projects
a collection of various collaborations, experimental processes, ongoing studies, and more.
pantone variations
with band|portier
2018-Present
in Kendra's words...
"Pantone Variations" is an extensive series of interconnected variations, bringing together dance artists across the U.S.. The project generates performed works uniquely tailored to the performers - their interests, delights, pleasures, training, and needs. Each work moves in and out of unison, expanding what it means to be/live/thrive together through generous, active, responsive, and bold movement practice. The choreographies are meticulously crafted, featuring intricate spatial designs, complex repetitions, and precisely nuanced rhythmic patterns. Yet, they also serve as mechanisms for support and togetherness.
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in my own words...
Patterns are illusively repeated with emergent displays of sense-making through physical expressions of physics that lead to robust, churning unison and metallic, vibratory solos. Complacency is impossible as the group dynamics pull at the roundness of firm shapes and spatial opportunities for vibrator. The depth arises in the synthesis through communities, individual bodies, venues, and methods BAND|portier uses to dial-in on the proposal. The practice is in-flux and necessarily modular to accomodate the people and the venue.​
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Video by MK Ford and Kendra Portier
Photos pictured by Otto Hernandezd
WIP (Film)
2023-Present
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A film devised by MK Ford with collaborative contribution from dance artists Christina Collins, Brit Falcon, and Ryan Smith, visual artist Dan Ortiz Leizman, and video artist Mark Williams.
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Photo/Video by MK Ford with support by Mark Williams
" "" "
2021-Present
" "" " is an ongoing collaboration with Dan Ortiz Leizman involving installation/mural, projection design, dance, and sound. Collaborators Ford and Ortiz Leizman "transcribe" movement and mark-making in simultaneous real time. The work is rooted in asemic writing studies; improvisational dance ecologies; intra-disciplinarity; and illegibility. The piece highlights the absence of communicative methods that our bodies have been socialized to rely upon, removing the very things which make such methods operable.​
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Video + Photos by MK Ford and Dan Ortiz Leizman
"stumble merge", "Bodyknots" and "i resist this" with charlotte richardson-deppe
2021-Present
Soft-sculpture performance, video, and installation with Charlotte Richardson-Deppe.
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Photos by Mark Williams.​
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(Pictured) "Stumble Merge" (in Charlotte's words)...
"...as playful as it is restricting, highlighting limb extensions, tangling, and holding tension...
Interior
'interior' is A ScreenDance study of music visualization and editing techniques that subdivide a spatial plane and layer channels of light. The creative intention of this work is to weave metaphors of isolation within an exploration of internal landscapes and subtle expressions of gestures.
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Video by MK Ford
double duets
Duetting with myself.
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Video by MK Ford
emotional tofu (text collaborator)
In Tristan's words... "Emotional Tofu is a new project in process, envisioned as a multimedia performance that explores speculative masculinities and the sad boy trope."
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Photo by Patrick Fogarty​
Radical Tenderness
a response to: "ternura radical es..." manifesto vivo por dani d'emilia y daniel b. chávez
Video + animation by Mary Kate Ford
bite
2022
University of Maryland Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies Spring Dance Concert - Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
Choreographer : Mary Kate Ford
Lighting Designer: Christina Kouni Smith
Projection Designer: Mark Williams
Media Designer: Mary Kate Ford
Performers: Christina Alemayehu, Paetyn Lewis, Megan McDevitt, Ryan Smith, Alondra Torres Negron, Caleb Wein
Music credits: Noam Pikelny, the Westerlies
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Video by MK Ford and Mark Williams
Photos by Jonathan Hsu
woven
Premiered in the American College Dance Association ScreenDance Film Festival (2022)
Director, Cinematographer, Editor: Mary Kate Ford
Original Musical Composition: Mina Kawahara
Choreography: Mary Kate Ford in collaboration with performers Carlo Antonio Villanueva, Tristan Knope, and Brit Falcon
Filmed on site at the University of Maryland College Park Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
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Video by MK Ford