Roulette presents the Premiere of Pow by KEELY GARFIELD DANCE
Choreography by Keely Garfield
Performed by Keely Garfield, Paul Hamilton, Molly Lieber, and Matthew Brookshire, with lights by Jonathan Belcher
Pow –
“How is it when the tree withers and the leaves fall?” asks the student. The master replies, “Body exposed in the golden wind.” – Blue Cliff Record Koan
“My dancing body is always exposed to the golden wind, which means there is no protection, none anywhere. Dancing is a flim flam, simply a wind moving through that carries you aloft, alighting here and there. It is beautiful and rare and painful and is ultimately just another way for you to know yourself and the world. A kick in the head. An invitation to shine through and wake the fuck up. Pow! I offer a procession of terribly Powerful intimate narratives about monsters and angels, and monstrous angels, Power Rangers. Pow is a Frankenstein of a dance in which elements of other dances I have made are radically re-configured, sutured, amplified, and left to run amok creating a shocking new version of events.” – Keely
Keely Garfield Dance has been presented at many theaters and festivals both nationally and internationally. Highlights include: Deep (The Joyce Theater), Disturbing The Peace (Zenon Dance Company, MN), Iron Lung (Groundworks Dancetheater, OH), Disturbulance, & Bessie-awarded My Mother Was A Four-Alarm Fire and other mostly true stories (Dance Theater Workshop now NYLA), Scent of Mental Love (A film for Radio Bremen/Canal Arte), Limerence, & Bessie-nominated Twin Pines (Danspace Project, The Joyce Theater), and Telling the Bees (Chocolate Factory). KGD has also received commissions and presentations from Celebrate Brooklyn! (NY), Milwaukee Danceworks (WI), Philadelphia Dance Projects (PA), The Southern Theater (Minneapolis, MN), Danse Vernissage (Montreal), Spring Loaded (London), and Tanzmesse (Frankfurt) among others. WOW premiered at Danspace Project in 2014.
Garfield’s personal and professional engagement in the world at large is the heart of all of her creative work. Alongside her choreographies for her acclaimed company, Keely Garfield Dance, the British-born choreographer, dancer, teacher, and curator has created work for ballet dancers at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, directed the movements of antique puppets for The Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre’s production of Golem, and choreographed musical theater productions including Gypsy (Sundance Theatre, Utah), Carnival (New Jersey Shakespeare Festival), and Yeast Nation, The Triumph of Life! (Perseverance Theater, Alaska). Keely has made dances for students (Barnard, Hunter, The New School etc), children (DTW’s Family Matters, Lincoln Center’s Reel to Real etc), and MTV (Adam Ant, Herbie Hancock). Keely holds an MFA from UWM, and is engaged as a visiting professor of dance in many university departments. Additionally, Keely is an E-RYT 500 yoga teacher, a Donna Karan/ Urban Zen Integrative Therapist working in oncology and hospice.
“Garfield’s work is resonantly individual, defiantly uncategorizable, an emanation of things deep within.” (Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times.)
“Keely Garfield has been on a phenomenal tear in recent years, creating work that seems always on the verge of plunging off a cliff — you watch spellbound, waiting for the car to crash and burn in spectacular fashion. Somehow, though, she always makes the curve…If you are going to make a stand best to make it at the height of your powers!” (Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times).
“Garfield’s work is an act of disruption, an unmasking with occasional masks, a mouthful of Pop Rocks, a baptismal immersion in feelings that continuously build.” – (Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Infininte Body)