On stages and indoor environments, Keith makes dances about people. Driven by a fascination for what motivates individuals to act, he brings physical and emotional environments to the stage. He creates portraits of people and places by defining culture, time and place. He reveals his point of view through articulate movement exploration and clear compositional development. Often beginning his work with a question, he arranges his research and findings into compelling neo-narratives. After re-locating to southern California from New York, he explored the surf community in Mavericks, the phenomenon of hope in Audacious, the inter-generational passing of culture in Far From Home and Repeat After Me.
In site-specific productions, Keith explores the environment, the site’s history and the people connected to the structure. In Timeless: Marxist Dances at the Beach, the Marx Brothers attendance at parties at the Marion Davis Beach House kept an ongoing moving image of the comedians’ antics around the movement vignettes on the terrace, in and around the pool, the courtyard, the sculptures and on the beach.
From 2007-2018, Keith brought dances to neighborhood coffeehouses, interacting with audiences in up-close-and-personal surroundings across Los Angeles county. With an occasional touch of comic irony, the choreography is filled with an athletic physicality layered over a vocabulary of detailed nuance. His goal is to find the language that best communicates specific human situations.
Accompaniments chosen to enrich the choreographic themes range from original scores commissioned especially for the work, to the use of silence, spoken word and varied musical styles. These have included classical, country-western, opera, minimalist and popular music. The combined elements–movement, text, music and video–charge audiences with direct, vital and thought provoking ideas and images. This work has been performed across the U.S., as well as in Canada and Mexico.
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