Kinesis Project dance theatre announces their first in-person performance of Search(Light) on Friday, June 18, 2021 at 6:45pm ET at the Brooklyn Navy Yard at 141 Flushing Ave, Building 77 Floor 15, Brooklyn, NY. Doors open at 6:45pm and the performance begins at 7pm. Music by Sandbox Percussion Quartet with David Crowell and a live violin solo by Doori Na. For more information and to reserve a ticket, visit https://www.kinesisproject.com/events/2021/6/18/searchlight-in-person-development-performance-at-brooklyn-navy-yard.

Presented in partnership with the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Kinesis Project dance theatre is developing their newest work, Search(Light). The company is publicly sharing the creation process as they build toward a cross-country experience – sharing live performances between dancers in NYC and Seattle, WA. Audiences can join this boundary-breaking dance company as they invite you into their process. 

Leading up to the live performance on June 18th, Kinesis Project dance theatre invites the public to go “behind the dance” for two open rehearsals in their series “Revealing Dances.” Guests can be part of the conversation and engage in dialogue with the artists on June 10 and June 17 at 12:15pm, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard at 141 Flushing Ave, Building 77, 15th Floor, Brooklyn, NY. Tickets are available on a sliding scale at www.kinesisproject.com/events These events are part of Kinesis Project’s 2021 summer performance season in spaces all over NYC and Seattle, including Little Island, NYC’s newest park along the Hudson River.

“Search(Light) is a work of connection; it is about invisible threads made visible and many kinds of light,” said Melissa Riker, artistic director of Kinesis Project dance theatre. “Kinesis is a large-scale dance company, and in these challenging times for performance and performers – we are doing exactly what we are here to do: finding new ways of bringing artists together, and pushing the boundaries of how audiences experience dance. I am so grateful to our venue partners, our collaborators and creative team that we are continuing this experiment in shared performance over distance.”

Search(Light) is Kinesis Project dance theatre’s newest work in development, originally inspired by an experience Riker had six years ago when she witnessed a full pier of squid jigging, a type of fishing, in Seattle. Enthralled with the lights from the dock reflected off of the water, beautifully caught in a chaotic, mesmerizing rhythm of fishing lines, Riker had the inkling of an idea. As it is developing now, Search(Light) draws from the science of light, as well as how we connect, how we are pulled in, how light guides and informs, and how light, connection and distance intertwine. Riker and the dancers have been developing the vocabulary of the work since November 2019, workshopping the connectedness of light and dancing of the piece by being in person and then when the global pandemic hit in 2020, shifting to Zoom and then cross-country, real-time live stream to keep the full company in collaboration.

Search(light) is set to premiere in NYC at the Navy Yard on October 9 and 10th in partnership with Vashon Center for the Arts, Vashon Island, WA. The New York cast includes Claudia-Lynn Rightmire, Therese Ronco, David L. Parker, Sumaya Mulla-Carrillo, and Nicole Truzzi. The Seattle cast includes Kimberly Holloway, Hendri Walujo, Robert Moore, Margaret Behm, Madeline Morser. 

Kinesis Project’s programming, Revealing Dances, was invented by Melissa Riker and Jeremy Williams as a unique way to offer an open process and foster discussion about creativity in general. Search(Light) in 2020 and 2021 has been made possible in part through partnerships with Brooklyn Navy Yard and Vashon Center for the Arts, Dance/NYC Covid Relief Grant, Indie Theatre Fund, John C. Robinson, Emily and Tony Seaver, Amerigo Falciani and Melissa Graule, and many generous individuals.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard (the Yard) is a mission-driven industrial park that is a nationally acclaimed model of the viability and positive impact of modern, urban industrial development. The Yard is now home to more than 450 businesses employing more than 11,000 people and generating over $2.5 billion per year in economic impact for the city. Building on the Yard’s history as the economic heart of Brooklyn, the 300-acre waterfront asset offers a critical pathway to the middle class for many New Yorkers. The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC) is the not-for-profit corporation that serves as the real estate developer and property manager of the Yard on behalf of its owner, the City of New York. BNYDC strives to provide an environment in which innovative companies can take root and grow. The Yard was once the nation’s most storied naval shipbuilding facility, which for over 150 years built and launched America’s most famous fighting ships, including the USS Maine, USS Arizona, and USS Missouri. The Yard also served as an important point of the passage, home, and workplace for countless veterans as they served our country. Through its public programming, the Yard continues to honor and preserve this rich history.

Melissa Riker is Artistic Director and Choreographer of Kinesis Project dance theatre. She is a New York City dancer and choreographer who emerged as a strong performance and creative voice as the NYC dance and circus worlds combined during the 90s. Riker’s dances and aesthetic layer her training as a classical dancer, martial artist, theatre choreographer and aerial performer. She creates dances on site – and in context. Riker invents large-scale out-door performances and spontaneous moments of dance for individuals and corporate clients. Audiences and critics have called Riker’s work “a Marx Brothers’ routine with soul,” “A movable feast.” And from The New York Times, her choreography is: “comically acrobatic, gracefully classical, visually arresting.”

Kinesis Project is a dance organization that creates dance as public art, facilitates educational programs and produces site-specific performances with diverse communities. A company at the forefront of the international discussion of placemaking, art engagement and the cultural imperative of art in public space, Kinesis Project dance theatre invents large scale, space-changing, breath-taking experiences. In 2020 Riker kept Kinesis Project working and creating consistently on both coasts thanks in part to COVID Relief Grants from Dance/NYC, the Indie Theatre Fund and generous donors.