American Realness

Heather Kravas

dead, disappears

New York Premiere

Thursday, January 7, 8:30pm
Friday, January 8, 8:30pm
Saturday, January 9, 5:30pm
Saturday, January 9, 8:30pm
Sunday, January 10, 2:00pm
Sunday, January 10, 8.30pm
Monday, January 11, 8.30pm

* A waiting list will begin one hour before each performance.

Run Time: 55 minutes

Abrons Arts Center, Studio 1
466 Grand Street / tickets $20

Single Tickets Festival Pass

dead, disappears is a new solo work created and performed by Heather Kravas. Striving to reconcile the immediate with the verifiable, the work cites Richard Serra’s 1967 Verb List in an investigation of self-referencing action. Kravas also regards her own body of work and her body itself as it moves through a landscape of effortful states. Words and action vie for primacy, and language eclipses movement with a litany of acts that could be performed by, for and on the artist. Generating emotional intensity as a by-product of sensual formality, dead, disappears invites the audience to view the performer as simultaneously woman and object—and to see their own observation as completion of the artistic act.

dead, disappears is made possible with an award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2014), commissioning support from the OnEdge Festival/Santa Barbara Museum of Contemporary Art and additional support from Collective Address.

photo by Jason Starkie


Created and Performed by Heather Kravas
Lighting Consultant: Madeline Best
Rehearsal Advisor: Dayna Hanson
Production Manager: Sara Jinks
Sound Editing: Julian Martlew
Scenographic Consultant: Jason Starkie


Heather Kravas is a choreographer and performing artist. Since 1995, she has investigated choreographic, improvisation and collaborative practices in contemporary dance to explore the limits of choreography as a form and her abilities as an artist. Her choreography has been presented at venues including Chez Bushwick, DTW, Danspace Project @ St.Mark’s Church, The Kitchen, Movement Research @ Judson Church, On the Boards, Performance Space 122 and Tonic as well as internationally. She is the recipient of a 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award and a 2014 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award. She has received support from the MAP Foundation, the National Performance Network, King County 4Culture, PACT/Zollverein, CCNFC Belfort, f.u.s.e.d., the Bossak/Heilbron Foundation, The Yard and the Seattle Arts Commission.

From 2003-2008 Kravas choreographed in collaboration with Canadian/European artist Antonija Livingstone and improvised extensively with cellist Okkyung Lee as the nono twins from 1999-2004. She has worked as an interpreter and rehearsal assistant for DD Dorvillier’s human future dance corps since 2001 and additionally has performed in the work of Marina Abramovic, Jennifer Allen, Amy Cox, Dayna Hanson, Amii LeGendre and Yvonne Meier. Kravas grew up in Pullman, Washington, where, under the tutelage of Deirdre Wilson, she studied classical ballet and the experimental teachings of Grotowski. Heather currently lives in Seattle, Washington.

Sara Jinks, Production Assistant to Heather Kravas, has produced and co-produced work at the Merc Playhouse Theatre and with Methow Arts Alliance in the Methow Valley. She also recently produced Ten Tiny Dances 2015 and The Buttcracker at Erickson Theater Off Broadway in Seattle. As a performing artist, Sara has been a member of Pat Graney Company since 2000 and danced extensively with Crispin Spaeth Dance Group and d9 Dance Collective.

Choreographer Dayna Hanson has been working at the intersection of dance, theater and film since 1987. Based in Seattle, she’s toured her work throughout the U.S. and in Europe, including at On the Boards, Fusebox Festival, Miami Light Project, PuSh Festival, REDCAT and Noorderzon Festival. Her films have screened at festivals worldwide, including South by Southwest and New York Film Festival. Among a range of honors, she received a 2006 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and a 2010 United States Artists Foundation Oliver Fellowship in Dance, as well as grants from NEFA/National Dance Project, MAP Fund, National Performance Network and others. With Gaelen Hanson, she co-directed dance theater company 33 Fainting Spells from 1994-2006, performing at Dance Theater Workshop, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Walker Art Center and dozens of other venues. Dayna is currently working on a new dance piece as well as a multidisciplinary performance cycle entitled “The Clay Duke.” With colleagues Peggy Piacenza and Dave Proscia she is co-founding Base, a creative residency space that will open in Seattle in 2016.

Jason Starkie was born in Pullman, WA in 1969 and studied at the San Francisco Art Institure from 1987-91. Since then he has exhibited paintings in galleries in cities all around the US as well as in Europe. He divides his time between painting studios in Seattle and NYC, maintaining an artistic practice as well as being a professional violinmaker.