KITCHEN TABLE PROJECT

Connected by food, stories & creativity

Kitchen Table Project

 

We cook, eat, gather, wait, mourn & laugh at the table. This past year has pushed Invertigo Dance Theatre into innovative technology & virtual storytelling. With interactive exploration, we have ventured our kitchen table dance films & poetry to audiences through a window on the screen. This is new territory, but the table is familiar. The table centers truth & imagination. The table is solid and malleable. We’re excited to continue this exploration with you, as we emerge back into the world together. Join us as we build community programming with Dancing Through Parkinsons & Invert/ED intergenerational classes, as well as a call to the general public to participate with us online. Hello there, are you ready to witness? Want to participate? We invite you to the table. Follow our musings below!

Celebrate Invertigo: Honoring Our Memories
Showcasing The Kitchen Table Project

We celebrated the end of 2022 with an open heart by offering the community a free dance film screenings featuring many of our memorable dance pieces. We celebrated where we were, where we are, and where we’re going — including a the Kitchen Table Project’s How We Emerge.

The kitchen table is an intergenerational space. Around the table:
elders tell their stories
babies learn to hold a spoon (my baby is a disaster at this)
children fidget but they absorb their family’s culture
just as they absorb their taste for spice or ghee or rosemary or the tang of plain yoghurt

(and some learn simply that ‘enough’ is a dream)
 
and people argue and poke fun and tell jokes and share memories or mundane day-details,
and empty chairs remind us of who can no longer fill them.
(there are too many empty chairs now, there are so many empty chairs)
 
The kitchen table is a site of lineage, of connection,
and now it is also our office,
our virtual classroom,
our repository for facemasks tossed aside as we come back into our safe zone,
and a place to host our Zoom parties when we would give anything to be crowded together beyond the small screen-squares. 
And Invertigo is looking at this expanse of connections,
And we are hoping to create space for people to tell their stories,
To mourn together for all we have lost,
To share recipes for food and movement
(choreography is just a recipe for dance)
To move together, to stretch and unfurl,
To ache and to laugh,
And to process trauma, and hold space for one another, and begin,
Bit by bit,
To heal.
Chelsea Lemons 1

A PROJECT BORN OF A PANDEMIC AND CONTINUING INTO THE NEW WORLDS IN WHICH WE FIND OURSELVES

Poetry commissions
Live performances 
Interactive storytelling workshops
Dance films 

The Creative Teams

Our Engagement

The Collaborative Team

KITCHEN TABLE PROJECT  encompasses food justice, intergenerational exchange, culture, and a communal space to gather and connect through dance exploration and stories at the table.

INVERTIGO Artistic Director Laura Karlin is the lead artist-in-residence for Kitchen Table Project and partners with Invertigo’s Interim Artistic Director, Haylee Nichele & Executive & Programs Director, K. Bradford.

Other collaborators will include:

Food Justice Organizations

Partnership with Dance Groups

Collaborations with Youth

  • Culver City High School’s Academy of Visual and Performing Arts (AVPA) (2021)
  • A Place Called Home (2022)

Independent artists from the LA community and beyond

Dancing Through Parkinson’s dancers

Invert/Ed Education Program

A Place Called Home 2022

Interim Artistic Director: Haylee Nichele
Teaching Artists: Alicia Moseley

Additionally, Invertigo’s Invert/Ed Education Program is working with Culver City High School Academy of Visual and Performing Arts (https://avpa.org) on May 3rd for a special performance art workshop, and with youth center A Place Called Home (https://apch.org/) – which is hosting a 6 week series of workshops with Invertigo’s newest Teaching Artist, Alicia Moseley to develop a Kitchen Table Project performance with their members; to be shown on Friday, May 27th at 7:00pm at A Place Called Home (2830 S Central Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90011). APCH’s Dance Program Director, Jocelyn Garcia says, “APCH Dance’s collaboration with Invertigo has been nothing short of organic, therapeutic, and inspiring for our members. It has been a true honor to witness our members dive into the creative process with teaching artist Alicia Moseley with open minds and courageous hearts. I am confident that after our time together, every individual involved will leave with a new learned sense of vulnerability, creativity, and purpose.”

To learn more about our Invert/Ed program, please visit our website here – www.invertigodance.org/invert-ed

In 2022, members will experience the Kitchen Table Project: A Time to Gather featuring artists Chelsea Roquero, Jessica Emmanuel, Austin Tyson, and Diana Wallace.

Invert/Ed at AVPA 2021

Thank you city of Culver City and its Cultural Affairs Commission, with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment and the Culver City Arts Foundation. Invert/Ed Education program is excited to be in partnership with Culver City High School Academy of Visual and Performing Arts (AVPA) and our work together with Kitchen Table Project. Stay tuned for updates throughout the year. We are so excited to bring this work to you!

Artistic Director: Laura Karlin
Teaching Artists: Haylee Nichele, Rosa Navarrete, Cody Brunelle-Potter, Spencer Jensen

To learn more about our Invert/Ed program, please visit our website here – www.invertigodance.org/invert-ed

Kitchen Table Project’s film How We Emerge featured with our Invert/Ed Education Program partner Culver City High School Academy of Visual and Performing Arts (AVPA CHS) on November 18-20 during their dance concert Feelings: Exposed.  The film inspired 2 dance performances performed live at the event.

The Kitchen Table Project student choreographers are Andrea Lukas, Hope Sato, Calista Kimura, Naomi Gibbs-Zehnder, Maliyah Washington and Isabelle Daou. Additional dancers featured in the works are Shruthi Leon, Zaria Jefferson, Nava Waisman and Bia Quintanilha

OUR JOURNEY
AT THE TABLE

AUTUMN 2020

Telling stories at our tables during a pandemic

  • Community Storytelling Workshops with Dancing Through Parkinson’s classes.
  • 6 dance films
  • A virtual immersive performance

SUMMER 2021

The creation of an intergenerational dance film.

FALL 2021

  • Presentation of Invert/Ed Education Program partner AVPA CHS
  • Screening of How We Emerge at AVPA dance concert & on our website Dec 6-12 (free & open to public)

SPRING 2022

  • Live immersive performances with Invertigo dancers, community participants and audience interaction at Temple Israel of Hollywood
  • Community Partnerships

SUMMER 2022

  • Storytelling Through Movement workshops
  • Community Partnerships

FALL 2022

  • A Time To Gather: Beach Edition 10/23 community sharing
  • Sunset Soirée, November 6th – performance on beach

The vision for a live Kitchen Table Project: 

In 2022, we return to live performances, the Kitchen Table Project will create an interactive show in partnership with Temple Israel of Hollywood Arts & Cultures, Culver City High School Academy of Visual and Performing Arts (AVPA), A Place Called Home, and Nourish LA. The project’s very nature is rooted in adaptability and its response to our times.

The shows will be performed by Invertigo dancers, and the content is highly informed by the collaborations and exchanges had with our community partners and live participants. 

Our composer, Diana Lynn Wallace is creating an original score for our world premiere and first live performance since 2020, Kitchen Table Project: A Time To Gather. We will tell stories by weaving together text, movement, songs, and interactions with the audience.

Within Invertigo, there has always been a beautiful alchemy of intergenerational sharing.  The project will allow that magic to go deeper by honoring story and contributions provided by our artistic and community collaborators. 

In a nutshell?  Gorgeous dancing, deep community work, intergenerational sharing.  See you at the table…

VIDEOS

2020 Kitchen Table Project dance films featuring Chelsea Roquero, Corina Kinnear, Hyosun Choi, Cody Brunelle-Potter, Jessica Dunn, and Dancing Through Parkinson’s dancer Jeanie McNamara.

The ritual of gathering around the kitchen table with family, friends, and co-workers has been something we haven’t been able to do since COVID-19. Many of us have experienced loss. The Kitchen Table Project celebrates those who can no longer gather at the table, by honoring their memory with artistic expression and respect. Please join Invertigo Dance Theatre in this celebration of life and appreciation of each other by donating to chuffed.org/project/kitchen-table-project. When you support Kitchen Table Project you support all of Invertigo programs such as, Invertigo’s professional productions, Dancing Through Parkinson’s, Invert/ED Education program, and Community In/Motion events that center guest artists, participant joy, and connection. The Invertigo staff and community is where all people, whatever their ethnicity, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, education or ability, are welcomed, valued and respected. Thank you to everyone who donated towards our 2021 Crowdfunding Campaign and helping us reach our goal. Your support means the world to us!

How We Emerge Behind The Scenes. (2021)

The Kitchen Table Project’s latest film features an intergenerational cast of artists, including: Cody Brunelle-Potter, Haylee Nichele, Diana Lynn Wallace, Chelsea Roquero, Jeannette Bland, and Spencer Jensen. The film honors the memories of eight community members who were lost during the pandemicAmong others, the project honors the memories of an elder from Standing Rock and a farmworker from the first community where Karlin delivered handmade masks through her work with the Auntie Sewing Squad in the early days of mask shortages. Karlin also brought her beloved family member, Ann, and Invertigo staff members Rosa Navarrete and Chelsea Sutton brought their family members to the table; Navarrete lost her father – Luis Navarrete a pastor who worked in a mission in Mexicali, Mexico and Sutton lost her grandmother in late 2020. Alongside Karlin, who directs and choreographs, the film was developed with Glyn Gray (Director of Photography), Chris Stokes (Lighting Designer), Rebecca Baillie Stumme (Production Manager), and Invertigo Dance Theatre staff support. 

Thank you to our generous funders!

Want to Partner?

Be a part of the creation. Join the dreaming & scheming.

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