SHA Creative Outlet
Xs

In Xs, Shannon is exploring connections between humans, objects, and space. Every being in space is connected, and each will influence each other. A blink of an eye, a shoulder shudder, a wrinkling of the paper, will shift the connection. If you see every connection as a straight line, then the crossing of connections becomes X, and the multiplying of crossing connections leads to Xs. All the connections of sticky spider threads are pulling; straight, straight, queer queer queer, break. And reconnect.
It is an ever evolving spider web.

This piece is choreographed by Shannon Yu, performed by Sarah Zucchero and Shannon Yu, with live beats by Airloom Beats.

SHA Creative Outlet is a company that is rooted in dance but showcases in many mediums including film, photography, design, animation, and live performances. Founded by Shannon Yu, SHA Creative Outlet is dedicated to the collaboration of different disciplines, and emphasis on adequate pay for professionals.

Shannon Yu 余香儒 is a Brooklyn, New York based artist from Taiwan. She holds an MFA in Performance and Performance Studies from Pratt Institute, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from National Taiwan University.
Shannon identifies as a multi-disciplinary artist, dancer-choreographer, queer creator. Space, sound, imagery, movement, and textures call Shannon to allow art flow. Shannon has shown work in La Mama, Movement Research in Judson Memorial Church, Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts, Prospect Park, The Landmark Loew's Theater, and has done residencies with Dance in Bushwick, Spoke the Hub, Chen Dance Center, and The Creators Collective.

@hsiangru.yu
@mowglilolimo
@airloombeats

BREAKTIME is a site-fluid reservoir for bad ideas, generated and performed by Holly Sass and Jonathan Matthews. Classmates at NYU, they were often cast together in a diverse array of work until joining forces in 2017 to participate in Tisch Dance’s Alumni Choreographic Mentorship with Gus Solomons, Jr. Since then, they have performed in and around the city and self-produced two evenings through the Tisch Dance Summer Residency Festival. The pair has been greatly nourished by residencies through the Jonah Boaker Arts Foundation, Create:ART, and The Croft. Interested in independent initiatives, BREAKTIME participated in the first annual Land Falls residency, founded by Jemila MacEwan and helped convert Bridget Struthers’ Brattleboro barn into a shared performance space. BREAKTIME has enjoyed multimedia liaisons with director Julia Barrett-Mitchell, choreographer-costumer Maddie Schimmel, installation artist Dave Hannon, cinematographer Derrick Belcham, screenwriter Jonah Greenstein, and brass quartet, The Westerlies.

​​“A sad, surrealistic meditation on drabness” - From Courtney Escoyne, writing for Dance Magazine - “6 of Our Favorite Digital Dance Projects to Come Out of Quarantine”

“You know, BREAKTIME – as in, time for a break! As in, a pause for a joke or a nap; as in rupture in the fabric of normal, as in a song-and-dance, as in the snap and clatter of tap shoes. Any questions?” - From Dot Armstrong, writing for Culturebot

Instagram: @breaktimewithus
Facebook: @breaktimewithus

Photos by Effy Grey

BREAKTIME
nearly no props

BREAKTIME has a habit of, after making long performances that involve little to no dancing, “decompressing” with shorter, bombastic, dance-heavy ditties to the music of Frank Zappa. Having recently created a long performance that involved little (but some) dancing, we thought it apt, at the close of this confusing year, on the cusp of a hiatus of our own, to both create another one of these sorts of dances, as well as to string it together with our previous two dances into one, three-part Zappa moving marathon. 

Maxi Hawkeye Canion (they/them) is a Queer Agender Black Mexican-American movement artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Originally from El Paso, TX, they received a BFA in Dance from The University of Texas at El Paso (2014). Their work aims to conjure their history and lineages through leaning into fluctuating transformative states. Through durational trances, they craft dream realms to navigate and invoke dialogue around their identity, intimacy, and newly imagined worlds. Their work is process-based and durational with a focus on improvisational research and view the practice as an embodiment of impermanence. As a performer, they have collaborated with artists such as Emilio Rojas, Shikeith, Morgan Bobrow-Williams, J. Bouey, Monica Mirabile, Dorchel Haqq, Sidra Bell, slowdanger, BIRDHOUSE, UNA Productions, and Fernando Melo.

@maxystarr

Photos by Joy Marie Thompson

Maxi Hawkeye Canion
Tomorrow as it will be*

This solo work challenges how the Black Queer body is perceived and reimagining that perception through fantasy. The work is multi-dimensional and collaborative with references to nostalgic media such as anime and gaming lore. There is an emphasis on authenticity while building an imaginative world reflective of one we collectively know, as well as the terrain formulated by the performer’s subconscious lens. A persona is being crafted to transgress the borders of familiar and unfamiliar. There is a sifting of vulnerable states, reflective of the dissociative coping mechanisms they have come to rely on and the mental space from which they are able to fantasize and manifest a more monumental self-narrative; an introspective, transformed, realized, and actualized self. They are navigating aspects of trauma, escapism, identity, and a reckoning of the inner psyche tangibly materialized. They are meeting dormant beasts with care and curiosity with the vision of self-futurity.

*Contains nudity