“O’Neal’s choreography comes out of a rock culture, a new-music culture- you could refer to it as downtown.”
DEFACE is a site-specific dance/music/video work originally made for a tiny movie screening theater in Seattle. The word deface is dissected through the exploration of thwarting and rewarding audience expectation. DEFACE is what it is like when you are alone in your bathroom for too long, staring into the mirror, as things become simultaneously more clear and abstract. We wear faces that say we are fine, when really, we are internally freaking out. What is is to deface yourself? Property? An Ideal? An expectation?
The live performance is accompanied by a video installation in the entrance of the performance space.
Premiere: November 2003, The Little Theater (The Northwest Film Forum) Seattle WA
Performers: Amy O’Neal, Zeke Keeble, Ellie Sandstrom, and Mark Haim
Concept and direction: Zeke Keeble and Amy O’Neal
Choreography and video: Amy O’Neal
Music: Zeke Keeble
Lighting design: Julie Keenan
Fashion design: Macks Leger
DEFACE is funded by Artist Trust and a co-production of locust and the Northwest Film Forum
press for DEFACE
“I was completely blown away by the inventiveness and athleticism, and in a rush of enthusiasm, I begged them to premier a piece at the Little Theater”. – Michael Seiwerath, artistic director of the Northwest Film Forum, Seattle Times 2003
“As always, O’Neal’s choreography embodies tremendous physicality and fierce precision, but also a clear understanding that small, everyday gestures can have the most impact (a curled hand; a pointed finger).” – Brangien Davis, The Seattle Times, 2003
“Her (‘O’Neal) work can be visually arresting as well as physically challenging – she can sweep across the stage with equal parts disdain and drive.” – Sandra Kurtz, Seattle Weekly, 2003