precious cargo (days of old) // precious cargo (always the point)
Portland Mercury calls precious cargo (always the point) "daring and inventive"
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Amy Leona Havin's "little beads of priceless, precious cargo"
precious cargo (days of old) is the first in The Holding Project's 'precious cargo' performance series, premiering at Shaking the Tree Theatre in 2022. This evening-length dance performance takes place in-the-round and dives into the nostalgic pre-1980s era of Southern California lore and Americana ambition.
precious cargo (always the point) is the second iteration in The Holding Project's 'precious cargo' performance series, following the 2022 premiere of precious cargo (days of old). This evening-length dance performance takes place in-the-round and is one of the newest and most personal works from Artistic Director Amy Leona Havin, exploring agriculture, water systems, and the human-inflicted destruction of the natural world through surrealist humor and a lens of Southern California lore; looking for the pinnacle of the point.
Choreographed and produced by Artistic Director Amy Leona Havin, this 90-minute long performance takes place in-the-round and features a combination of movement styles derived from Havin’s Gaga Movement Language methodology background, classical post-modern dance training, classical ballet, and contemporary partnering practices. Throughout this work, company dancers Lindsay Dreyer, Heather Hindes, Carly Nicole Ostergaard, Elle Sevi, and Whitney Wilhardt step into five principal roles that encompass non-stop performances of solos, duets, trios, and group pieces exemplifying Havin’s signature visceral, effort-based, and nuanced movement style.
Accompanied by the lighting design of Portland-based production artist Spencer Fork, ‘precious cargo (always the point)’ is the second installation in the company’s ‘precious cargo’ series, and takes place within a warm coast-like landscape fueled by the pathos-driven urgency of life along the Pacific, embarking on a nostalgic journey rooted in historical points involving America’s water systems, and the ecology of devastatingly changing landscapes that are shaping generations. Through winding gestural patterns, task-oriented movement scores, and live-feed multimedia object activation, each performer demonstrates a personalized real-time negotiation of their position within this honest dance – resulting from a year-long creation period involving extensive cultural and historic research based on the 1960s-present fiction and non-fiction works of west coast authors and pop icons, along with the lived experiences of Havin and the participants – in short; addressing the ever-present question of ‘the point’.
