locust

The following info is from our facebook event page:  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=323444142044&ref=ts

“Get Crushed” – a tour fundraiser for locust- the avant-garde garage band of the Seattle dance scene

March 18th 2010  8pm-midnight

Sole Repair Shop (solerepairshop.com)

$10 at the door
21 and over (if you are underage and want to come, contact Amy O
directly)

Hosted by everyone’s favorite tall southern man, Jed Dunkerley!

Bands!
Ivory in Ice World
The Witness
DJ set by Zeke Keeble

Dance performances!
locust
The Can Can Castaways
Soul Shifters
David Nixon of “Awesome”
Dream Weavers
Cherdonna and ShaBeaky
Benjamin Maestas and Jim Kent

Silent auction! Your chance to bid on amazing things like………

Artwork by:
Ben Beres
Jed Dunkerley
Jason Puccinelli
Jennifer Borges Foster
Michael Rioux
Molly Scott
Amy Clem

Dance classes with Amy O’Neal, Ricki Mason, and Ellie Sandstrom
And….
Massages, Reiki sessions, Banya 5 passes, tickets to shows, dinners, coffee, and many other local goodies!

About locust and why we need to raise money:

locust is the dance/music brainchild of performer/choreographer Amy O’Neal and musician composer Zeke Keeble. They have been making work together since 2000 and have been presented all over Seattle in places like On the Boards and the Moore Theater and nationally in Portland, NYC, San Diego, and many others.

locust has been chosen as the Seattle representative for the SCUBA National Touring alliance. SCUBA is a grass roots, artist run network between Velocity Dance Center (Seattle), ODC Theater, (San Francisco), The Southern Theater (Minneapolis), and Philadelphia Dance Projects. locust will be performing a shortened version of their latest work crushed which premiered to critical acclaim at the Moore Theater Feb. 2009 followed by a run at the TBA Festival in Portland in September 2009. For info about locust and crushed and to see video, go to locustsucka.com

locust is an Associated Program of Shunpike.

You can DONATE ONLINE : locustsucka.com/contacts

Shunpike is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit art service organization whose mission is to strengthen the Seattle arts community by partnering with small and mid-size arts groups to develop the business tools they need to succeed. Working in the close partnership with these groups, Shunpike helps solve problems quickly and impart vital skills in finance, organizational management and arts administration.

If you are on Facebook, here is a link to the invite for our fundraising event.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=323444142044

And if you cannot make it, but are able to donate to us, you can click here to do so!

locust is throwing a big ol party to raise money for our upcoming SCUBA tour to San Francisco and Minneapolis.  You can read about SCUBA at velocitydancecenter.org.  There is a link on the contacts page of this site.

What to expect at GET CRUSHED?

Bands!

Ivory in Ice World

The Witness

A DJ set by Zeke Keeble

Dance Performances by- Can Can Castaways, Soul Shifters, Faggedy Randy, locust , and more!

Silent Auctions with your chance to bid on original artwork by Jed Dunkerley, Jason Puccinelli, Ben Beres, Jennifer Borges Foster and more

as well as spa, massage, and dance class packages!

More details will be added soon!

COME IT”S GOING TO BE SOOOOOOOOOOOO RAD!

This past New Year’s Eve, locust was invited to perform with the band Cake at the Moore Theater.  Also on the bill, King City from LA and Throw Me the Statue from Seattle.  The members of Cake were looking for Seattle dance companies online to ask to do a show and found us and liked what they saw. Amy and Zeke performed a short duet before Throw Me the Statue’s set and then a trio with Amy Clem, Amy O, and Zeke before Cake.  It was a super fun and chill night.  The audience seemed into it, ie. no one threw anything at the stage.  Performing for a rock audience is always different than a modern dance audience.  In the rock world, people are unapologetic not only with the drinking, but with feeling free to hoot and comment on whatever they want.  Nothing like instant feedback.  Whereas, in the modern dance world, you may never get any kind of feedback, and people are not always willing to share their feelings about what is going on, plus, less drinking in general (except at On the Boards maybe).   Modern dance and booze should always go together in our opinion, as long as one drinks responsibly of course.

Modern dance audiences are not always given the permission they need to have an opinion about what is going on, as well as the freedom to express that opinion freely.   Perhaps that’s why more people go to rock shows and sporting events because there is something to root for, your favorite band or your favorite team.   The AWARDS show that happened at OTB last December was successful in that way.  More conversations were had with people about the work that were open and honest because there was a very clear reason to.  The modern dance audience was given a permission to root for their favorite team and in the process, perhaps get excited about something else.  (And let’s not forget that compared to music and sports, modern dance is still a relatively new art form that will take time to catch on, but maybe it isn’t meant to, and that’s kind of lovely.)

We will be performing our latest work crushed  at the T:BA (Tim Based Art ) Festival in Portland OR.  The dates are September 7-8 (Monday and Tuesday) at 6: 30 pm at the old Washington High School.   PICA, the producing organization of the festival, is using this school building for  where they have their late night performances and parties (the Works is what they call it).  locust and Amyo/tinyrage are the only dance companies performing at the Works.  We will be in the old school auditorium. Lots of character!  If you saw the show in Seattle at the Moore, it will be a very similar set up, but smaller audience capacity. There will be tons of art installations, a bar, and other happenings around the other parts of the building.  Come down!  Go to pica.org for more info on all the other fabulous things happening at T:BA.  It really is a unique experience that takes over the city for a week.  Portland is lucky to have such a thing!

Thursday January 15th, 2009, we shot some video for our upcoming project “crushed”. We have been using this fabulous green wall on 35th in West Seattle.

background image for "crushed"

It was dark, 6 pm.  The last image we were filming was  the shadows of 7 people running around and shoving each other using the headlights from 2 cars on the wall.  When we were just finishing, the cops rolled up. They told us they got a call that 6 people were beating up one person.  We told him we were shooting a dance video and to come see the show at the Moore.  Other cops were calling him on his walky talky thing and he told them “Yeah, these guys are just shooting a dance video and I am gonna see if it is any good.”  He was super cool.  We just wanna say “Go West Seattle for looking out for others in your community!  Sorry we may had freaked you out for a second.”  And “Thank you West Seattle cops for not harassing us just for being artists”.

Yeah, so these are way old.  But our fancy new website has the capacity to do this, so……enjoy!

Here are some photos from the 2007 “mockuentary”tour:

Amy and Zeke in tech rehearsal-Missoula

packing up for the Missoula drive

Amy O rockin it ballerina style for mockumentary-Missoula

outside the theater in San Diego

locust at Star bar in San Diego-on the list of America's top dive bars, for real.

locust has some well deserved beach time in San Diego

locust just performed the first 15 minutes of “crushed” as part of the National Performance Network’s Annual Meeting in Seattle this past Friday December 12. Due to not enough tech time, and in efforts to keep things simple, we burned our video onto a DVD.  Should be simple, but technology never is.  The DVD player worked during our tech, dress rehearsal, and 5 minutes before we went on stage.  However, when it was time to do it for real, the damn player decides to magically break.  Blame it on the full moon and the fact that planets were in retrograde.  These things happen.  We kicked total ass anyway.  The dance and music was tight and people were excited!  It got us all even more excited for our premiere in February at the Moore Theater in Seattle, February 27th 2009!  Maybe we will post a little preview for all ya’ll.  Keep checking back!

For those of you in Seattle, you haven’t seen much of us around town since the premiere of “mockumentary” at On the Boards in the fall of 2006. Since then, we took a little break right afterward since we have been making something every year since 2000. You gotta breath every now and then you know. In 2007 Amy O conducted teaching and choreographic residencies at Idaho State University and Texas Woman’s University. In August 2007, Amy O was a choreographer in residence at Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston,MN. At Bates, Amy O and Ellie Sandstrom performed a short excerpt from “mockumentary” in the Different Voices Concert. In September of 2007, we reworked all of “mockumentary” while in residence at the University of Montana in Missoula. Every day for a week, Amy O and Zeke conducted master classes and worked with a group of dance and media students to facilitate the creation of their own dance/music/video performance. Every night, locust worked on installing “mockumentary” in a green screen filming room that used to be a gym. With no light grid and sound equipment, we built the technical components of the piece from high powered hunting flash lights and light bulbs in power strips and work lights used for painting outdoors. We performed the show on Friday with the students performing the work we helped them to create as our opening act. Since Elton John was in town that night, we had to start the show at 4 pm so people could go see him after us. We packed the room with some people standing for the whole hour and a half. They were right there with us. It was a wonderful experience to take “mockumentary” and go from the high end, technical dream version in Seattle, to no tech in Montana. The result was more intimate and humbling to know that we can always make something from nothing and sometimes, it’s better that way. Two weeks later, we took this version of “mockumentary” to San Diego, CA through SUSHI Performing Arts. We got some well deserved beach time there.
In December of 2007, Amy O went to Tokyo Japan and screened 2 locust films in Next Moment at Uplink Factory. Next Moment was organized and curated by Corrie Befort. In January 2008, Amy O performed with Reggie Watts in the Under the Radar Festival at the Public Theater in New York. Amy O and Zeke attended their second Creative Capital retreat on the east coast this summer. They presented a short presentation on “mockumentary” to a room of 300 presenters and artists. In August 0f 2008, Amy O was in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausolito, CA for 3 weeks working in the studio alone, preparing for the work she and locust have coming up in 2009. Zeke has been working with his new band Moon Lander.
So what is next?
locust has been invited to showcase at the National Performance Network Annual Meeting in Seattle this month. We will be performing the first 15 minutes of our new piece “crushed”. “crushed” will premiere February 27, 2009 at the Moore Theater in Seattle. ONE NIGHT ONLY! We are so super excited about the new work we are doing. It is a new direction for us and we are so excited to share it with you! SAVE THE DATE!