LanDforms (Seattle, WA): The Garden of Expectations
dance/theatre/music/sculpture/horticulture
LanDforms is making their Risk/Reward debut at this year’s festival. Recently finding themselves in Seattle after a stint at Martha’s Vineyard, where they made their hilarious and tragic Barbie-themed work, The Life in Plastic, Risk/Reward welcomes them to our Portland stage.
PERFORMANCE SYNOPSIS
The Garden of Expectations is a movement piece that presents the audience with a surreal and abstract glimpse into another world, presenting a wealth of symbolic and metaphorical readings, including but not limited to life, death, decay, vulnerability, the consumption of living things for human pleasure, and the never ending search for approval. The Garden of Expectations turns reality TV on its head, forming its own thoughts about what it means to get the Rose. In this version of dating game show absurdity, challenges include basking in radiant sunshine, drinking water, and putting down strong roots.
BIO
Under the moniker LanDforms, Leah Crosby and Danielle Doell’s productions span dance, theater, music, sculpture, and horticulture. LanDforms’ often funny, sometimes tragic, always unusual performances explore the absurdities of human relationships, nostalgia, and the intersections of power, control, and love. Crosby was born in upstate New York to artist parents; Doell went to 13 years of Catholic school in the Midwest. Their early socialization around what is “normal” regarding gender, power, sex, and identity was, to put it simply, different. As LanDforms, they examine how their disparate histories build their present and future expressive bodies. LanDforms began on Martha’s Vineyard, where Crosby and Doell lived for two years. Danielle joined the Seattle dance scene in 2017, knowing Leah would soon follow. They collaborated long-distance and during several developmental residencies while separated. Now, LanDforms is excited to be a Seattle-based company, making work within the PNW’s thriving performance communities. The Garden of Expectations was created in close creative collaboration with the dancers.