By: Ruth Haney

INHABIT, the latest installation from KT Niehoff’s Lingo dancetheater, is a choreographed party, where four performers challenge preconceived ideas of dance and provide a space for the community to engage with art and each other, to affect and be affected by the world around them. Breaking with the traditional weekend dance run philosophy of “dance and dash”, INHABIT will run 20 performances over 5 weeks.

INHABIT allows guests a range of proximal vantage points to watch the performance unfold. Guests and dancers move about the room, their interactions punctuated by food, wine, and easy conversation. These simple, surprising encounters dash usual performance expectations and give permission for each guest to own the world of the work as his or her own.

As the Lingo quartet of Bianca Cabrera, Dustin Haug, KT Niehoff and Aaron Swartzman enter their sixth year of working together, INHABIT offers each company member’s profound understanding of Niehoff’s signature movement style which combines hypnotic states of inversion, lushly virtuosic partnering and hyper-mobile, spinal delicacy. In addition, INHABIT excavates the private, performance prowess exclusive to each artist by demanding a physical and emotional unearthing of how each distinctively dwells in place and body.

In an ambitious extension of the INHABIT’s philosophy, Lingo will host three Pacific Northwest dance artists for a four week residency called Chew On This. The residency provides space at CHAC that coincides with the weeks of INHABIT performances.

“Just as Lingo inhabits CHAC, so will the resident artists – allowing these choreographers to really possess their ideas and process of the work” explains Lingo’s Artistic Director Niehoff. Each week of residency will culminate in a 3pm Saturday afternoon workshop performance open freely to the public. Performers selected for the residency include

INHABIT and Chew On This are produced in association with CHAC and Art Patch.