MODULE #1

A small protest to always having to explain/propose/know/articulate in language what work or practice is about, in Not About Thing, we will witness and expand meaning making that comes through the language and archives of our performing bodies in relationship to queer theory and ecology--switching modes, researching theories, moving continuously, making and breaking small works together.

Being “not about” is a dispersal strategy and an ecological fact of bodily constitutions. It explores porousness versus hard lines and edges within us and among us, through various perceptual inputs that inform and show up in creative process.

What do we absorb and reciprocate experience with our environmental neighbors through our living, sensing bodies? What does our practice and work tell us about what it is rather than the other way around? How do we create more unknown spaces in a pressurized culture to have a stance, make quick content, and access readily available algorithmic answers to every question? “Our work” can be how we arrive in a place, how we show up as a collaborator, how a prompt manifests in motion, how the objects, technology and forms around us intersect with identity and place, how we build a community of practice to human and beyond human collaborators and approach work as part dialogue, ritual, relationship, and opportunity to practice care.

Shannon Stewart is a choreographer, writer, and assistant professor in contemporary dance. Her/Their practice and research connect technical and somatic dance methods to theories of gender, labor, and ecology through writing and interdisciplinary performances. Shannon’s work has been presented in the U.S. and Europe on stages, screens, and in galleries, most recently touring Mexico, Croatia, the Pacific Northwest and Gulf South.

Shannon has been a generative member of the communities she’s a part of from a young age, initiating arts organizations, archiving the work of underground scenes, and continually scaffolding opportunities for artistic processes and more participation in the arts where there are gaps. This influences the form and feeling of her work as it often takes place in unconventional settings, brings dance into conversation with other issues and modalities, and uses choreographic thinking to imagine new possibilities of meaning making.

Shannon’s work has been supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project (finalist), National Performance Network, Foundation for Contemporary Art, and residencies from the UCROSS Foundation, Art Omi, and the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, among others. Her poetry has recently been published by Planet Detroit in their ecopoetry series.

Shannon has a Masters of Fine Arts from Tulane University in Interdisciplinary Dance Performance and a BA in Urban Design from the University of Washington. In the university setting, Shannon teaches Countertechnique™ , improvisation, Performing Gender and Sexuality in Dance, and interdisciplinary choreography.  She is on faculty at the University of Kansas and is a core faculty member of ROAR Berlin.