As  many of you already know, I came to LA to attend grad school and transition from a career as a dancer to career as a choreographer and creator immersive dance. I am deeply passionate about immersive theater (think Sleep No More and Then She Fell), I believe it offers new avenues for connecting with and expanding audiences. My first couple immersive shows in LA have been a big success -- selling out and getting attention from No Proscenium, a prominent voice in the immersive theater world. This summer, I was even invited to participate in the LA Immersive Invitational and took home the grand prize. Now I've been asked to show an evening length work at The Bootleg Theater, a major East-Side venue. Unfortunately, the costs of self-producing are catching up to me and I can no longer afford to do this all by myself. That is why (hard as it is for me) I am reaching out to my community and asking for your help at this critical moment in my career.

ABOUT THE SHOW:
Conceived and choreographed by Koryn Ann Wicks, I love you so much, SQUEEZE ME TO DEATH is an immersive dance performance with interactive video and sound installations exploring the ways we lose ourselves loving others. 

Patrons experience contemporary choreography up-close; move with the dancers; and become participants in the piece. The audience will also share in the live-editing of video and audio accompaniments through custom made interactive media installations. GET YOUR TICKETS

WHY I NEED YOUR HELP:
In order to help cover expenses associated producing a show of this scale. Here is where your money is going:  

Koryn Ann Wicks is a choreographer and multimedia artist. Her immersive choreography creates explorable performances in which live movement and digital media build off one another in real time. Koryn earned her MFA in Dance from the University of California, Irvine and graduated from the Alvin Ailey School with honors.  Her work has been show at Highways Performance Space, the Orange County Museum of Art, historic Bowery Poetry Club, Steps on Broadway and the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Koryn has been on faculty at CalArts, Glendale College, Cypress College and Cerritos College. She also choreographs for film and television; most recently on the NBC pilot Until the Wedding.

WHO'S ON THE TEAM:
The creative team on this project is made up of young, local artists on the cutting edge of their fields. Lighting designer Morgan Embry designs for Duck Lights in LA. She also freelances with a wide variety of dance, theater and installation companies throughout the U.S., where she incorporates projection and interactive lighting in her designs. Sound designer Alex Lough is a composer, performer, and multimedia sound artist. His work focuses on implementing experimental technology in order to discover new performance contexts with particular attention given to the body and the physicality of sound. The score is composed by Jonah Rosenberg, a musician, sound and multimedia designer based in Brooklyn. Jonah creates performances that straddle jazz and free-improvised music, electrostatic performance art and film. The performance incluldes text by Sam Alper, a poet, playwright and screenwriter. His show LovePlay/PlayMoney premiered at La MaMa E.T.C.

The cast includes dancers Jemima Choong, Robyn O'Dell and Brittany Tran. Jemima trained at Eximius School of Performing Arts as a teaching associate for the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing in Malaysia. She continued her dance training at Idyllwild Arts Academy. She recently graduated from UCI with with a BFA in choreography and performance. Robyn is a dance theatre artist and educator.  Her devised dance theater piece, Pick-a-little/ New-talk-a-little, was showcased at the ACDF Gala Performance in March 2019. Brittany Tran studied dance at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and later graduated from Alonzo King LINES Ballet. Brittany is currently a freelance dancer and fitness instructor.

The performance also includes special guest performer Chris Tyler. Chris is a writer, performer and cultural organizer. Past projects include NO CRUISING (NAVEL), Little Red Scare (Bushwig), the Make America series (Arts Nova) and TOTAL REJECTS LIVE!!! (Public Theater/Under the Radar Festival). His performance style has been called “equal parts hilarious and chilling” (Fusion), “precise-yet-butchered” (Out Magazine) and “so cute” (Taylor Swift).