The Invitation Situation
An ongoing dance-theater project
Alpert award winning choreographer Jeanine Durning comes together with a group of stellar woman dance artists and thinkers for the making of The Invitation Situation, a choreo-performance experiment based on Durning’s signature movement practice, nonstopping. Following a basic desire to “practice together,” Jeanine was invited by Andee Scott, Mary Williford-Shade, Heidi Brewer, and Clare Croft in the midst of 2021 pandemic lock downs to share her practice over Zoom which then soon developed into the desire to create a performance together. Building on the initial invitation, as well as the situation of being in 3 different states and 2 countries, The Invitation Situation highlights the labor and intelligence of the dancer’s enduring desire to move and build something together. Teetering at the edge of what could be in an ever-shifting environment, this choreography exposes both the precision and precarity of the dancer’s decision-making from moment to moment, somewhere between personal agency and collective will – grappling with time, place, and makeshift meanings.
Choreography and Direction by Jeanine Durning, made for and with Andee Scott, Mary Williford-Shade, Heidi Brewer, and Clare Croft
meet the team
Jeanine Durning (choreographer, director) is an Alpert Award-winning choreographer and performer based in NY whose work has been described by The New Yorker as having “the potential for philosophical revelation and theatrical disaster.” She’s been exploring the mobilizing and mutable forces of dancing bodies and grappling with their conditions in time, space, and place for over 25 years through experiments in choreography, performance, practice-based research, teaching, and mentoring. Her ongoing project nonstopping has been central to her research since 2009, using both movement and speech acts as creative modes to attend to uncontrollable change in the continuous present. She performed her acclaimed solo inging (based on her practice of nonstop speaking) internationally from 2010-2020. Durning has collaborated with many choreographers, including Deborah Hay since 2005, and from 2020-2023, she was Rehearsal Director at Cullberg in Stockholm, overseeing and touring the works of Hay. Jeanine has been invited to create original works for repertory companies including, most recently, with Toronto Dance Theatre/CA (2019), Candoco Dance Company/UK (2021) Norrdans/SE (2023), as well as several artist-initiated commissions in the States and in Sweden. In 2023, Jeanine co-authored a book with Jenn Joy on nonstopping in 2023, with support from MANCC and The Mellon Foundation.
Heidi Brewer (performer, collaborator) has worked as a dance artist in Seattle, New York City, Los Angeles and St. Petersburg since 2001, showing work and teaching in LA, St. Petersburg and Sarasota, Florida. She is a Certified Pilates teacher through the Kane School & kinected in NYC, where she also works as Communications Director. Heidi is a Pilates and Oov Instructor, Kane School teacher trainer and co-director of the Pilates certification program at Body Center St. Pete. She is forever thankful for this group of incredible nonstopping women.
Clare Croft (performer, collaborator) ​is a writer, a dance historian and theorist; a person who dances; and sometimes a curator and dramaturg. She is the author of Jill Johnston in Motion: Dance, Writing, and Lesbian Life and the editor of The Essential Jill Johnston Reader–both out from Duke University Press in 2024. Croft is also the editor and curator of Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings. She is Associate Professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan. Clare is grateful for all the gifts of nonstopping and this group.
Andee Scott (performer, collaborator) ​is a dancer, teacher, and maker, and her interest in dance as public art has led to her creating, curating, and producing site-specific dance performance events including Dance in the Time of Coronavirus, Our Town, and Our Trail in St. Petersburg and Pinellas County, FL. Andee was a member of Sharir+Bustamante Danceworks and Blue Lapis Light (founding member) in Austin, TX, as well as Deja Donne in Italy and is presently living her best life nonstopping with Jeanine Durning. Scott was a resident artist at Djerassi in 2011 and was on faculty at the University of South Florida. She has recently returned to Texas and is an associate professor of Dance Science at Texas A&M.
Roma Flowers (lighting designer) is a theatrical lighting and projection designer who has worked with theatre, opera, concert, dance and video productions. She has designed lighting for dance for such diverse performing artists as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Dark Circles Contemporary Dance, and The Dance Theatre of Harlem among others. Roma is a recipient of the prestigious New York Dance and Performance Award (a.k.a. Bessie) for her lighting designs and the KOI-USA Knight of Illumination Projection Design Award for A Bon Coeur, an evening-length work, created by dance artist, Helanius J. Wilkins. Roma created the video design for the 2023 premiere of The Factotum (Lyric Opera of Chicago). As Lighting Designer, her recent work includes Thunder Knocking on the Door (Houston’s Stages), They Do Not Move and Love Bomb (Houston’s Catastrophic Theatre). Fort Worth productions include Poor Clare and POTUS (Stage West), Destroying David (Circle Theatre) and hang (Second Thought Theatre) in Dallas.
Sophie Minouche Allen (production assistant) is a Chicago-based performer, choreographer, teacher, and collaborator who imbues playfulness and nuance in all her endeavors. In addition to her independent projects, Sophie performs with The Seldoms and Fever Dream Dance Collective and has had the pleasure of working with Ayako Kato/Art Union Humanscape, Al Evangelista, Darling Squire, Katlin Michael Bourgeois, and Nora Sharp among others. Her choreography has been presented by FACT/SF, Thodos Dance Chicago/DanceWorks Chicago, Midwest RADFest, and COMMON conservatory among others. She is on faculty at The Grainger Academy of The Joffrey Ballet and teaches open classes throughout Chicago. Sophie holds a BFA in Dance and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) from the University of Michigan. She is also a certified Countertechnique® Teacher. www.sophieminouche.com.
Mary Williford-Shade (performer, collaborator) ​is a teacher, performer and movement analyst based in Denton, Texas. She began dancing at the age of 21, had a performance/teaching career spanning 40 years working professionally with Maryland Dance Theater, Pittsburgh Dance Alloy, Daniel West Dancers, Mark Taylor and Friends, Mark Dendy Dancers and Lacy & Shade Solo-Duet Company and teaching nationally and internationally including the Bates Dance Festival and the American Dance Festival. While successful throughout her career, quoted in the NY Times as “extraordinary" and awarded a Professor Emeritus title from Texas Woman’s University, Mary couldn’t be more excited to work with Jeanine Durning on this nonstopping project with such incredible women artists.
