DRIVE WOLVES MAD
Fri-Sat, Oct 18-19
7:30pm (doors at 7:10)
PWNW | 4625 SE 67th Ave.
Collaborative duo Jenny Peterson and Kaitlin McCarthy present an evening length dance work of horror, humor, and friendship, told through their distinctive aesthetic of the unhinged and uncanny. DRIVE WOLVES MAD tracks the aftermath of an inciting event and ambiguous line between victim and perpetrator. A musical score by Jenny Peterson riffs on predatory pop songs, altering and abstracting them as an act of reclamation. Peterson/McCarthy’s journey seeks to transcend archetypes authored by men, finding their way to a place of survival and remediation–a way to exist in a context of their own creation.
Through the dance they move from a place of dissociation into states of empowerment–which sometimes looks like camaraderie, sometimes wild physical abandon, and sometimes a complete release of the societal obligation to be a palatable, consumable feminine entity.
Featuring original costume design by Kaitlin McCarthy and lighting design by Amiya Brown, adapted by Jeff Forbes for PWNW, this physical and vulnerable dance work culminates a decade of development in the duo’s most ambitious and risky performance to date!
Bios:
Kaitlin McCarthy and Jenny Peterson have been making strange performance works together in Seattle, WA since 2013. They gravitate to the grotesque/off-kilter/marvelous like moths to the flame, performing comedic works under moniker “The Bonnies,” as well as the occasional more “serious work.” They have performed at Velocity’s NextFest NW and Fall Kick Off, WET’s Six-Pack Series, OTB’s Open Studio, Boost Dance Festival, NEPO 5k, Seattle International Dance Festival, Chloe & Co’s DROVE XII and X, and other self-produced performances and underground art salons.
Jenny Peterson [she/they]
Jenny Peterson is a Seattle-based artist working primarily in dance, photography, and music/sound. She grew up in the Chicago suburbs, spending much of her youth as a competitive gymnast. She received a B.A. in Dance and Visual Arts from the University of California, Irvine, where she focused on interdisciplinary practices.
Jenny has been dancing professionally in Seattle for the past 17 years, performing with many local artists, including the Pat Graney Company since 2008, and making dance work for the last decade independently and with her collaborator Kaitlin McCarthy (under the moniker The Bonnies). Her choreography has been shown at On the Boards, Velocity Dance Center, Buttcracker, Risk/Reward (Portland) and many other venues and immersive environments. Jenny is also a licensed massage therapist with a private practice in Fremont. Her favorite color is orange.
More at jennypeterson.com
Kaitlin McCarthy [she/they]
Kaitlin McCarthy is a Seattle-based dance artist, journalist, and teacher. Her choreography has appeared repeatedly at On the Boards, Velocity Dance Center, 12 Ave Arts, and countless other venues, festivals, and self-produced evening-length performances. Her work is “fondly humorous and stunningly creepy” (SeattleDances) and “in the forefront of innovative contemporary Seattle dance” (Deconstruct Collective).
Kaitlin graduated summa cum laude with a degree in dance from Mt Holyoke College in 2009. As a dancer she has performed for over a dozen local artists, including regularly with Alice Gosti/MALACARNE since 2014, with whom she has toured nationally and internationally. Kaitlin is also a teaching artist with Velocity Dance Center and eXit SPACE.
As a dance journalist, Kaitlin has spent the last decade writing about the Seattle scene in publications such as City Arts Magazine, Dance Intl Magazine, PublicDisplay.Art, and SeattleDances.com, where she has been the Editor since 2016. During her leadership she grew SeattleDances from a volunteer site to one that paid its writers and staff, and realigned the organization’s mission to focus on local and independent dance. For her writing she received a 2022 fellowship to the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Center for Theatre.
More at kaitlinmccarthy.com
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