridge Park as part of White Wave's DUMBO Dance Festival in Brooklyn, New York. In 2009 the piece was expanded and presented in Footloose's Women on the Way Festival, where it was reviewed as having "a spark of effervescence" and being "full of contradictions, pre-ordained accidents, and surprising repetitions" by Rita Felciano of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In 2009 the company created Just Passing Through, which premiered in Union Square as a part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival's MASH program. The piece was described as "fresh, dynamic…innovative and heartfelt" by Richard Ciccarone of SF Appeal. Also in 2009, the company presented work at CounterPULSE, The Garage and Berkeley's Subterranean Arthouse, where it premiered its newest work, PastTime. Gretchen Garnett & Dancers is fiscally sponsored by Dancers' Group.

Performances at SFIAF

Intermediate Levels of Disturbance, a new modern dance piece by Gretchen Garnett & Dancers, looks into the growing homogenization of the suburban American landscape and the long-term effects it has on our lives and our communities.

In the natural world, diversity is fundamental for the survival of species and environments. Living creatures depend on each other in order to survive. The world's most diverse environments, such as rain forests and coral reefs, have evolved and developed specialties and skills which guarantee both their survival and a flourishing environment in which to live.

Instead of taking inspiration from nature, when Americans create their communities and environments they build massive one-stop shops that specialize primarily in convenience and low prices. Whereas each area of the country used to have its own unique and regional flavor, the landscape is now littered with nearly identical strips of Exxon Mobil, McDonald's, Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

Intermediate Levels of Disturbance confronts the ideas of progress, sustainability and growth and questions whether our communities can be both bigger and better. The piece takes the point of view that humans can learn from the natural intelligence of the world to create thriving communities.

The inspiration for the movement in Intermediate Levels of Disturbance comes from many diverse sources. Garnett pulls ideas from literature, architecture, nature, politics and ancient cultures in order to create the complex and detailed movement in the piece.

The choreography has the three dancers, Chad Dawson, Leah Katz and Leah Samson, flow through, around and into one another, quickly creating and breaking their relationships. The dancers employ solo movement and spatial patterns in order to create an environment of seclusion. They struggle as they attempt to thrive in their isolation. Through intricate and exciting partnering the dancers attempt to create connections. They move from their separate environments and become unified, using each other to create a new environment where their relationships are strong. The dancers support, reject and manipulate each other, creating connections that explore and juxtapose diversity and uniformity while comparing interconnectedness with segmentation.

ARTIST BIO'S