Allison Orr and Krissie Marty of Forklift Danceworks photo by Leon Alesi
The Trees Of Govalle by Amitava Sarkar
A free performance featuring the City of Austin's Urban Forestry Division and the trees of Govalle Park
Forklift Danceworks Residency & Public Programs
Wednesday-Friday, July 21-24, 2015
Public Programs and Venues - TBA
Free and Open to the Community
Marfa Live Arts hosted Allison Orr and Krissie Marty of Austin-based Forklift Danceworks for a short residency in Marfa. Forklift Danceworks celebrates the extraordinary in the ordinary by creating original performances inspired by the movement of everyday life. By engaging a diverse body of participants and audience through its performances, outreach programs, classes, and workshops, the company empowers all people to be actively engaged in the creative process.
While in West Texas, Orr and Marty presented a free lecture open to the public; conduct a dance performance and workshop with students and adult learners in the community; and participated in outreach sessions, site visits, and meetings to pursue the development of a commissioned work to be realized with the local Marfa ranching community in the summer of 2017.
Allison Orr and Krissie Marty are inspired by the beauty and skill in practiced, habitual movement performed by ordinary people in everyday life. Our company, Forklift Danceworks, has made dances with over twenty communities who don’t identify as dancers—from electric utility workers to baseball players, firefighters to conductors, sanitation workers to roller skaters. Like ethnographers, we learn about a community by embedding ourselves within it, building trusting relationships, listening to and shadowing people, and conducting hours of interviews. The community members we work with are not simply our subjects, but they are also performers, co-creators, and collaborators. Through a process of co-authored choreography with the participating community
members, the dance emerges out of months if not years of research and relationship building, creating dialogical performances. Ultimately, we seek to challenge traditional notions of dance and dancer while simultaneously asking people to reconsider their relationship to labor and laboring bodies. By crafting a more human portrait of the person behind a job, our projects seek to create connection and deeper understanding of our interdependence. We also strive to make visible and give voice to people who may be marginalized or overlooked.
Allison Orr with Power UP Cast by KLRU Arts In Context
Allison Orr received an MFA in Choreography and Performance from Mills College, a BA in Anthropology from Wake Forest University, and performed and studied with Deborah Hay and Robert Moses before founding Forklift Danceworks.
Krissie Marty received an MFA in Dance and Choreography from the University of Iowa and a BFA in Theatre Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and studied choreography in community with Celeste Miller at Jacob’s Pillow.Both performed, choreographed and taught at the Dance Exchange with MacArthur Award winner Liz Lerman, and have been guest artists at various universities, colleges and public schools.
Allison Orr and Krissie Marty of Forklift Danceworks photo by Leon Alesi