bst Residency Recipients Announced 

Congratulations to this school years' recipients of the body-space-time Residency! The residents are as follows: Audrey Rachelle (Winter), Lavinia Vago (Winter), Tariq Mitri (Spring), Ben Swenson-Klatt & Leah Sainz-Jones (Spring), Kelly Langeslay (Summer), and Nicole Loeffler-Gladstone (Summer). 

Read about each body-space-time resident below: 

Winter Recipients:

Audrey Rachelle 

Photo by Blake Horn.

Audrey Rachelle is a movement artist with 14 years of performing experience, 8 years of choreographing, directing, and producing multidisciplinary works both on and off screen, and 12 years as a dance educator. Known best for her performances as Lady MacBeth in the hit immersive theater show, Sleep No More, Audrey Rachelle has performed and toured with dance and theater companies including Punchdrunk International, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Nashville Ballet, and The Equus Projects. Her diverse experience extends to film, television, music videos, and magazines with appearances in Comedy Central’s Broad City, Vogue Taiwan, and featured roles in the award-winning films. 

As co-director of  AnA Collaborations she has choreographed and produced a range of over 25 dance works including an award-winning short film, Seasoned, and has been commissioned and presented by foundations, festivals, galleries, and theaters nationwide. 

Since relocating to Shoreline, Audrey continues to explore how artistic disciplines can intersect and blur to create expansive multimedia experiences in and for her local community. Her recent projects have been supported by Shoreline Public Art, 4Culture, and Mini Mart City Park, The Warhol Foundation, and NW Film Forum. 

She is currently developing an immersive work titled dragonslayer to premiere in Seattle at Good Shepherd Center on February 8th and 9th. 2024. Audrey and her collaborators are delighted to receive this residency to support this project.

Lavinia Vago

Photo by Erik Simkins. 

Lavinia Vago (she/her) is an Italian dance artist, performer, educator, maker, collaborator, and director based between Seattle, NYC, and Berlin. She experiments and creates dance works researching and attacking themes of disobedience, kinesthetic empathy, queerness, collective joy, altered states and transcendence inside experimental soundscapes. Premieres include “NOESIS X, a solo for two” in collaboration with Berlin sound artist Harald Stojan (Velocity Dance Center, 2019), and “FLAMES AND BABES” (Seattle Art Museum, 2020) as part of the Flesh and Blood Exhibition of Italian Masterpieces from Capodimonte; and ENXORE at SIDF 2021, and “BBB” at the old historic Coliseum Theater basement in downtown Seattle, in collaboration with OVERKILL and Heather Kravas (2023). Her new work “FKK” premieres May 2024, through the Made In Seattle program at Velocity. 

As a dance artist she performed, created works and toured with Sidra Bell Dance NY, Loni Landon Projects, Vim Vigor Dance, Saint Genet, Tom Weinberger, Out Innerspace Dance Theater, Corrie Befort,  and most extensively with RUBBERBAND. She co-directed and performed with Kate Wallich / The YC between 2010 - 2020. She now creates and tours with artist Tianzhuo Chen in Physis and TRANCE (Mwoods, Beijing / Trauma Bar, Berlin / Kampnagel, Hamburg / Norberg Festival, Swede /Komische Oper Belrin /Dark Mofo, Tasmania).  

She is the Artistic Programming Director and Teacher of Dance Church®, where she directs all programs for online and in person classes and partnerships, as well as lead of all bodies inclusivity and outreach initiatives. She also teaches Dance for Parkinson’s, the Rubberband Method, and masterclass series and workshops aimed to subvert, queer and rethink dance contemporary technique, floor work, and improvisation.

Spring Recipients:

Tariq Mitri

Tariq Mitri is a gay Palestinian-American freelance dance artist in Seattle, WA. Originally from Abu Dhabi, U.A.E and raised in Portland, OR, he graduated from California Institute of the Arts in 2015. He’s worked in Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York with MADBOOTS Dance, Kate Wallich + The YC, WHYTEBERG, Acts of Matter, and RGWW, among many others. From 2019 to 2021 he was the Rehearsal Director and Co-Director of Brooklyn-based company HEIDCO, assisting with the creations of METALBODY and The Heaping Kind. Returning to Seattle in 2022, he has danced for Andrew McShea, Emily Schoen Branch, Beth Twigs, Alana Rogers, and Alyza Del-Pan Monley. Tariq has been presented at SAM Remix, the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival, FOUR organized by Co–, and Velocity’s Bridge Project for 2024. He is incredibly thankful for this opportunity to be in research.

Ben Swenson-Klatt and Leah Sainz-Jones

Ben Swenson-Klatt and Leah Sainz-Jones: Ben (they/them) is a bisexual, queer, non-binary/gender nonconforming performing artist, choreographer, and arts organizer originally from Minneapolis, MN. They hold a BA in Dance and Theater from St. Olaf College. They have recently worked with Seattle Rep, Dacha Theatre, Tacoma Arts Live and presented work at 18th & Union and 12 Minutes Max. Leah (they/them) is a proud Queer Two-Spirit Trans-Nonbinary Indigenous Mescalero Apache Latinx Chinese performing artist, poet and budding advocate for erotic embodiment and pleasure expansion. They hold a BFA in Musical Theatre from Cornish College of the Arts. They have recently worked with Seattle Rep, Village Theatre, Latitude Theatre, Dacha Theatre, ArtsWest and presented original work with The Dirty Darlings, Indigenize Productions, BronzeBabez, Haus De Corvo, and VALTESSE.

Ben and Leah feel that performance in all forms is an integral part of their life– a practice that helps them abolish and break free from oppressive, colonial, and societal disciplines. They are passionate about creating radical containers of play that allow them and others to go to a place of deep transformation, exploration, and healing. They’re drawn to devising work that is honest, bold, inclusive, and QUEER— and believe that the stage is a space for everyone.

Summer Recipients

Kelly Langeslay

Photo by Anna Wolf.

Kelly Langeslay is a queer dancer, performance artist, and writer. In their work, kelly tells stories to and/or about you. Their recent research investigates queer futurity through the writing of José Muñoz, CGI Barbie movies, early 2010s pop music, and conversations with friends and AIs. Much of this research is made possible through the space and resources provided by the public library, to whom they owe $313.49. They are motivated by a love of excess, nostalgia for a nonexistent past, and insatiable hunger for approval. You are a fundamental part of kelly’s work.

Nicole Loeffler-Gladstone

Nicole Loeffler-Gladstone  is a writer, dancer, and artistic director based on Upper Skagit, stuləgʷábš, and dxʷdəwʔabš homelands. Her work utilizes multidisciplinary ensemble improvisation and is frequently created in a site-specific context. Her current process is supported by a 4Culture Art Project grant and explores embodied ecology: using dance improvisation tools to build empathetic, ardent, and reciprocal relationships with place.