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Arts & Entertainment

NVitational Choreographer Previews This Weekend's El Portal Show

Patch interviews Kitty McNamee, one of the dance choreographers invited to El Portal's NVitational dance festival, about her opening weekend performance.

PATCH: From July 29 through August 14, The will be hosting , a dance festival featuring shows by dance choreographers selected by Artistic Director Dee Caspary. This weekend, July 29–31, the performances will include the works of Caspary, Marty Kedulka and Kitty McNamee.

Patch spoke with McNamee, the founder and Artistic Director of Hysterica Dance Company, about her performances for NVitational. According to the theater's managers, a large percent of their clientele comes from Encino. Catch Hysterica’s performances Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m. 

PATCH: What will we see in your performance this weekend?

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KITTY MCNAMEE: It is a premiere, a world premiere and the piece is called The Wheel. It’s about 25 minutes long. It’s a long 25 minute piece of smaller pieces that are interrelated. It’s really contemporary movement. I’ve had the company for 10 years and I’ve been doing contemporary dance for 10 years but it’s getting more and more pop influenced. The music is pretty electronic so it’s got a lot of beat driven sound and then there’s some really gorgeous ambient sound.

PATCH: So it’s a Hysterica original.

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KM: Yeah, and a premiere which I haven’t done since 2009.

PATCH: Who are you going to be collaborating with on your dances?

KM: With a woman named Laura Schnitger who is a Dutch artist based in Los Angeles. She’s a sculptor. She also does fabric. She’s painting and sculpting right now but she has a gallery in London. She’s doing the costume designs because she’s a sculptress.

PATCH: Are you bringing any of the Hysterica dancers?

KM: Yes, the whole company. Well, most of the dancers. There are seven dancers.

PATCH: How did you get involved with NVitational?

KM: Dee just invited me to do the show and pretty much told me I could collaborate with whoever I wanted to. So I chose Lara as my collaborator and I’m using my usual Hysterica people.

PATCH: Have you ever worked at the El Portal before?

KM: I’ve only had guest pieces there in other shows but I really like the venue and I’ve seen a lot of dance there. I think it’s a great venue for dance.

PATCH: What makes this space so great for dance?

KM: The stage is pretty large, a good size. The way that the house is raked up, there’s really not a bad seat in the house I think for seeing dance? It’s kind of perfect for dance. I also found [general manager] Jay [Irwin] to be very open and very supportive.

PATCH: If people become a fan of your work through NVitational, do you have a studio they can come visit?

KM: You can see my websites, Kittymcnamee.com and Hystericadance.com. Then I teach at Edge in Hollywood. They’re like a sponsor.

PATCH: What are some of the mistakes novice dancers make when they’re trying to learn your choreography?

KM: I think playing it safe. A lot of my work is kind of off center. If they’re pulling themselves steady in the center and not going for it, I think that would be the biggest mistake.

PATCH: What are the hardest habits to break dancers of?

KM: Oh boy. I think habits in general. Bad training habits or little quirks that they have and may make your choreography look like somebody else’s. If they trained with someone who has a very strong style, to get that style out of their body and have them really do what you’re doing.

PATCH: Obviously I’m not going to devote my life to dance training, but what are some small day to day tips one could use to get closer to a dancer’s physique?

KM: I would recommend stretching a lot because most normal people don’t stretch or stretch very little. Dancers stretch a lot, like an inordinate amount of stretching. I think that would be the key. Once you hit a certain age, everything stiffens up and if you keep everything moving, that helps a lot.

PATCH: Like yoga? I started doing yoga and it totally changed my body.

KM: Exactly. I think yoga and pilates, because they’re not weight bearing and there’s a lot of stretching involved in both, I think those are the best things that you can do to get more of a dancer body.

PATCH: Are you coordinating with any of the other dancers in Nvitational on the evening’s program or making sure there’s no overlap?

KM: I know many of the other choreographers and I’m really, really excited to be in this big event with them because they’re all people that I really admire. I’m more concerned with getting to see more of the shows. I want to really be able to see what everyone’s doing. I don’t think that with the people that Dee has chosen that there’s a lot of worry about things looking the same, because everybody has a pretty strong voice. There might be a struggle over maybe wanting to use some of the same dancers or that overlap. I’ve worked with a lot of people who are doing other weekends. Everybody’s just so unique. I think Dee did an amazing job of inviting. What I’m really excited about too is that all these people are living and working or have lived and worked in L.A. I think it’s going to show the strength of the L.A. dance scene. It’s pretty remarkable.

PATCH: Are you rehearsing for Nvitational full time?

KM: We’re rehearsing right now like three days a week for four hours. We’d like to be doing more but everybody’s busy and the rehearsal space, luckily Edge sponsors me so I don’t have to pay for space but all that stuff adds up so quickly.

PATCH: What other projects are you working on?

KM: I’m doing something called Flash on the Beach. It’s a title sequence for this huge kind of convention, but it’s a big tech event in England in early September. I’m choreographing the title sequence for these super fancy LED lights and we’re doing the whole opening sequence for it. I’m really excited about it. We’re shooting it in August right after Nvitational and then the event is in September. Then I’m also doing an Opera at L.A. Opera in October.

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