Artist in Residence Team explores Saltwater Park through site-specific dance performance

The City of Shoreline Public Art Program is delighted to announce the third of four artist residencies occurring at the Art Cottage at Saltwater Park in 2021, each two months in duration and experimenting with materials, methods, and the creative process.

Seattle and Shoreline-based artists Nicole Loeffler-Gladstone and Audrey Rachelle will present Humility : Drift, a free site-responsive dance performance. 

Loeffler-Gladstone is an editor, writer and dance artist based in NYC. And Seattle. She co-produces The Bunker Presents, a roving performance series showing the most interesting contemporary dance in the most unusual settings. She also writes for Dance Magazine. 

Rachelle is Co-Director of AnA Collaborations, and has choreographed, directed, and produced multidisciplinary works both on and off screen since 2015.

The artists are holding a series of open rehearsals and invite public attendance with social distancing and current covid protocols. Arrows and signage lead visitors from the Art Cottage to the beach; look for the team’s orange hats. 

Feel free to watch, ask questions and take pictures during our rehearsals. Join us for a work-in-process showing on September 19th and 24th. Stay tuned for exact times and a link to register.

Humility : Drift is a dance taught to people by the landscape of Richmond Beach Saltwater Park in Shoreline. It’s an experiment in building relationships with the more-than-human world. The title is inspired by the etymological relationship between “humility,” to lower oneself, and the Latin word “humus,” or soil. 

Performers engage in prolonged observation of the ecosystem, allowing their observations to teach them the choreography of the site. The result is a series of solo and duet dances that manifest what it feels like to learn from, and be in relationship with, the park ecosystem. 

The performance is also part of the artists’ effort to reckon with settler and diasporic backgrounds, the practice of land acknowledgement, environmental catastrophe, and a cultural crisis of empathy. 

We honor the Indigenous people of the Salish Sea. We honor dxʷdəwʔabš and Tulalip people, past, present, and future, who care for this beach site. We’re grateful for the opportunity to learn from the brilliance of your homeland and share our experiences with others.

Humility: Drift schedule

• Monday September 6, 1pm – 5pm
• Saturday September 11th, 2pm – 6pm
• Monday September 13th, 1pm – 5pm
• Tuesday September 14th, 11am – 4pm
• Monday September 20th, 1pm – 5pm

Performance: September 24, time TBD
Performance: October 9, time TBD

Humility: Drift is made possible through the City’s 1% for Public Art Program and 4Culture Cultural Facilities Grant. 

(IMAGES: courtesy of the artist, 2021)

Updated: Performance dates changed because of inclement weather