2013 Alembic Resident Artist Emily Stone celebrates the end of her residency by inviting us all to share in her process/practice which manifests as branching inquiries into “seams of embodied knowledge where the wild makes incursions into human-built spaces and wilderness lingers in our own animal bodies.” Fri Mar 28 3-6pm Dirt Stage Open House A dirt stage will be dug in PWNW’s yard as site of performance, dinner to follow. RSVP to Emily at emilygracestone@hotmail.com Sat Mar 29 6pm-late Dance Party to benefit Dirt Stage and Domestic/Wild. $5-15 donation; all proceeds to the artist. Sun Mar 30 10am-1pm Hands-on Workshop/Discussion with snacks and coffee

ALL EVENTS AT PERFORMANCE WORKS NW * 4625 SE 67th Ave. Portland, OR 97206

Dirt Stage also invites you to a June event at FLOCK! Click HERE for more info.

Dirt Stage is a dance practice that has evolved over a period of 5 years, within privacy and friendship, cultivating a quality of “culture” that feeds our private (family) lives, and trying to bring the attention of our dancing selves to the unknown dirt beneath our feet. 

We use sensation-based movement as a method of listening to place—deep listening that heightens our sense of presence and pleasure, digging into somatic images that rise up the surface. Dancing in the dirt is grounding, giving us permission to access wild impulses and release into the immediacy of what’s happening right here, right now We are Portland dancers Mizu Desierto, Tracy Broyles, Kestrel Gates, Rebecca Harrison and Emily Stone.  We originally dug “dirt stages” as part of our Local Culture Project to more fully take our dance practices out of the studio and integrate them into our homes and outdoor spaces.  Inspired by dirt stages on Min Tanaka’s Body Weather Farm, Dirt Stage is an on-going dialogue and homemade dance project between 5 women.

It is durational. It is integrative. It is dirty.

Dirt Stage is a square of earth, vegetation removed, soil dug and worked. Dirt Stage is tending to things that nourish our animal appetite. Dirt Stage is a commons. Dirt Stage is kinesthetic delight. Dirt Stage is a re-inhabiting of land and body. Dirt Stage is slow. Dirt Stage is a rich square of fertility, wild and domestic.  Dirt Stage is decay and decomposition.  Dirt Stage is being willing to enter into and deeply inhabit the places that have been neglected. Dirt Stage is an ongoing dialogue. Dirt Stage is somatic. Dirt Stage is an ending, a beginning and a process, all at once. Dirt Stage is 5 women. Dirt Stage is mycelial and microbial. Dirt Stage eats what it sows.