| Kate Weare |
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mancc research highlights
artist outcomes | community outcomes | biography | collaborators | photos | website
Through Kate’s primary collaboration with composer David Ryther and brief interactions with local Tallahassee composers and musicians, Kate deeply experimented with a wide range of sounds and scores and walked away with recorded soundscapes by the collaborating musicians, which could lead to potential commissions for Bridge of Sighs. Kate said that “she found a synthesis of communication – an intelligent conversation happening between the two [movement and music]”.
Professors, Ph.D. students and undergraduate students from the FSU School of Music collaborated as composers and musicians in the studio with Kate, her two dancers and collaborator David Ryther. For some, this was their first experience improvising with a choreographer. One of the students stated that this “was the first time I’ve played my instrument in a different way other than how I was trained…I didn’t know how creative I could be once I improvised beyond the classical realm, which was emphasized by the degree of the dancers’ experimentation”.
Kate Weare is a young choreographer recently described in The New York Times as helping to define the next generation of dance makers. Awarded a 2006/07 Joyce Soho Residency (subsidized through the Joyce Theater), Weare was mentored in the studio by Gwen Welliver, Rehearsal Director of Trisha Brown Dance Company. In April 2007, Weare was among four choreographers selected for MANCC’s ‘Free To Rep’ program with Axis Dance Company and will subsequently be commissioned for a new work, to be performed at MANCC as a part of Tallahassee's Seven Days Opening Nights Festival. In May 2007, Kate Weare Company won the final round of NY’s The A.W.A.R.D. Show! and was awarded the grand prize of $10,000 for the performance of a 2006 duet, Drop Down.
David Ryther, composer/musician
David Ryther (Composer and Violinist) is a celebrated violinist in the U.S. contemporary music scene, appearing with such innovative ensembles as Earplay, the San Francisco Contemporary Players, and the intrepid SF Sound Group. Ryther is completing his doctorate in contemporary violin performance at the University of California at San Diego, a world-renowned department for contemporary music. While in San Diego, Ryther performed with the UCSD faculty new music ensemble, Sonor, alongside such musicians as Harvey Sollberger, Steven Shick and George Lewis. Ryther has brought his interpretive power to Darmstadt (200) and the Banff Centre (2002) as a resident performer and soloist. As an undergraduate at the University of California at Santa Cruz, he was first violinist in the University of California new music ensemble Octagon, which performed extensively at all UC campuses, and at Merkin Hall, New York City. Currently, Ryther is an affiliated teacher, member, and occasional conductor with the Villa Sinfonia.
Leslie Kraus (Dancer) graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA in Dance and Choreography in 2003. She has worked with Kurt Haworth and RobbinsChilds, shown her own choreography in New York, and most recently in a music video for Lauren Hoffman's debut album "Choreography." Leslie began dancing with Kate Weare Company in 2005. Allan Ulrich (Voice of Dance) describes her in Weare’s 2006 duet Drop Down, “Kraus wears her charisma like her flame-red hair... it was hard to blink while she commanded the stage.”
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