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| Brain Is Radio photo by Joseph Lambert |
Ask Ashleigh Miller how she came up with her title for
“Brain is a Radio” and she’ll tell you that it is all about “opening yourself
up.” She describes her current work,
labeled a dance/media performance, as “like a radio, you’re tuning into
different channels to hear what you can.”
Created by Miller with Faunix Media, the immersive auditory
and visual experience opens tonight (April 14), 8 p.m., at Velocity Dance
Center Founder’s Theater. Two more performances will be given tomorrow at 7
p.m. and 9 p.m.
A Washington native, Miller “grew up dancing” in Redmond and
went to New York University Tisch School of the Arts. While there,
injuries sidelined her dancing for awhile. That led to spending more time on
music and composing. For “Brain is a Radio,” she’s part of the Floraform,
creating psychoacoustic music along with Travis Corwin and Ben
Grieshaber.
Back in Seattle since 2013, Miller says she is excited to
see how the local dance scene continues to expand. “More and more dancers are
coming to Seattle and there’s new audiences too. It’s not just the same 200 people showing up
at every show,” she notes.
Video gaming and the general tech nerd nature of the city
also influences her work. With abstract characters and morphing patterns
connected to coding algorithms, “Brain is a Radio” offers a chance to connect
technology and dance to human experience.
While “kind of notorious for not giving myself enough time,”
Miller feels that this piece had the luxury of developing more slowly with her
company. “We’ve been considering ideas
for almost two years,” she says. “My dancers did a lot of durational,
improvisational work together to figure out what would work.”
The months and then days running up to opening were “a good
whirlwind” and Miller looks forward to taking some time outside of the city
once the show closes. Then she’ll be back looking for new ways to “do big things
on a tiny budget” and considering the next logical move for her company and herself.
“I would like to travel. Seattle is a wonderful bubble but it is a
bubble,” she notes. “We have a dancer from Amsterdam, I’d like to go there. I’d
love to go back to New York.” But home will remain the Seattle dance community.