20180519-DSC_7840-1.jpg
 

The naked STark

A West Philly Modern Dance Company



Photo: JH Kertis, featuring Chloe Marie, Sean Thomas Boyt, Marisa 
Illingworth, Brionna Williams, Melissa Chisena in Visible Structures

Who we are

 

Founded in 2009, The Naked Stark is a West Philly modern dance company rooted in an intergenerational community.  Guided by artistic director Katherine Kiefer Stark, The Naked Stark brings together Philadelphia movement artists and musicians to collaborate on live dance projects.  Our collaborative process engages artists committed to the investigation of social consciousness through movement and sound. 

Our work is made possible by funds from the Philadelphia Cultural Fund and donations of money and time from individuals. 
The Naked Stark is a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit arts service organization.

Our Mission

The Naked Stark creates modern dance works, facilitates workshops, and engages in weekly movement practices that ask complex questions and spark imagination and discussion. Socially conscious, socially engaged, and socially critical, we strive to center how movement, community, and change are intimately interconnected. Our work is honest, human, and vulnerable; it engages folks through participation, physicality, and design.

Our Values and Our process

  • Center our work in movement, community, and change 

  • Anti-Oppressive Framework

  • Self-care & Community Care

  • Continually Evolving Collaborative Structures 

  • Financial Transparency 

Learn More HERE

Current collaborators

 

& MORE

croptry.jpg

HAPPENING(S)

Dancing & Making Dances: Moving through the pandemic

Here we are in April (or May? or March 84?) (1)2020

 

Image above freeze frame from a Zoom recording. Top left to bottom right: Harlee Trautman, Katherine Kiefer Stark, Sean Thomas Boyt, Andy Thierauf, Marisa Illingworth, Chloe Marie


current sharing/performing

February 16th, 7pm
@ Mascher
1170 S Broad

Free / PWYC


Our current collaborative project is Falling Up

The Falling Up Zine cover. Text reads, "Falling Up Zine, a radical imagining."

The cover of the Falling Up Zine. A collage The six collaborators in various states of falling up—balloons, a ladder, a wood wall, a checkerboard floor, and a tube man all feature.

The Falling Up zine (mini-DIY magazine) offers a deeper dive into the layers underneath our new performance work, more opportunities to imagine with us, and seeds for where we might take this work next.  

Available for purchase now!



JOIN US IN THE STUDIO!

 

falling into here

WITH KATHERINE KIEFER STARK

Thursdays, 2/29, 3/7, 3/14, 3/121

7-8:30pm

Mascher Space
1170 S Broad Street

Drop-in: $12-$18**

Class card: $40 for 4 classes

Katherine is excited to offer this Movement Practice series exploring arrivals. We’ll move with and through momentum, spirals, and circles to arrive at predetermined and surprising destinations. Join for an imaginative, sensation-propelled movement experience.

Learn more about movement practice


**No one turned away for lack of funds, reach out to offer an exchange or pay what you can.

Accessibility info: There are three steps into the building. Non-gendered bathrooms are located down a flight of stairs in the basement.

Please email info.thenakedstark@gmail.com with access needs or questions.

 

Creative movement workshop

WITH AUBREY DONISCH + KATHERINE KIEFER STARK

Sundays, October 15th, 22nd, & 29th
11:15am - 12:30pm

The Cedar Works
4919 Pentridge Street

Sliding Scale $30-$60 for 3 class series

A 3 class series for those looking to rekindle their love of dance and movement. We will work as a community to build our movement skills, find greater ease in our bodies, take healthy risks, and learn new, creative ways to move.

This workshop is open to those with any amount of dance experience and those with and without disabilities.



**No one turned away for lack of funds, reach out to offer an exchange or pay what you can.

ADA Accessibile
Please email info.thenakedstark@gmail.com with access needs or questions.

 

Photography by Ashley Smith

Image Description:
The graphic's text reads, "falling into here, 7-8:30pm, 2/29, 3/7, 3/14, 3/21, Mascher Space 1170 S Broad St., drop-in: $12-18.”
Three dancers fall onto the high, medium, and low steps of the “chairstep” set piece. Amalia is splayed, Katherine drapes, and Meredith slumps. The Naked Stark foot logo partners with the text "Movement Practice." End image description.

 

Text reads, “Creative Movement Workshop. October 15th, 22nd, 29th. 11:15am-12:30pm. A photo of a group of people of all ages outside, surrounded by trees. They are dancing together, in a circle surrounding a dancer who is jumping straight up into the air.

Photo by JH Kertis

  • Katherine is a Philadelphia-based teaching artist and artistic director of The Naked Stark. She has been teaching modern dance for close to twenty years, working primarily with adults and teens. Katherine has been a teaching artist with a variety of organizations and institutions including, Bryn Mawr College, Stockton University, Cultivate Dance Festival, American College Dance Association, Durham Juvenile Detention Center, and Enloe High School. Currently she is adjunct faculty at Widener University and offers a weekly drop-in release-based movement practice at Mascher Space. Katherine loves to facilitate dance as a community practice and creative space, deepening awareness, exploring how one’s own body moves within the movement, and finding joy and power in our creative bodies.

  • Aubrey is a teaching artist from Minneapolis, MN where she grew up dancing in a company for youth with and without disabilities. With ten years of teaching experience, Aubrey has taught modern dance to all ages, folks across the spectrum of disability, and those with varying relationships to dance and movement. She currently teaches at The Creative Living Room and has been a teaching artist with Allens Lane Art Center, the Park Avenue Community Center, Bryn Mawr College, University City Arts League, Young Dance, Keshet Dance and Center for the Arts, and the Semilla Center for Healing and the Arts. Aubrey loves to facilitate dance as a creative process and space for discovery, fostering positive body awareness and celebrating personal expression and collaboration.

 

About Release-based Movement PRactice

with Katherine Kiefer Stark

Photo: Sean Thomas Boyt, Movement Practice at Mascher Space Cooperative 2017

Photo: Sean Thomas Boyt, Movement Practice at Mascher Space Cooperative 2017

PRACTICE

Blending Kline Technique, Safety Release Technique, and release technique, my class is an energetic exploration of movement from the inside out.  Emphasis is placed on the initiation of the movement and the path the various body parts take in space to discover how one's own body moves with/in the movement.  We embrace the space through phrases that move in and out of the floor and carry us in and out of balance.  I bring all of these ideas together through material that is infused with what I am researching, passionate about, and is foundational to the aesthetics I love.  Class begins quietly and gradually builds in complexity, culminating in a dynamic phrase.  Sleeves and knee-pads or long pants are recommended.

PHILOSOPHY AND ROOTS

Movement practice is a space for taking risks, making mistakes, and honing craft.  My teaching approaches aim to create a holistic study of release-based techniques that explores movement as culturally informed, politically charged, and aesthetically particular.  This philosophy is deeply informed by theories from the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, Dr. Ann Dils, and Dr. Brenda Dixon Gottschild.  My physicality is strongly influenced by the studio practices of BJ Sullivan and Jeremy Nelson. 

Among the movement/dance techniques I have studied, release techniques and Safety Release Technique fit best with how I like to move and with my values.  These techniques appreciate and make space for the uniqueness of each mover’s body.  Movement is learned through understanding the initiation of the movement, the path the various body parts take in space, and in discovering how one’s own body moves with/in the movement.  This approach to movement values, develops, and supports self-awareness.  My language around movement is continuously evolving as I search for words and imagery that resonate with the folks who are in the room. 

In semester long courses, I explore postmodern movement aesthetics in relationship to the principles of Africanist aesthetic - Polycentrism/Polyrhythm, Embracing the Conflict, High-Affect Juxtaposition - and European aesthetic - Monocentrism, Resolving the Conflict, Arch Between Ideas - as outlined by Dr. Brenda Dixon Gottschild, as well the qualities - indirect/direct, heavy/light, quick/sustained, bound/unbound - from Laban.  I weave these in more sporadically during weekly drop-in movement practice.