Jessie Smith

Jessie Smith received 2008 GAP Award funding for the completion of her multi-disciplinary installation Left and Leaving. The month-long exhibit will feature dance, film, visual art, and music in collaboration with artists such as Ben Kasulke and Jherek Bischoff. The main element of Left and Leaving is a 20-minute dance cinema short on Super 8 film among the industrial rubble of Berlin. For the opening of the show, Jessie will elaborate upon elements seen in Left and Leaving through a live dance performance.

Jessie received 2005 GAP Award funding to cover rental costs of high quality sound and video equipment for Rivet/Rivule, a dance video that leads viewers through a visual journey of industrial Seattle. The raw feel of its scenery will interlace with the reoccurrence of water as three dancers barrel through and alongside rivers and puddles. “The piece is furious physicality, combined with contrasting, controlled dance technique,” says Jessie. The film will remove contemporary dance from its traditional theater setting and place it on an abandoned train line and in a parking lot.