Hannah Rice + Alia Swersky

Base Residency Entry Point
Saturday, June 21st

We are Hannah Rice and Alia Swersky. Our process looks like regularly observing one another in movement and engaging with practices of solo replay, authentic movement and active witnessing.  While committing to the unfolding present, we always begin from the ecosystem of the body when sourcing material. Our work is therefore derived from a practice of deep listening of self and to one another. Our work is rooted in the practice of staying with what is present in improvisation. We are not interested in making art about ideas, we are interested in nonlinear, nonconceptual, body based images that emerge from a commitment to what is happening now, a well of innate resource. Inevitably, this process leads us to layers of context, and even text, that gets woven into the work. It is a process of becoming––and from there meaning arises and is constructed. 

Our aesthetic is heavily based in the living sculpture of the human form––the undeniable length of our bodies intertwined, far reaching and far apart. Surreal imagery, unpredictable movement phrasing, touch, weight sharing, height extremes and gender morphing costuming are all a part of our repertoire. More specifically and in past work we have used images of giant balloons, stilettos, primary solid colors, flight suits, giant swaths of fabric, tiny chairs, men’s suits and glittery cabaret attire. We’ve incorporated these contrasting elements to animate the extremes of being, the frailty and exuberance that transpires in relationships, in mundanities, in chapters of a life.  

Hannah Rice is a Seattle-based movement researcher, artist and educator committed to connecting with others through the body’s distinct language. Her work researches the body as it relates to environment, sound and physical objects. She explores this through set choreographic and improvised material, sound and projection generated for site-responsive performance. Hannah has collaborated with choreographer and mentor Alia Swersky, choreographing, producing, and performing since 2018. Their work centers on improvisation and has been shown at multiple arts spaces in Seattle. Hannah’s work is a chosen collage of those who have come before her, crafted with the intention of researching honesty in the body.  

Alia Swersky has been engaged in art making for several decades. She is always beginning again, and this current iteration of herself is quite unknown and unfamiliar. Going through a cancer treatment has changed her in ways that continue to unfold and reveal that which is never the same. There are elements of her art making that were once true, that have been a part of her history, and perhaps they will continue to be so––she is a movement artist, performer and educator deeply engaged in dance improvisation, durational time-based art, film, site-specific work, sound and movement collaborations, and environmental installation. Some facts that may seem important, but are not at the core of her creative being. She is an artist and an educator with degrees from Cornish College of the Arts and an MFA in dance from the University of Washington. She is currently an Assistant Professor and Chair of Dance at Cornish College of the Arts. 

Words that are less about success and ambition, but more from the heart of artistic practice:

Her artistic path over the last two decades has been shaped by this yearning for deep and meaningful connections with people and places. As a co-creator, ritual maker, and a “horizontal” director, Alia seeks to touch others through dance, somatic presence, vulnerability, and fierceness. Her work ranges from full audience participation to intimate acts of One-to-One performances, site-specific dances for film and live performance, as well as durational time-based art that includes physical acts of endurance, repetition, stillness, subtlety, singing, soft energetic grace, abstraction, caricature, and a deconstruction of clichés such as extreme high femme expressions. Her teaching and art-making seek to create practices that embrace endurance on stage and in life as acts of resistance, resilience, release, and beauty.