Sunday, 20 Novemer – 7:30 PM
The Kerr Foundation, 21 O’Fallon Street
General Admission $20, Student and Artist $15

As part of our 8th season of keeping Saint Louis Strange and Wonderful, Hearding Cats is mystified to present a 5 act collaboration with 19 artists inviting you to move through space and time on 3 floors of The Kerr Foundation.

Amy Coyle, Thomas Proctor and Melissa Sluice from Ashleyliane Dance Co. will invite you to dance.
Watch video artists Van McElwee, Kevin Harris, Zlatko Cosic and Chad Eivins on 3 screens and become part of their creations in time.
Musicians Rich O’Donnell, Doc Mabuse, Venus Slick and Bryan Erdmann will change your aural perception with multiple speakers, mics, and digital and analogue synthesis.
Professional models for trend-setting Saint Louis designers Ameli Blaser, Marcel Coleman, Trang Nguyen and Nasheli Juliana will warp from one statuesque being to another.
Anna Lum will twist your taste buds. Photographer Bryan Dematteis sends it to YouTube, Olivia Mabuse sends it to Facebook.

Rich O’Donnell directs the first three of Serious Warping and Van McElwee directs Act 4.
You can’t imagine how these 18 artists will interact with each other. We can’t wait to show you.

Amy Coyle grew up in Wildwood, Missouri, dancing at Wildwood Dance and Arts, and moved on to earn her Bachelor of Arts in Dance with a minor in Fine Arts Entrepreneurship from Southeast Missouri State University. She trained heavily in modern, ballet, and jazz.  Her choreography was selected to be shown in American College Dance Association’s showcase in March of 2015. Amy graduated in May of 2015 and is currently the Assistant Director at Devine Performing Arts dance studio in Wildwood. She is in her second season with Ashleyliane Dance Company.

Melissa Sluice graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma with her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance in 2012.  In June of 2015 she moved to Illinois where she is now in her 2nd season as a full company member for the Ashleyliane Dance Company. Throughout her time performing she has worked as a Guest Choreographer for the Oklahoma Contemporary Dance Festival, performed in the Choreographer’s Carnival in Chicago, World of Dance, the OKC Philharmonic, and worked with many nationally known choreographers such as Greg Russell, Jeremy Duvall, and Will Johnston. Melissa is very excited to be a part of this experience with HEARding Cats Collective in Serious Warping and can’t wait to invite you to dance we her!

Thomas Proctor is happy to celebrate his fourth year with The Ashleyliane Dance Company. Thomas started his dance career in high school, dancing with his school’s show choir. Following high school, he went to Southeast Missouri State University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art Degree with an emphasis in Dance. Through SEMO Thomas got the opportunity to work with the amazing faculty and guest artists studying Lester Horton, Jose Limon, and contemporary artists such as Larry Keigwin, Pilobolus, and Ashley Tate. Thomas is currently a Dance Educator at The Grand Center Arts Academy and teaches classes through ADC. In what spare time he has left, Thomas has also founded The St. Louis Broadsword Academy, teaching the style of the Historical Highland Broadsword. He plans to continue his education in the future by continuing training with Ashleyliane Dance Company and eventually getting a Masters Degree in Dance 

Rich O’Donnell is some type of highly evolved freshwater arachnid, octopod, or squid-like creature from Donegal, Ireland. We’re actually not 100% certain. Through years of dedicated practice, he‘s trained his gelatinous tentacles to accelerate/decelerate and sabotage boring rhythms created with integer ratios, transforming them into fluid, unpredictable, and interesting layers of expression. In addition, heʼs part cyborg, and creates music by manipulating the KYMA (a special organ located next to the spleen thatʼs hardwired into the central nervous system allowing his brain to simultaneously process any number of “n” control voltages at a given time). Modern science is exploring possible explanations to these phenomena.

Doc Mabuse is a composer who broke free of the prison of the ‘free’ marketplace. He now happily inhabits the desolate frontiers of our benighted culture. Commercially available instruments fell comically short of his musical vision so he was forced to take dremel & soldering iron in hand and invent his own. Doc’s modus operandi in Serious Warping will be conducting a small ensemble of his more-independent and wayward cybernetic creations than playing them directly.

Venus Slick is a visual and audio performer who uses telepathy to fuse random sound explosions together and conjure spirits from the cosmos.  Close your eyes to send her images and see what happens…

Bryan Edrmann has been an audio engineer and sound designer for nearly 40 years.  He cut his teeth as a live engineer for the now legendary Mississippi River Fest in the 1970s.  Erdmann’s design and installation work include systems at The Fox Theatre (St. Louis and Atlanta), Powell Hall, Sheldon Concert Hall, and more recently, Plush.  He’s worked with major performers from Keith Richards and Chuck Berry to Leonard Slatkin and David Byrne.  He was the house audio engineer for the famed film Hail, Hail Rock n.’ Roll. Erdmann uses his lifetime of experience in audio engineering and design to create exciting and surprising interactive sound stations.

Ameli Blaser specializes in hand-knitted garments and accessories.  Inspired by Scandinavian minimalism with its clean lines, layers, timeless designs, and neutral color palettes. The design process always starts with the yarn. From there interesting, and sometimes unexpected textures and patterns are knitted into wearable, three dimensional garments.  Her model is Grace May with Menagerie Models.

Marcel Coleman Jr. graduated from Columbia College Chicago, where he studied Fashion Design.  He is a color pusher, a kid at heart, and a lover of structure.  He uses natural fibers, such as cottons & wools because of their malleability, and loves to dye fabric and create his own textiles.

Trang Nguyen focuses on reinventing classic silhouettes that transition from day to night. Nguyen spent most of her childhood years focusing on sewing garments by hand, and went on to study fashion design at Lindenwood University.

Nasheli Juliana and Emilio Maldonado collaborate on the NIE designs. Nasheli, born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, has spent sixteen years in the fashion industry.  Her design experience includes working as technical designer, draper, tailoring and fine sewing techniques for different designers based in New York, Italy, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. She also performs as an assistant design professor for Lindenwood University’s fashion design program, as well as a freelance designer and as the owner of Nasheli Juliana fashion label.  Emilio has invested himself through many fields of design and fine art, including architecture, furniture design, and art and costume departments in San Juan, Puerto Rico’s local film industry.