FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Dana Munson

Marketing Director

dmunson@thecowlescenter.org

612.206.3630

Open Rehearsals for Still Life by Morgan Thorson

Minneapolis, MN (April 15, 2015) - In collaboration with The Weisman Art Museum (WAM) at the University of Minnesotas exhibition Local Time (June 13, 2015 September 13, 2015), The Cowles Center for Dance & The Performing Arts hosts two open rehearsals of Still Life by Minneapolis-based choreographer Morgan Thorson on April 24 and 26 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Target Education Studio on the second floor of The Cowles Center.

Morgan Thorson is one of five Twin-Cities-based artists participating in WAMs exhibition Local Time later this summer whose work addresses time as both subject and practice. Through reference, metaphor, and in time-based practice, the exhibition artists take up the subject in physical, aesthetic, and philosophical terms. In preparation for the exhibitions opening, Morgan Thorson is in residence at The Cowles Center. Thorsons open rehearsals will be the first opportunity for an audience to become entwined with the performance and influence the arch of the dance. This open format allows the public to give feedback and provides Thorson the ability to direct the dancers in real time in response. Still Life not only makes time transparent, but takes it as its motivating subject. As a key aspect of the dance, time is expressed in measured, synchronized movements as interval, duration, action and decay. Still Life features a newly commissioned score by New York-based composer, Dana Wachs.

Open Rehearsals by Morgan Thorson at The Cowles Center

Friday April 24 1-3pm

Sunday April 26 1-3pm

Target Education Studio

Free and open to the public

ARTIST BIO

Morgan Thorson, based in Minneapolis, MN, has been making public dance performances since 2000. All of her projects, inspired by a subject, physical process or point of view, are born from interdisciplinary collaboration and respond to the site in which they are situated. She has toured her work regularly for engagements in theaters and festivals since 2008. Her choreography is part of a body of contemporary work engaged in critical dialogue with the form itself. Her dances react and contribute to the choreographic production in her community as well as the broader culture of western concert dance.

Thorson is a United States Artist (2012) Guggenheim (2010) and McKnight (2009, 2002) Fellow and has received two Sage Awards for Outstanding Choreography (2008, 2007). In 2011, she was selected to participate in the NEFAs Regional Dance Development Initiative.

Her work has also been supported by National Performance Network in 2015, 2012 and 2008; The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography with Residency and Fellowship in 2009 and 2011, and she was the resident artist at the Centre Choreographique National De Franche-Comte in Belfort, France, as well as a MacDowell Artist Colony Fellow in 2012. Thorson has been commissioned by Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, On The Boards in Seattle, Red Cat in Los Angeles, PS 122 in New York City and Alverno Presents in Milwaukee among others. She has created works for Zenon Dance Company, James Sewell Ballet, Barnard College and several regional universities.

Thorson was Best Choreographer of 2010 awarded by the Minneapolis-St. Paul City Pages for her work, Heaven. In 2007 she created Docudrama for which she received a 2007 Sage Award for Outstanding Choreography and Best Choreographer of 2008 by the City Pages. Her work Faker received a 2006 Sage Award for Outstanding Choreography as well.

Thorson is a certified Skinner Releasing Technique instructor and is affiliate dance faculty at University of Minnesota. She was a Creative Campus Fellow at Wesleyan University in 2014, where she engaged students and professors in interdisciplinary practices. In that context she has developed pedagogy in Dance, Drawing, Archaeology, and Religious Studies.

As a performer, Thorson has collaborated with Tino Segal, Ann Carlson, Jennifer Monson, Karen Sherman, Hijack, and Emily Johnson, among others. She is currently the dramaturg for the Minneapolis-based performance group, Dance Bums.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Local Time is organized by the Weisman Art Museum.

Still Life is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by PS122 in partnership with the Weisman Art Museum, The Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts, and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). The Forth Fund is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For more information: www.npnweb.org.

ABOUT THE COWLES CENTER

The Cowles Center for Dance & The Performing Arts is the Twin Cities flagship for dance in Minnesota. Centrally located in downtown Minneapolis, The Cowles Center includes the refurbished 500-seat Goodale Theater; the former Hennepin Center for the Arts, home to 20 leading dance and performing arts organizations; the state-of-the-art Target Education Studio, housing The Cowles Centers innovative distance learning program; and the U.S. Bank Atrium. The Cowles Center is a catalyst for the creation, presentation, education, enjoyment and celebration of dance and the performing arts in the Twin Cites.