Photography: Craig Harris
MISSION:
Inspired by the forgotten, antiquated, deteriorating, grand, and common, Tori Lawrence + Company creates innovative site-specific dance projects and dance films that investigate the relationship between movement and place. The Company is a group of movement artists, musicians, and designers that embed intelligent art into historic buildings and landscapes, creating worlds where imagination, architecture, and form intersect. The live performances invite diverse audiences to appreciate and explore, with active senses, the connection between people and place.
Tori Lawrence + Co. are currenlty artists-in-residence at Mascher Space Cooperative (Philadelphia).
Tori Lawrence , originally from Atlanta, is the choreographer/director of Philadelphia-based Tori Lawrence + Co. She collaborates with a group of musicians & dancers on multidisciplinary site-specific installations, dance films, and work for the stage. Known for exploring the connection between architecture and choreography, Lawrence has created work in historic landmarks such as Founder's Hall at Girard College (1857), Lancaster's Eastern Market (1883), and Philadelphia's Wilbur Chocolate Factory (1887). Her works have been presented at the Philly Fringe, the Center for Performance Research, American College Dance Festival, the Performance Garage, Underground Arts, Franklin & Marshall College, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, as well as in New Hampshire, Arizona, and NYC. She has taught Master Classes at Franklin & Marshall College and was an artist-in-residence at Girard College, where she taught improvisation and composition. She graduated with honors from Franklin & Marshall College and holds a B.A. in both dance and public health.
Pamela Vail is a choreographer, performer, improviser, and teacher. She is a co-founding member of the Architects, a performance improvisation ensemble, with whom Vail teaches, creates, and performs both choreographed and improvised work. She is a founding member of critically acclaimed New York City-based Yanira Castro | a canary torsi, with whom she has performed extensively since 1995. Vail has also had the pleasure of working with choreographers Terry Creach, Heidi Henderson, Peter Schmitz, and Tori Lawrence, among others. She teaches master classes and performs her own choreography nationally and internationally, and is currently Assistant Professor of Dance at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. Vail holds a B.A. from Middlebury College and an M.F.A. in dance from Smith College, and has been dancing since she was six years old.
Hailing from upstate NY, Ashley Lippolis is a young artist living in Philadelphia with a versatile background in dance, theater, and film. She earned a BA in dance and psychology from Franklin & Marshall College, where she spent much of her energy on modern dance, flamenco, musical theater, site-specific art, and dance for film. Ashley learned from a number of wonderful artists at the College, including Pamela Vail, Lynn Brooks, Elba Hevia y Vaca, Lori Belilove, Jennifer Conley, and Lorry May. While in school, she discovered Philadelphia's vibrant dance community as an intern for Melanie Stewart Dance Theatre at nEW Festival, and has been hooked ever since. Soon after, she began putting her writing skills to use for Dadadance Project's Eun Jung Choi and Guillermo Ortega Tanus, whose artistry she greatly admires. Ashley is currently coordinating a public art outreach program for the Fairmount Park Art Association, an organization that commissions, interprets, and preserves public art in Philadelphia.
Lora Allen joined Tori Lawrence + Co. as a dancer in 2012. She is a creator, educator, and arts advocator. She graduated from DeSales University in 2010. Her choreography has been presented at the Philly Fringe, the American College Dance Festival as well as other theatres and collectives throughout Pennsylvania. Lora is the choreographer and artistic director of allendance. As an educator, she is currently the assistant director of Sanford Elite Performing Arts Academy in Somerdale NJ. Lora has previously performed works choreographed by Kate Jewett of Shen Wei Dance Arts, Timothy Cowart, Twyla Tharp's "The One Hundreds", Isabel Gotkowsky, Alwin Nikolais's "Tensile Involvement", Cleo Mack, Kristen Fieseler, Darcy Lyons, and Loren Groenendaal. Lora and allendance is currently an artist in residence at the mascher space co-op in Philadelphia.
Emily Herchenroether , originally from Pittsburgh, graduated in 2010 from Franklin & Marshall College, where she double majored in dance and government. During her senior year, she earned the M. Munson Award in Dance and graduated with honors for her research project, A Creative Legacy . She has performed in three American College Dance Festivals, 2010 Philly Fringe Festival, COLLAGE Festival, separate site-specific productions by choreographers Tori Lawrence and Ashley Lippolis, and work by choreographer Kate Speer. She has studied improvisation with the Architects at the Movement Intensive in Compositional Improvisation (MICI) and has also participated at The Bates Dance Festival. She currently practices, teaches, and performs improvisation with Tori Lawrence, Jaclyn Malat, and Julia Basso in the PA, NJ, and NY areas.
Christina Knipp, from Baltimore, MD, graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in 2009 with a major in Economics and a double minor in Italian and Dance. She has studied various styles of dance, such as ballet, modern, jazz, tap and hip hop. Dance has always played a significant role in her life. She was a member of the Franklin and Marshall College Dance Company for four years. She has performed in various venues, including Franklin & Marshall College, Towson University, Temple University, American College Dance Festival, and in various site-specific dance works. During her senior year, she performed in Lawrence's Ajar: Through the Mind's Eye . She also choreographed in collaboration with Ashley Lippolis for F&M College's Spring Dance Concert. Christina continues to study dance in Washington, D.C., where she currently lives and works
Jaclyn Malat graduated with a joint major in dance and biology from Franklin & Marshall College. She began her dance career in New Jersey where she studied ballet, jazz, and tap. Jaclyn was a member of the F&M Dance Company for four years. During that time, she had the privilege of working with choreographers Jennifer Conley, Tracy Davis, Pamela Vail, and Tori Lawrence. She performed in Lawrence's Source and The Endless Round . She currently practices, teaches, and performs improvisation with Tori Lawrence, Emily Herchenroether, and Julia Basso in the PA, NJ, and NY areas.
coming soon...
Aly Massof, from Baltimore, MD, double majored in dance and philosophy at Frankin & Marshall College. As a performer, she has worked with artists Pamela Vail, Jennifer Conley, and Lynn Brooks, and was in the F&M Dance Company for 4 years. She has also been involved in several choreographic projects, undertaking the choreography for the F&M Players production of "Anything Goes". Massof has had the pleasure of premiering Lawrence's latest site-specific work, "Source" in April 2010 and again in the 2010 Philly Fringe Festival. She also performed a solo in Lawrence's site-specific work, "Ajar: Through the Mind's Eye" in April 2009, and was also fortunate enough to perform alongside Lawrence and Herchenroether in a trio shown at the 2010 Mid-Atlantic American College Dance Festival.
Vicki Brown (violinist/composer) works with musicians and bands, dancers, painters, writers, actors and film makers in the US and abroad. She has recorded two albums, Winter Garden and Seas & Trees , music from which appears in the Oscar-nominated, Emmy award-winning film, Gasland (Josh Fox) and in Tori Lawrence + Company 's Awakened Ruins which premiered at the 2011 Philly Fringe Festival. Vicki was born and raised in southern Wisconsin and began playing violin at age 9. She has since lived in Brazil and Germany, studied spider monkeys in Costa Rica, and received a PhD in Psychology from the University of Arizona. She currently works and lives in Tucson.
Christopher Brooks (violinist) was born and raised in Brooklyn. In high school, he studied at the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Department and during the summer he trained at the arcadian Kinhaven Music School. Attending the New School of Music in Philadelphia (a conservatory founded by members of the Curtis Quartet), he studied violin with Jascha Brodsky and Geoffrey Michaels. He has played chamber music and been a member of numerous orchestras in the US and Europe, including Orquesta Bética Filarmónica de Sevilla (concertmaster), the Frysk Orkest in the Netherlands, and the Reading, York, and Harrisburg Symphonies (concertmaster). Throughout his performing career he has continued to teach privately. His current musical focus is on jazz and free improvisation.
In 1988, he embarked on a successful career as an architectural acoustics consultant and works as a Senior Consultant for the architectural acoustics consulting firm, Acoustic Dimensions. He has published numerous articles and a book, Architectural Acoustics (McFarland 2002), a series of informal essays on architectural acoustics and related subjects. He also contributed to the Integrative Design Guide to Green Building (Wiley Publishing, 2009) by a team who began in green design back when it was a fringe pursuit among architects.
He currently lives in Lancaster, PA with his wife, Lynn Brooks, professor of Dance at Franklin & Marshall College.
Patrick Fink (pianist) was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. He started studying classical piano at the age of five. Eventually he made the switch to jazz and came to Philadelphia to study at Temple University. Patrick had the opportunity there to learn from great jazz musicians such as Bruce Barth, Terell Stafford, Joanna Pascale, and others. As the piano player for the Temple University Big Band, he has had the opportunity to perform with Nicholas Payton, Benny Golson, and Karrin Allyson at venues such as Dizzy's in Lincoln Center, the 2008 Hague Jazz Festival, the Kimmel Center, and the 2009 Detroit Jazz Festival. In addition, Patrick regularly performs all over the Philadelphia area as a leader or sideman in various jazz settings.
Craig Harris (photographer) is based in Philadelphia, PA. He graduated from Franklin & Marshall College in 2009. He originally began taking photographs for the F&M Dance Company, where he met Tori Lawrence. He has been taking photos of Lawrence's work since 2009.
Christopher Landy (cinematographer)
With more than 20 years behind the lens, award-winning cinematographer Christopher Landy creates imagery that is inspiring, insightful and thought-provoking. His work has taken him around the globe - from the teeming avenues of New York, to the small dirt tracks of China and Africa, and all points in between. Christopher has done work for clients such as HBO, NFL Films, Frontline, The BBC, The History Channel and Discovery.
Awakened Ruins
"Founder's Hall at Girard College is one of those Philadelphia treasures you might never know about were it not for artists in search of great spaces. [...] The piece begins with the sound of Christopher Brooks's violin spectacularly reverberating off the domed ceilings. [...] five women dancers caked in white clay and wearing corseted muslin bodices progress through the three adjoining rotundas that were Girard College's first classrooms. Tori Lawrence's choreography, replete with fine articulations and carefully placed tableaux, often resembles a slow-moving sculpture as much as a dance. [...] One breakout moment recalls The Rite of Spring , both in pianist Patrick Fink's rhythms and in the hunkered-down group stomps. [...] Memory, decay, and slow-moving time are rich elements of Awakened Ruins ."
--Lisa Kraus, The Philadelphia Inquirer
venue: Founder's Hall at Girard College (Philadelphia, 2011)
choreographer/director: Tori Lawrence
dancers/collaborators: Emily Herchenroether, Christina Knipp, Tori Lawrence, Ashley Lippolis, Pamela Vail
musicians: Christopher Brooks (violin), Patrick Fink (piano), Vicki Brown
costume design: Tori Lawrence & Virginia West
photographer: Craig Harris
De-manufactured
Performed by Emily Herchenroether and Tori Lawrence, De-manufactured traverses through the rigidity of manufactured elements in man-made architectures and evolves into a world of flesh, awareness, and understanding.
A cold industrial-like atmosphere gradually unfolds a hard stream of light upon the tightly bound duet as they pivot and shift in a compact assembly line. The thick and unyielding metalicness of the movements layer into an other-worldly, mechanical imagery.
"transcends modern dance"
-- Heather Cornell, adjudicator, 2009
Northeast American College Dance Festival
Premiere: American College Dance Festival
March 2009
Choreography: Tori Lawrence
Performance: Emily Herchenroether,
Tori Lawrence
Music: Robert Normandeau; Oliver Kraus
Length: 8 minutes
Ajar: Through the Mind's Eye
A collection of four site-specific dance works that explore various environments and architectures within the rich space of Roschel Performing Arts Center: an enclosing glass box, a desolate studio, an unsteady elevator, and a shadowy orchestra pit.
Performed for an intimate audience of five, Lawrence translocates her viewers into a different world, system, wake, and state of attentiveness as she transforms ordinary places into the unexplored spaces of the human mind.
Premiere: Franklin & Marshall College,
April 2009
Performers: Danielle Giovanni, Emily
Herchenroether, Tina Knipp,
Shakerra Lauther, Tori
Lawrence, Aly Massof, Shana
Silverstein
Locations: dance studio and hallway, front
glass entrance-way, elevator,
orchestra pit
Length: 60 minutes
Tori Lawrence,
Aly Massof
Premiere: American College Dance Festival,
March 2010
Length: 11 minutes
Music: Bing & Ruth
Costume design: Tori Lawrence
BACK TO PORTFOLIO
Source
"Down in the windowless basement of an outmoded power plant, choreographer Tori Lawrence leads a four-woman troupe through the vast, watery darkness. Their dresses soaked, their hair casting arcs of droplets, the dancers careen about the space with little regard for the bewildered audience. They slip and slide, they grab and lift and drop one another, staring straight ahead all the while. That's not a blanket of blankness in their expressions, but of disbelief, terror, resignation, rue. A short film projected atop their bodies and an eerie score by Bing & Ruth only add to the flow. "
--MJ Fine, Philadelphia City Paper
Chosen as one of philly.com's "Faves of the 2010 Philly Fringe"
Click here to read Philly Fringe's interview with Tori Lawrence
Location: Power Plant Productions, Philadelphia (Sept. 2010)
Eastern Market, Lancaster (April 2010)
Length: 50 minutes
Choreographer/Director: Tori Lawrence
Performers: Emily Herchenroether, Tori Lawrence, Jaclyn
Malat, Aly Massof
Costume: Holly Andrew, Virginia West, Tori Lawrence
Photography: Peter Cutler, Craig Harris
Video Installation: Tori Lawrence, Hang Pham
Click here to view photos of Source, taken by the Company's photographer, Craig Harris.
Funded in part by the Nissley Grant from F&M College and by generous donors
The Endless Round
Premiere: April 2010
Choreographer/ Director: Tori Lawrence
Performers: Emily Herchenroether, Jaclyn Malat, Aly Massof
Camera: Tori Lawrence & Hang Pham
Music: Bing and Ruth
Length: 5 minutes
Site: Susquehanna River, York
Finalist for "Best Film" & given honorable mention for "Best Editing" in Franklin & Marshall College's 2010 Student Film Festival
BACK TO DANCE ON FILM PORTFOLIO
Premiere: May, 2009
Directors: Danielle Giovanni,
Dahlia Silberg
Performance: Danielle Giovanni,
Shakerra Lauther,
Shana Silverstein
Camera: Tori Lawrence,
Lighting: Hang Pham
Music: Mysteriam; Giovanni,
Lawrence, & SIlberg
Site: Schnader Theater
orchestra pit, F&M College
Photography by Tori Lawrence
Chennai, India
June 2008
Prints available: contact vlawrenc_fandm.edu
In the Fall of 2011, choreographer Tori Lawrence was invited by Paul Eaton, the Chair of the Fine Arts Department, to become an artist-in-residence at Girard College *. In exchange for using the historic Founder's Hall** as a venue for her site-specific work Awakened Ruins , she and fellow dancer Ashley Lippolis have created a dance program for Girard's Lower School students. Twice a week, the dance students are led through a curriculum that covers creativity, improvisation, and choreography. Rather than a technique-based program, the students learn how to choreograph and perform their own works in a collaborative setting.
*The College is a private boarding school for academically capable students, grades 1-12, from families with limited financial resources that are headed by a single parent or guardian.
**Founder's Hall at Girard College (built 1833-1847) is often considered the finest example of Greek revival architecture in the U.S. Founder's Hall was the school's original classroom building. It has three main floors, each measuring 14,000 square feet.
EVENT
Tucson's Synergistic Water Film Festival
UNCG's conference "The Art of Public Memory"
Cultivate Dance Festival
Philly Fringe Festival
Fresh Juice at the Performance Garage
Lec-dem at Franklin & Marshall College
DanceNOW Silo Guest Artist Residency
Master Class at 171 Cedar Arts Center
New Voices in Live Performance _ the Center for Performance Research
Ponderosa's P.O.R.C.H. Choreography Module
P.O.R.C.H. Performance at Schwelle 7
Mascher Space's Fresh Juice at Christ Church
CITY
Tucson, AZ
Greensboro, NC
Bethlehem, NH
Philadelphia, PA
Lancaster, PA
Kirkland Farm, PA
Corning, NY
Brooklyn, NY
Stolzenhagen, Germany
Berlin, Germany
MORE INFO
view info
DATE
March 24, 2011
April 9, 2011
Aug. 19-21, 2011
Sept. 10, 11 & 17, 2011
Oct. 13 & 15, 2011
Oct. 23, 2011
Feb. 27 - March 2, 2012
March 10, 2012
May 7, 2012
Aug. 17 - Sept. 9, 2012
Sept. 8, 2012
Oct. 25-28, 2012
venue: The Loft Cinema, Tucson, AZ
piece: "The Endless Round"
description: film screening of Tori Lawrence's dance on film "The Endless Round" in THE WATER PROJET: Tucson's Synergistic Water Festival. Tucson's Synergistic Water Festival (2nd Annual) integrates arts, science and culture to raise awareness, promote stewardship, inspire ideas, and foster creative expression about our water future.
THURSDAY, MARCH 24
WATER FESTIVAL FILM FEST _ 7-9pm
_ The Loft, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd.
Local and national experimental and documentary water films
$8 Gen./$6 Members, Students, Seniors
more info: www.waterfestivaltucson.org
venue: University of North Carolina at Greensboro's Dance Theater
piece: "Source" (excerpt)
description: Tori Lawrence will present the theater-adapted version of "Source" at UNCG's The Art of Public Memory. She will also briefly discuss her undergraduate thesis, "Memory, Perception, and Architecture in Relation to Choreography." THE ART OF PUBLIC MEMORY is an international, interdisciplinary conference exploring intersections of the arts, memory, and history. The conference brings together scholars, activists, educators, and artists in an exchange of academic papers, panels, workshops, and performances.
UNCG's Dance Theater
Saturday, April 9, 2011
9-12 PM
more info: conference website
venue: Kirkland Farm, Bucks County, PA
description: Tori Lawrence, along with dancers Ashley Lippolis and Lora Allen, will be in residence at Kirkland Farm for 1 week, where they will commence their newest project: a dance on film.
"Kirkland Farm, with its two barn studios, three-story guest house and sprawling landscape, has made it possible to offer artists and friends in the field of dance an inspiring haven in which they can come together to process, create and just escape the pressures of city life for a few days and continue the Kirkland legacy of the farm as being home to the artistic community. Kirkland Farm is located just 76 miles from NYC and 56 miles from Philadelphia."
venue: Underground Arts at The Wolf Building, Philadelphia, PA
piece: excerpt of "Awakened Ruins"
performers: Emily Herchenroether, Christina Knipp, Ashley Lippolis
musicians: Christopher Brooks, Patrick Fink
description: Choreographer Tori Lawrence will premiere an excerpt of her current site-specific dance installation at Philadelphia's COLLAGE Collaborative Arts Festival. She is collaborating with live musicians Christopher Brooks and Patrick Fink. Enthralled by the process of how architecture and sculpted spaces mature/age over time, this piece will attempt to create a world that embodies such a process.
----------
piece: Untitled (a collaborative project with visual artist, Jason Maas)
performers: Emily Herchenroether, Ashley Lippolis
description: Artists Tori Lawrence and Jason Maas are collaborating on a film installation that will be shown in Philadelphia's COLLAGE Collaborative Arts Festival.
COLLAGE Collaborative Arts Festival
May 6 & 7, 2011
Underground Arts at The Wolf Building
more info: festival website
We will be participating in the week-long workshop Movement Intensive in Compositional Improvisation , led by The Architects (Katherine Ferrier, Lisa Gonzales, Pamela Vail, Jennifer Kayle)
Franklin & Marshall College
June 19-25, 2011
more info: architectsdance.org/mici
venue: Founder's Hall at Girard College (Philadelphia)
piece: Awakened Ruins: a site-specific dance & music installation
performers: Emily Herchenroether, Christina Knipp, Tori Lawrence, Ashley Lippolis, Pamela Vail
musicians: Christopher Brooks, Patrick Fink, Vicki Brown
