Created and Performed by Vanessa Skantze

This evening-length solo work explores the fierce beauty and wrenching pain of the Americas: dancing with the gods of Mexico, North America, and Haiti primarily. The Western Hemisphere is experiencing the (hopefully) last vicious convulsions of the European assault on the Americas and the enslavement of African people to implement their exploitation of the land. The task now especially of whites in the Americas is to dissolve the structures that have been in place desecrating the land and persecuting people of color and the poor and outcast; and to honor and respect the history, the gods and the wild nature of this place; these lands comprising the Western Hemisphere. Writhing Treasure Feast draws from the artist’s travels to Mexico and Haiti; and her experience in a Vodou Sosyete (community) in New Orleans. Her initiation into this path has deeply impacted her creative life as a Butoh dancer. The work has 7 sections: Stone, Sea, Wind, Fire, Serpent, Muck, River. Sound created by Masaaki Masao, Joy Von Spain and Susan DuMett, Pink Void, Sioux City Pete and Greg Campbell, Ambrosia Bardos (Morher), noisepoetnobody and Uneasy Chairs, Cailleach.

FEBRUARY 28 + 29 @ 8pm

MARCH 1 @ 7pm

$20 Tickets available here or at the door

RSVP on Facebook

Vanessa Skantze is a Butoh artist and teacher of yoga and dance. She has performed in the U.S. and Europe for over 20 years. She co-founded New Orleans sound/movement ensemble Death Posture in 2002, and collaborates with many renowned musicians including Jarboe and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani. Skantze has trained with Jinen Butoh founder Atsushi Takenouchi since 2003, and performed with him in the U.S. and Europe. Since coming to Seattle in 2004 she has created numerous ensemble works under the name Danse Perdue as well as solo pieces. She has also led hundreds of classes for inmates in Washington State through Yoga Behind Bars. Since 2016 she has served as movement director and performer for productions with Freehold Engaged Theater, including Henry V and A Winter’s Tale, both of which toured correctional facilities in the Seattle area. She is beginning her fourth season as a teaching artist with the Freehold Engaged Theater Residency at the Washington Corrections Center for Women; an annual series of workshops culminating in an original performance by the inmates. In recent years the practice of Noguchi Taiso taught by Mari Osanai has become a rich foundation of her dance and healing practice. She is a co-founder of Teatro de la Psychomachia, a performance space in Seattle that hosts many local, national and international sound and movement artists. Skantze does private, semi-private and group sessions in body instrument awareness and organic movement practice called Listening to the Bones. She is a dedicated student of Aikido for nearly a decade and has achieved the rank of Shodan.