TENATNS/Tenets Digital Program

Celebrating local dance, theatre and art in the

Dallas Arts District.

TENANTS/TENETS

Presented by Very Good Dance Theatre

May 27 – 29, 2021

TENANTS/TENETS CREATED BY THE ENSEMBLE CAST William Acker (he/him) Elaina Alspach (she/her) Clew (they/he) Natassia Diggs (she/her) Lagniappe (she/her)

CREATIVE DIRECTION Movement, Sound, & Costumes Colby Calhoun (they/she) Danielle Georgiou (she/her)

LIGHTING DESIGN Lori Honeycutt-Phillips (she/her)

PROJECTION DESIGN Taylor Cleveland (he/him)

STAGE MANAGEMENT Hailey Green (she/her)

TENANTS/TENETS is a futurist dance theatre experiment in which the performers on stage collaborate with you, the audience, to create a brand new society. It’s y/our house, y/our rules. Welcome to the colony!

The (ten)ants live for the limestone- or rather the limelight, so please take their pictures and post them all with #verygoodtenants so they can see how pretty they looked on stage afterward. Additionally, playing with the ants (from a safe distance) is highly encouraged!

We promise they don’t won’t bite!

MEET THE ANTS: Willam Acker (he/him)

Elaina Alspach (she/her)

Clew (they/he)

Natassia Diggs (she/her)

Lagniappe (she/her)

Very Good Dance Theatre is a collective of professional performance artists. We work collaboratively, devising movement and text with each other, to create work somewhere between the scope of dance and theatre. We seek to explore, experiment with, and expand what performance art can be and do while questioning what gives it value and why.

Our work seeks to reflect the gray areas and/or the intersectionality of the human experience, and we magnify this by working in and out of multiple disciplines of performance. At our core we value individuality, experimentation, failure, imagination, and eventual triumph—all with an emphasis on collaboration. We view theatre as a puzzle and each person involved (dancer, singer, actor, mover, shaker, maker, and viewer) holds a special, and vital, piece of that picture. Without each other our picture lacks clarity, color, and meaning. It is through our differences, and not in spite of them, that we can find connection to others.

Very Good Dance Theatre was founded by Colby Calhoun in the summer of 2018, appearing on stage for the very first time at FIT Underground with Elephant Antonyms: an absurd dance theatre romp through the subconscious that asked who could we be if we didn’t have to be who we are, and what does that loss cost us. What was originally thought of as a one off for a “very good” project showed promise as a home for a new brand of queer theatre, and so Very Good Dance Theatre continued.

Afterwards, we returned to the Festival of Independent Theatres as a part of the 2020 festival on the mainstage with The 1st Annual Gay Show which featured 5 queer performers of color and devised their personal stories into a beauty pageant of sorts which revealed the failures, the dangers, the pain, the beauty, the triumphs, and the diverse truths of living as a queer person of color in America. F.A.G.S. went on to be featured as “Best Physical Theatre of 2019” by Frank Garrett at TheaterJones, showing the power of pushing boundaries and affirming our passion for the work we had just begun to make.

Our work has always featured voices from the margins of our society while telling stories that are meant to uplift these communities, ask questions about why our world is the way it is, and start conversations about what we can do and must do for one another.

In 2021 Very Good Dance Theatre has been chosen to participate in AT&T PAC’s Elevator Project Season and has been chosen amongst the first cohort of Artists In Residence at Arts Mission Oak Cliff. Very Good Dance Theatre continues to make work as an independent theatre group through festivals, residencies, and other opportunities like this.

For more information visit us at www.verygooddt.com remember to tag us in your photos with #verygoodtenants

GENEROUS SUPPORT FROM