Muscle Memory
Ticket Information:
May 16-17 and 22-24 at 8PM
May 18 and 25 at 2PM
$20/Adults & $10/Students and Seniors
Reservations: 901-766-9366
TheatreWorks: 2085 Monroe
*Saturday, May 24- Tickets include “Cocktails and Conversations” directly following the performance with Project: Motion
*Friday, May 16 and Thursday, May 22-Tickets include Q & A with Project: Motion dancers *Thursday,
May 22 “Buy One Get One Free” Admission
CLICK HERE FOR YOUR $5 COUPON (Good for Adult ticket price for all performances except May 22nd)
Project: Motion Celebrates 20th Anniversary
Project: Motion, Memphis’ premier contemporary dance collective, presents Muscle Memory: Looking Back, Moving Forward May 16-18 and May 22-25 at TheatreWorks. The innovative dance collective celebrates its 20th anniversary with a dance performance that will include new and timeless dance works that reflect the company’s unique character, while drawing from its rich and vibrant history.
About the Production
Memphis becomes the center of a “creative convergence” for modern dance as former influential dance artists from Project: Motion’s past return home to reconnect with current collective members in Muscle Memory: Looking Back, Moving Forward. By exchanging new ideas, reflecting on past work, and reuniting its artists, Project: Motion fuses past with present to produce new and visionary works that will propel the company’s artistic vision forward into the next twenty years.
About the Dance Artists, the Works and the Process
Project: Motion, deeply rooted in the Memphis artistic community, has produced a vast array of diverse and innovative dance artists, choreographers, educators, directors, and arts administrators who have migrated on to new places throughout the globe to continue to grow as creative artists. Four of these artists journey back to Memphis to become reacquainted with the organization they helped establish.
Returning guest artists include: Ann Donahue (Project: Motion co-founder and co-artistic director, 1987-1995) comes from the Washington D.C. area and will present Begin Again…& Again…&… a dance for three that is a physical exploration of the unique stops and starts that punctuate the cycles that are inherent in a lifespan. Judith Wombwell (Project: Motion co-founder and co-artistic director, 1987-1995) travels to the south from Boston, MA and will present and perform in Shed, a 
compelling duet that investigates loss and rebirth accompanied by the music of Sigur Ros. Laura Marsh (Co-artistic director, associate choreographer/performer/ teaching artist, 1995-1998) glides in from San Francisco, CA to present and perform her humorous dance/theatre solo piece, Cake of Salt, in which she portrays a man struggling to control himself and his environment, but beneath the surface lurk forbidden desires. Wayne M. Smith (Associate choreographer/performer/ teaching artist, 1987-2005) joins us from Atlanta, GA where he will set his newly reworked improvisational group dance Posh, Petal & Push…#7. Performed to the lush music of Billy Strayhorn and Duke 
Ellington, this dance work is reminiscent of an intimate wine and cheese social gathering set to music with light body contact and expressive dancing between players. Smith will also perform a new audience interactive solo work yet to be revealed.
In addition to the guest artists’ works, local choreographers and current Project: Motion collective members will present new works inspired by and drawn from its origins. After scanning through two decades of Project: Motion archives, unfamiliar collective members unearthed dances with themes that ignited their creative minds to produce something new. Emily Hefley creates Deadweight a new work performed to tango fusion music that explores how four dancers attempt to free themselves from excess by flinging, spinning and pushing through space. A new trio by Sarah Ledbetter, Bread, is a highly physical and eclectic celebration of the body and its cravings for the simple joys of life. Inspired by Egyptian history, Marianne Bell presents The Beloved One, a group dance that is a physical exploration of a power struggle and how societies are both influenced and impacted by conflict. Louisa Koeppel presents a playful new work set to the music of Haydn that investigates the games we start to play as children and continue to play as we grow up, constantly strategizing to position ourselves in a win/lose situation.
