Improvising physical and verbal language to create encounters around difference and shared traits, Amy Chavasse will imagine a new choreography that comments on edges, boundaries and sliding scales found in American and Chinese contemporary dance forms. Using the presentation as a site for building first steps towards a new duet with Zhang Peng, a choreographer and vocalist from the Tujia region of Southwestern Hunan province, a dialogue will open, and reveal questions around edges, boundaries and sliding scales. The audience will be enlisted to participate. This presentation will unfold in real time, using preconceived structures and premises to reach something unknown.

About the speaker:
Amy Chavasse, continues to find endless sources of pleasure and wonderment collaborating with many performers, designers and dance makers as Artistic Director of ChavasseDance&Performance, including Peter Schmitz, Malcolm Tulip, Austin Selden, Alex Springer, Xan Burley, and Caroline Chavasse. Her work has been presented throughout the U.S. including, Gowanus Art + Production, Dance New Amsterdam, Dixon Place, LIT-100 Grand, Movement Research at Judson Church, Triskelion, BAAD Ass! Women’s Festival), Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Links Hall, Chicago and Flynn Space, Burlington VT. In June, 2015 she presented an evening of work at Triskelion Presents in Brooklyn, NY. Quinn Batson, writing in OffOffOff said, "Amy Chavasse is a continual surprise, solo or ensemble. Her dances are simultaneously absurd, smart and disturbing, and she chooses her collaborators well." Internationally, she has taught and her work has been presented in Cuba, Lithuania, Vienna, Colombia, Vancouver BC, Buenos Aires, the American Dance Festival/ Henan (China) and The Beijing Dance Festival. She premiered Low Winter Light, a duet for Donnell Oakley and Jessica Jolly-Cikanek at The Beijing Dance Festival in 2013. She has been on the faculty at Florence Summer Dance since 2007, and regularly teaches at Duncan 3.0 in Rome, and at ResExtensa’s Instituto Vittoria in Giovinazzo, Italy. She has collaborated with members of ResExtensa Danza Teatro Danza in Giovinazzo, Italy, and Grupo Krapp, Buenos Aires. Conspiracy Going (Amy Needs A Lot of Empathy), is part of Sola, Dances for and by Women that has been touring to five U.S. sites in 2014-15. She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan. She’s also been guest artist/ faculty at Bennington, Middlebury, Arizona State, UNC-Greensboro, Cornish and UNCSA. She danced in the companies of Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians, Bill Young and Dancers, and others and in many independent projects in NYC, Seattle, NC and beyond. BFA- University of NC School of the Arts; MFA- University of Washington. www.chavassedanceandperformance.com