Coming Up

"Watch This!" is an evening length dance theatre piece that premiered in August 2023 at Here Arts Center. I was very grateful to have such a supportive community to help bring this work to life and enthusiastic audiences to share it with. You can learn more about the piece below.

I am happy to announce that I have been granted a couple of exciting opportunities to share this work again! In May 2024, the original cast will be returning to the stage as part of the Fast Forward festival at Dixon Place. We look forward to revisiting, expanding, and sharing the full work with new audiences. 

I have also been selected to be part of Vibrance, a showcase featuring NYC based choreographers that will travel to Edinburgh fringe festival this August. I will present a short, solo excerpt of "Watch This!" in 6 shows, and am deeply grateful for the chance to share my work with an international audience at the largest fringe festival in the world.

These opportunities are very meaningful to myself and my collaborators, and any support to make them possible is deeply appreciated. You can learn more about my work, this project, and the impact of your support below.

Who I Am

My name is Heather Dutton and I am a Brooklyn based dance-maker, performer and teaching artist, hailing from Philadelphia, PA. I hold a B.A. in Dance (choreography and education) from Muhlenberg College, where I also studied Women's and Gender studies. I have also worked for many years as a child-care provider, and have become curious about what it means to take care of each other in shared spaces and experiences. While I am interested in dance as an artform that develops shareable products, I am perhaps more drawn to dance that functions as a rich creative and communal practice. My choreographic process is designed not just to build meaningful work for my audiences, but to uplift, nurture, and inspire joy and community amongst the artists in the room. My work has been presented at Here Arts Center, the Tank, Spark Theater Festival, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Dixon Place, the Craft NYC, the Koresh Come Together Dance Festival, and ACDA. I have also performed with a variety of New York and Philadelphia based choreographers, and am a Teaching Artist in NYC public elementary schools with the National Dance Institute.

What I Do
 
My choreographic ambition is to include audiences in the world of my work. I call on my theatrical and comedic background to support the development of dance spaces that give viewers from many backgrounds the information they need to engage with, enjoy, and lean all the way into the story before them. I feel strongly that it is my job as a dance maker to give my audiences a "way in" - to make work that creates a communal experience not just for the people performing, but for all who choose to engage with us. (Don't worry - this doesn't mean you have to get onstage!) I often utilize text, popular music, props/sets, pedestrian gestures etc. to create shared vocabularies between the dancers and the audiences. I am interested in the full spectrum of the human experience, and especially the overlap between the devastating and the joyful. We are so complicated! Our bodies have the capacity for celebration, fear, isolation, connection, love, anger, and so much more - and I am curious about all of it!

What's Coming Up
 
"Watch This!" is an hour long dance theatre piece that investigates the relationship between audience & performer, not just in performance spaces, but in daily life. More specifically, it considers the experience of inhabiting a body as a queer or genderqueer person in today's world. What does it look like when we cannot contain our bodies? What does it look like when our bodies cannot contain us? Who has the power? The process has served as a space for queer individuals to discuss the relationship between their identities and bodies, and build work that honors some of the complicated layers of being both a person with an audience (always) and a member of the audience (always). While the work strives to uplift queer voices especially, it is my hope and belief that there are aspects of it that we will all feel seen by, as we all have a body & so we all have an audience.

How You Can Help

In order to sustain a healthy, fruitful and spacious creative process, it is important that I am able to properly compensate my generous collaborators for their time, energy, and contributions. Donations will go directly to the creative team & performers, and allow us to give the energy and care to this work that we believe it deserves. Other expenses that donations will help cover include rehearsal space, travel fees, festival expenses, costumes/props, and other misc. performance related expenses.

Any donation size helps tremendously and is deeply appreciated! You can also support by sharing this page, telling your friends about us, and subscribing to my mailing list on heatherduttondance.com. I am grateful beyond words to everyone who has supported my work so far, and my many mentors, teachers, and collaborators past and present.