Sefton speaks on her October show, ‘How We Wear Our Art’
LAURIE SEFTON, artistic director and choreographer of Laurie Sefton Creates.
Photo by Tatiana Wills
This October Laurie Sefton’s dance company, Laurie Sefton Creates, will debut a new piece called “How We Wear Our Art” at LA Dance Project. A collaborative project, Sefton’s multidisciplinary performance work explores the ultimate power of art within the intersection of body tattooing, live music, fashion, film, visual art, sculpture and dance. “I like to mix up my process when I create. Sometimes I start with the music and set movement to only one instrument I single out. Other times I start with the movement and then work with the composer,” Sefton said. It could be a costume or even an observation about the world that inspires her.
Sefton said “How We Wear Our Art” was inspired by how we, as people, “walk around the world expressing our own art. For some people it’s fashion, for some people it’s makeup, for some people it’s body art or something they carry with them.”
She is a collaborator at heart and invites other artists to partner on her projects. One is Andy Bright, whom she met while choreographing the animal sections for “Onward,” a stage performance featuring Isabella Rossellini’s “Green Porno” films at New Jersey’s ArtYard. Recently Bright has been at rehearsals for Sefton’s upcoming project with a giant limb sculpture he has created out of paper. Yes, as in human limb. The sculpture will expand as dancers interact with it. Two original films by Mikey Higgins will be projected featuring tattoo artist Reiley Johnson inking art onto a real limb. “I’ve got great dancers, and my costumer, Sophie Isabella Popham, from Canada, has knit the pieces. They look amazing.” The score, a 40-minute original piece by composer Bryan Curt Kostors, will be performed live.
Sefton, of Brookside, grew up here in Los Angeles. She trained in dance in the San Fernando Valley with Rozanne Zimmerman, going on to study the art form at UCLA.
SEFTON’S 2022 SHOW “THE MYTHOLOGY OF SELF” with dancers (from left) Emily Krenik, Nicholas Sipes, Alisa Carerras, Mizuki Sako and Sidney Scully. Photo by Denise Leither
Sefton has the pulse of the dance world. When asked what she thought about the dance scene in L.A., she replied, “Los Angeles has over 350 working dance companies. There are new companies popping up every day. It’s not just contemporary, not just ballet—we have every culturally specific form of dance in existence. We have folklórico, Korean dance; we have stuff from the Balkans—you name it. We have it all here. We have world-class ballet dancers taking open class and culturally specific performers, teachers and choreographers that are masters, like Barack Marshall.”
Sefton heard about the recent passing of Glorya Kaufman while rehearsing for this show at the Vista Del Mar Center named after the dance and arts champion. “I met her at that space. Her work touched so many dancers in ways they don’t even know.”
Sefton’s hope is to have enough success with this showing that she can run it for two weeks during the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in L.A.
“How We Wear Our Art” will be performed Fri., Oct. 17, and Sun., Oct. 18, at 8 p.m., at the L.A. Dance Project, 2245 E. Washington Blvd.
For more information, contact info@clairobscurdance. Tickets are available for purchase at tinyurl.com/ev7zwywe.
Category: Entertainment
