SFAC is proud to bring dancer and intellectual Laura Careless, and the TorQ Percussion Quartet to Sitka. Read on for details....

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Laura Careless, Dancer in Residence, to Hold Workshop and Performance in Sitka

New York City-based dancer Laura Careless is coming to the Sitka Fine Arts Camp for a week-long residency beginning February 16th! Laura is a graduate of the Royal Ballet School in London; the Ecole-Atelier Rudra Bejart, Lausanne, Switzerland; and the Juilliard School Dance Division, from which she graduated in 2007 with the John Erskine Prize for Academic and Artistic Excellence. She is a founding member of Company XIV, which is based in New York City. A member of SFAC faculty in previous summers, Laura will be holding workshops and presenting a solo dance performance throughout her time in Sitka.

On Tuesday, February 17th, from 5-7pm, Laura will hold a Physical Storytelling Workshop for experienced dancers of all ages. It will focus on creating a map of connections between our physical bodies and our emotional intelligence. Borrowing from various dance techniques and from yoga, we'll observe how different movements express, activate, and change the way our bodies feel. Once we understand these connections, we'll put them into practice by building characters from the inside out. The goal of the workshop is to give students a heightened awareness of physical sensation and a movement vocabulary for self-expression. The cost of the workshop is $35, and it will take place in the upstairs dance room on the SJ Campus. For more information or to register, call the Sitka Fine Arts Camp at 747-3085.

The day after the workshop, February 18th, Laura will present a solo dance performance on the Sitka Performing Arts Center stage at 7pm. The show will follow the seasonal descent of Persephone into the Underworld, the grief of her mother Demeter in losing her, and the joy of both when they are reunited. Along the way, we encounter the stories of other female characters and archetypes that are forgotten, hidden, endangered, or villified. Through their encounters with these mysterious and magical women, the audience is encouraged to unearth and reclaim the characters that have been lost from within their own traditions, families, and themselves. A question and answer session with Laura will follow the show. Tickets are available now at Old Harbor Books and the SFAC Office, and will also be sold at the door: $20 general admission / $15 students and seniors.

TorQ Percussion Ensemble to Perform

TorQ Percussion Quartet, a Canadian ensemble, is wrapping up their Alaska tour in Sitka on February 22nd. After visiting Anchorage, Homer, and Fairbanks, the ensemble will be in town for two short days--but they will be busy holding a workshop for middle and high school percussionists in addition to putting on a full-scale concert. The group has been praised as "outstanding... no, astonishing," and focuses on bringing fresh vitality to both classic and new pieces for percussion. They perform on a wide range of instruments, including mallet percussion like xylophones, marimbas, and vibraphones, familiar percussion like tambourines, bass drums, and cymbals, and even found percussion--a big category that encompasses pretty much anything you can hit and make noise on, even garbage cans.

In their decade together, the group has performed throughout Canada, the US, and in Europe, including appearances at the International Percussion Quartet Festival in Luxembourg and with the Stuttgart Chamber Choir. They will be guest artists with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Grand Philharmonic Choir of Kitchener-Waterloo during the 2014-2015 season, and regularly commission and premiere new works by modern composers. Dedicated to outreach and education, the quartet are faculty members of the Durham Integrated Arts Camp and perform approximately 70 school concerts each year.

For a taste of their music and dynamic performance style (this time, minus the garbage cans), check out their arrangement and performance of the South African folk song "Jerusalem:"

TorQ Percussion Quartet plays "Jerusalem" (arr. Jamie Drake)

 and a piece written for them by the composer Ken Shorley in 2009, "The Bright Side:" 

TorQ Percussion Quartet plays "The Bright Side" by Ken Shorley (complete)

TorQ's concert will be held Sunday, February 22nd at 7pm at the Sitka Performing Arts Center. Tickets are available now at Old Harbor Books and the SFAC Office, and will also be sold at the door: $20 general admission / $15 students and seniors.

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Monica Ague, Artist Series AmeriCorps Volunteer, contributed the above articles.