Dance Theater in collaboration with Weena Pauly. May, 2023. Kestrels, Brooklyn, NY
With kinetic dancing, stories and songs, Weena and Katie traverse the long tethers of time through shaken-up fantasy worlds, characters built from their lacking and over-ing, and through the filtered groundwater of their kinship of the last 25 years. As they tend to their home of friendship, they concoct forgotten tales of vaguely euro-lineages and fables into a disjointed present. They navigate connection steeped in inherited competitions and codes of femaleness. They time travel their own ages and bodies through their love language of hair-braiding and awkward clog dancing. With wit and pathos Weena and Katie seek to understand and pierce through the expected complacencies of modern adult, female corporeality. Monster Mourning includes live music by the multi talented musician and composer Annie Hart.
Artist Biographies:
Weena Pauly and Katie Workum, performers and creators
Weena and Katie met in NYC in 1999, circling each other’s lives with an increasingly magnetic bond through classes, neighborhoods, and stages. Within that two decade span, Katie taught Weena how to sing in harmony to perform together in Young Jean Lee’s “Church.” Weena helped Katie with a STREB audition (Weena got it, Katie broke her wrist.) Katie choreographed shows and earned her Masters in Dance Education at NYU Steinhardt. Weena developed her somatic therapy practice as a yoga therapist, movement teacher and Somatic Experiencing trauma resolution practitioner. Katie taught at Gibney, Barnard College, NYU Experimental Theater Wing, and Lehman College. Weena danced with Brian Brooks Moving Company, David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group and eventually with Katie in her evening-length, “Fruitlands” at The Chocolate Factory. In 2012 Weena and Katie began their current research into Authentic Movement and improvisation from which Weena created her current body of work, SE+AM. They’ve created work for Mount Tremper Arts, Mass MOCA, Danspace Project, BKSD, Foley Gallery. They’ve been interwoven in each other's lives and families for 25 years, and forged a collaborative model founded on inclusivity of their wholeness. They’ve made over 857 dances, reckoning with who and how they are, with laughter, care and reverence for what makes them come to life.
Annie Hart, composer and musician
Annie Hart is a New York City-based composer, songwriter, and performer. She made her name with David Lynch favorites and Twin Peaks alums, synth trio Au Revoir Simone, and has since branched into a swift-moving solo career. Between 2017 and 2022, she released three critically-acclaimed solo albums and completed several world tours. Her minimal pop songs explore the fringes of new wave, pop, and ambient music; and have been called “sumptuous synth-pop’ by Vogue. Her reputation as a unique master of composition on analog synthesizers has led her to compose the score for two feature films released in 2020: Olympic Dreams (IFC) and Banana Split (Universal). She scored 3 short films in 2022 and is currently scoring the short Aphasia as part of the prestigious ASCAP/Columbia University Film Scoring Workshop. Annie continues to break boundaries by composing music for patient listeners in her own distinctive self-taught style. 2023 will see the release of several projects, including performances of a string quartet and a solo pop record entitled The Weight of A Wave.
