"In the Seldoms' new "Marchland," boundaries and alliances are formed only to be broken. Isolation from others and collaboration are equally unproductive; there is no equilibrium or security. No one is safe."
"A long-gestating collaboration among seven artists from different disciplines, The Seldoms's Marchland is a fairly huge piece even coming from a company known for producing large-scale work. We dropped in on a run-through of Marchland as it was nearing completion and sat down with the creative team afterward to discuss how its many pieces fit together."
"Carrie Hanson and her troupe, the Seldoms, have never particularly sought institutional imprimatur. They trend toward the offbeat: Swimming pools and dank, cavernous South Side warehouses rank high on their list of past venues. But, in their eighth season, the Seldoms are about to play the Museum of Contemporary Art, a sure sign of establishment approval."
"The Seldoms' latest dance concert is a body-centric act of provocation from three perspectives. Titled "3x3," the winter engagement – running through Saturday at the Dance Center of Columbia College – features three premieres by a triumvirate of local movement researchers who appear to be testing the dancers' bodies' limitless responses to stimuli."
"Seldoms artistic director Carrie Hanson shares the spotlight with two other choreographers in "3x3", which features three world premieres."
Carrie Hanson, artistic director of The Seldoms and as intelligent as they come, is among those pondering our uncertain financial times. Of course, for the artist, and the choreographer in particular, the term "economy" is laced with multiple meanings, suggesting all sorts of aesthetic standards and restraints along with concerns over fiscal fiascoes. Hence, her new work, "Thrift," to be unveiled with two other premieres during the troupe's engagement beginning Feb. 19 at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, is multilayered.
"A dance group that plugs local fashion designers? That's not all that's unusual about The Seldoms."
"Sometimes, the environment defines the art. 'Convergence', an interdisciplinary collaboration, took place over the weekend in a cavernous, empty garage tucked in a Near South Side neighborhood peppered with the old, the new, and the transitional."
"Offbeat venues really inspire Seldoms artistic director Carrie Hanson. For past performances she's made use of an empty Park District pool and a dusty retail space with a soaring atrium. This weekend she stages her new work, 'Convergence', in a 17,000-square-foot former Streets & San garage."
"The Seldoms' latest dance-based performance can be summed up in one word: garbage. But that’s not as bad as it sounds. Trash may be the subject of artistic director Carrie Hanson's landfill-inspired 'Monument', but her intelligent approach to the long-term repercussion of consumption and waste is a breath of fresh air. The abstract work – at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts – goes beyond eco-responsibility."
"Uncovering Chicago's best-kept secrets: Carrie Hanson, artistic director of local dance company The Seldoms, devotes her latest full-length dance to... trash."
"The Seldoms, the seven-year-old Chicago dance-theater ensemble, has a history of dancing outside the box. One of its most memorable pieces took place in a huge, empty swimming pool; another in the confined space defined by the dimensions of a painting used as a backdrop. The troupe's latest work premieres Thursday 3 in a regular dance theater (the Ruth Page Center), but the subject matter is no less thought-provoking than in past Seldoms jaunts."
"One of the most poignant offerings was an excerpt from 'wall of invisible difference' by Carrie Hanson, artistic director of The Seldoms. Though rooted in dance, her company takes its cues from the visual-art world. The dancers move as if they are mobile brush strokes or pieces of clay being molded into non-static emotion-scapes."
"Dancer-choreographer Carrie Hanson, artistic director of Chicago-based dance and performance group The Seldoms, is a virtuoso of meticulous composition. Her clear-edged, challenging dances emit the same bracing air of modernity as anything you'd hear at a concert of new music. The Seldoms have recently hooked up with the Chicago chapter of the chamber-music group International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and it promises to be an ideal partnership."
"It's really steep," shouts choreographer Carrie Hanson as she races from one end of an empty swimming pool in Malim Park to the other. "But it’s sort of fun to work against gravity."
"In a culture obsessed with doctrine, statistics, and the bottom line, what’s the value of uncertainty? Of losing your bearings instead of finding them? Of imagination? Of theater? Choreographer Carrie Hanson takes on such questions in a new piece for the Seldoms, 'Giant Fix'. Staged in an empty outdoor pool it's based on personal experience: with her eyes closed before going to sleep, she explains in her notes to the piece, she sometimes sees images that change size and shape dramatically."
