Description

Household Hazards, Kuntz and Company's (KC) newest work, runs May 16th-May 19th at the Firehouse Arts and Events Center at 7:30, with an additional 5:00 performance on the 18th. Staying true to telling the stories of our community through the arts, this latest work examines a wide range of hazards encountered in the home, some heartfelt, some hilarious. With the Firehouse stage transformed into the bones of a home - dining room table and chairs, living room couch, bathtub, bed, closet - 14 dancers explore ideas including love, fear, memory, and loss. While Pam Kuntz, artistic director of Kuntz and Company, is typically the primary choreographer of all KC works created, unique here is that Household Hazards consists of 7 pieces created by 11 choreographers.

Seattle artists Naquoia Bautista, Cara Congelli, and Caitlin Schafte explore the lengths spiders will go to join us in our homes… and the lengths homeowners will go to fend off these arachnid invasions. Seamlessly woven through the spider invasion, Alona Christman and Ian Bivins move through the hazard of talking with their spouse, while Marissa Moeri and Angela Sebastian get lost in nostalgia and pseudo-productivity when "cleaning the closet."

A piece about a quiet evening at home gone wrong brings Jessica Ardis, Samantha Martin, and Susan Newkumet to the Firehouse stage from their home studio on Orcas Island. These three artists explore what may go awry when a storm hits and unexpected visitors arrive. Meanwhile, Cecelia Hanford and Pam Kuntz move through what it means to have something to lose, and long-time KC artists Vanessa Daines and Kate Stevenson wrestle with a bed sheet in a piece that started with a story, became a poem and is now a tangle – stretched, scrunched, smoothed and embraced. Separately, but nearby in the bathroom, Cecelia Hanford and Gabby Malagreca explore how owning the walls around you creates only a fragile illusion of safety.

Our houses and homes are a piece of a place, each a constructed reflection of culture, history, and future expectations. With the world rapidly shifting around us in a multitude of ways, our homes become intimate mini-landscapes where we attempt to–or are forced to–maintain our cultural routines, all while questioning if the walls and rooms around us are truly the ones best suited for carrying us into the future.

Household Hazards enjoys five performances at The Firehouse Arts and Events Center at 1314 Harris Avenue in Fairhaven, WA - May 16th, 17th @ 7:30 PM. May 18th @ 5:00 and 7:30 PM, and May 19th @ 7:30 PM. For information or disability accommodations contact Pam at 360-510-4711 or kuntzpam@gmail.com. Tickets are available at kuntzandco.org.