Manifold Motion
Manifold Motion has been producing its experimental blend of multidisciplinary performance since 2005. Based in Seattle, WA, the company works and performs with artists at home and throughout the country. To date, Manifold Motion has collaborated with over 20 dancers, musicians, writers, technologists and visual artists.
The company produces evening-length performances and a showcase series featuring the work of past collaborators. Shorter Manifold Motion works have been presented at local showcases and festivals including ArtsLaunch and Artopia.
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Founding Artistic Director
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photo: Carolyn Isaak
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Keely Isaak Meehan
Keely is a movement and video artist who focuses on collaborative and interdisciplinary time-based art. Her work is frequently improvisational, exploring the use of structure and spontaneity as a means to draw great performance from the moment.
She has danced for 27 years, including extensive study in ballet, contemporary, improvisation, Dunham Technique, Skinner Releasing, Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals. Keely holds a BA in Dance from Oberlin College, a Professional Diploma in Dance Studies from the Laban Centre: London, and a Certificate in Arts Management from the University of Washington. She is currently studying to become a Certified Movement Analyst with Laban/Bartenieff & Somatic Studies International.
Companies she has performed with include The Asterisk Project, Kate Watson-Wallace/anonymous bodies, Degenerate Art Ensemble and ZIA Dance. Her own work has been performed in Seattle, New York, Cleveland and London.
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Company Members and Collaborators
*Company member
+Collaborator on current production
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photo:
Keely Isaak Meehan |
Chaya Branley*+
Chaya is a maker of things, many of them wearable. She has been sewing since she was a little girl, and spent a few years dressing up the dotcom bubble in San Francisco as well as subverting the wedding industry by making custom-designed bridal gowns in every color but white.
She has been working on costume design with Manifold Motion since In Fere, and very much enjoys the challenges of keeping the dancers clothed and beautiful. Manifold Motion's show Woolgatherer marks her performance debut.
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| photo: Carolyn Isaak |
Ariel Rogoff Flavin*
Ariel began performing at an early age in the companies of Melanie Slater, Tamar Rogoff and Wendy Perron, as well as having the honor of dancing with many other choreographers. She choreographed at Oberlin College where she majored in Dance and Art History, graduating in 2000. She is a recent graduate of the NYU school of Social Work, and currently works as a psychiatric social worker. She is also a dancer with MayDance, and performed in Edith & Jenny, by Tamar Rogoff. She recently performed a duet with her son -- his performance debut -- as a part of Alice Farley's work.
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Brenna Flood+
Brenna has been a fiber artist for over 15 years. She is the owner and operator of brennx0ryarn, and recently showed her mixed media work at Fremont Coffee.
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photo:
Carolyn Isaak
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Bridget Gunning (Managing Director)*+
Bridget is an explorer and performer. She dabbles in modern and aerial dance, Skinner Releasing, improvisation, yoga and somatics and is engaged in an ongoing study of movement and efficiency. She would like to learn how to rock climb because the thought terrifies her. Bridget holds a BA in Sociology from The University of Arizona where she studied dance. She performs in and around Seattle with The Asterisk Project, Stimulate Dance and Manifold Motion where she helps manage and plan. She is also a freelance performer all around the Northwest. Bridget hopes a soon return to school to study Natural Health and Wellness.
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| photo: Tamara Weikel |
Randy Jones+
Randy Jones is a composer, improviser and software designer who combines sounds and images in live performance. His shows combine a scientific outlook with a cosmic cinematic language. He has performed at festivals including Technicolor (Berlin), Mœsica Electroacœstica (Havana), Spark (Minneapolis), MUTEK (Montreal), Decibel (Seattle) and New Forms (Vancouver), and been a repeated guest at the Northwest Film Forum's Visual Music Festival and Cinema by Design series in his home city of Seattle.
Other projects have included motion visual design for a permanent installation at the Seattle Public Library, tour visuals for Radiohead, and an installation for Seattle's aro.space. From 2000-2004 he worked with Cycling '74 to create Jitter, a graphics and matrix-processing addition to Max/MSP. Jones has also had a long-time interest in electronic dance music; his main outlet for this work is the Orac Records label which he co-founded with Konstantin Gabbro. His debut album, "The Return of Caro," was released on the label in the Spring of 2005.
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| photo: Divide |
Mike McCracken*+
With a past heavily involved in music and software, Mike is exploring new elements of his medium, as well as branching into new media. As technology's malleability continues to increase dramatically, new avenues of artistic pursuit emerge and develop. Mike strives to harness these newly opened areas with fascinating possibility for potency to create things of intrigue, beauty and reflection.
Mike McCracken graduated with a BS in Computer Science from Evergreen, focusing on musical applications of computers. He is a percussionist with the Lake Union Civic Orchestra and creates installations, performs and does production management as a member of Manifold Motion. His installation, "Audible Avatar," was presented at 911 Media in December, 2007 as a part Dorkbot's "People Doing Strange Things with Electricity" exhibit.
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Leo Mayberry*+
Leo Mayberry has been composing, coordinating and performing live video for the last eight years as KillingFrenzy Visuals. Projects have varied from improvisational explorations with Steve Fisk and Greg Gilmore to complicated theater performance with the Degenerate Art Ensemble. Developing custom applications in Max/MSP/Jitter, and amassing an eclectic catalog of material to draw from has developed the flexibility necessary to thrive in environments from gothic ambience to breakcore meltdown. Use of mirrors, motors, and non-standard screen compositions are all ways he's working to shatter the screen and release the image.
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| photo: Joris Kamma |
Luara Moore*
Lue is a graphic designer, visual artist and musician. She currently lives in Utrecht, The Netherlands and designs Manifold Motion's promotional materials. She has, and continues to work in both the artistic and administrative aspects of Manifold Motion as a creator, performer, designer and publicist.
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| photo: Divide |
Nicole Sasala+
Nicole is a performer, choreographer, and educator from Pittsburgh, PA. She holds a BFA in Dance from Ohio University and currently resides in Seattle, WA. In 2007, she started The Asterisk Project, a modern dance and aerial performance group that focuses on combining aspects of improvisation, site-specific work, aerial dance and collaboration with artists of other disciplines. The rest of her time in Seattle is spent teaching dance and yoga, playing on trapezes, and exploring the Northwest outdoors. Nicole has been a member of Attack Theatre, Junction Dance Theatre, OTO Dance, Locate Peformance Group and, of course, Manifold Motion, as well as shown her own work throughout the continental US, Hawaii, and Ecuador.
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| photo: Carolyn Isaak |
Kate Watson-Wallace*
Kate, a 2007 Pew Fellow in the arts in choreography, is a dancer, choreographer and director based in Philadelphia. Her work has been funded by the Rockefeller Map Fund, Dance Advance, The Independence Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. She is a resident choreographer at Susan Hess and has been a guest artist at Drexel University, the University of the Arts, Franklin and Marshall College, Temple University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her dancing, choreography and study have taken her throughout Europe, and across the U.S. Internationally, she has worked with Bulgarian physical theater director Petar Todorov on American Silences, and with British choreographer Carol Brown. As a dancer she has performed and toured extensively with Headlong Dance Theater, Group Motion and Myra Bazell/Scrap. In 2008 she was featured as a "Person to Watch in 2008," and voted a "Best of Philly" in the Philadelphia City Paper.
She directs Kate Watson-Wallace/anonymous bodies, an interdisciplinary performance company whose movement installations have taken place in a car (CAR), a row home (HOUSE), a machine shop and church (The Mentalist), a nightclub and bar (Gone), and for the concert stage (Living Rooms).
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Partners
Shunpike
 Manifold Motion is a partner artist of Shunpike. Shunpike strengthens the Seattle arts community by partnering with artists to more effectively present and distribute their work.
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Youngstown Cultural Arts Center
The Youngstown Cultural Arts Center is a multi-purpose facility dedicated to arts, education, and to the provision of space for members of the community to create, converse, and perform.
Serving as our home base, Youngstown provides Manifold Motion with a beautiful movement studio and supportive community to create in, conveniently within the same building where we perform. The movement studio is available for rehearsal rentals through Manifold Motion. Please contact us to inquire about using the studio for your rehearsals.
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