User:Daynahanson

Dayna Hanson
Dayna Hanson is a choreographer and multidisciplinary artist based in Seattle, WA. Her work in dance theater and dance film has been presented internationally, both as an individual artist and as co-artistic director, with Gaelen Hanson, of dance theater company 33 Fainting Spells.

Early career
Dayna studied short fiction writing at University of Washington, where she received the Loren D. Milliman Prize for Short Fiction. Shortly after receiving a bachelor's degree in English literature Hanson embarked on a path of self-training in choreography. After creating and performing numerous short dance pieces in cabaret settings in Seattle, she co-founded The Run/Remain Ensemble with filmmaker/director Gregg Lachow, cellist Lori Goldston and her brother Kyle Hanson. Megan Murphy later joined Run/Remain and the group made seven full-length multidisciplinary performances in two years.

33 Fainting Spells
In 1994 she co-founded 33 Fainting Spells with Gaelen Hanson. Between 1994 and 2006, 33 Fainting Spells produced six evening-length dance theater pieces, including The Uninvited, Sorrow’s Sister, Maria The Storm Cloud, September September, Dirty Work and Our Little Sunbeam. The company was commissioned and presented by dozens of venues across the U.S. and in Europe, including On the Boards, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Walker Art Center, Dance Umbrella Austin, Miami Light Project, New York Live Arts, Institute for Contemporary Art/London, Kunstlerhaus Mousonturm/Frankfurt, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Philly Live Arts Festival, Spoleto Festival, Wexner Center for the Arts and many other venues.

33 Fainting Spells received grants and awards for their work from National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, MAP Fund and Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, among other funding organizations. As a duo, Hanson and Hanson were twice nominated for The Alpert Award in the Arts.

Dance Theater
During their tenure, 33 Fainting Spells received acclaim for their blend of athletic, rhythmically intricate choreography, pedestrian movement and inclusion of narrative and dramatic elements. Visual design in their work made unexpected use of ordinary furniture and everyday objects. They often juxtaposed disparate literary and cinematic source materials and, over time, increasingly integrated text and video into their work. Named after a 1935 adaptation of Anton Chekhov short stories by Russian constructivist director Vsevolod Meyerhold, the company incorporated text of Chekhov in two of their productions, Dirty Work and Our Little Sunbeam.

Dance Film
Out of their own growing interest in dance film, Hanson and Hanson introduced the genre to Seattle audiences with a biennial festival of international dance film, New Dance Cinema, which was produced by 33 Fainting Spells in partnership with Northwest Film Forum from 1999-2005.

In 2001 Hanson and Hanson co-directed Measure, a seven-minute dance film shot by Alan Caudillo, edited by Lynn Shelton and produced by Carlo Scandiuzzi. Featuring Dayna’s choreography and performances by Dayna and John Dixon, Measure can be found on First Run Features’ Dance for Camera DVD. Measure has screened at more than 50 festivals and film centers worldwide, including New York Film Festival and Edinburgh International Film Festival. The company directed a second short dance film, Entry, in 2002.

Recent Work
Since 33 Fainting Spells’ dissolution in 2006, Dayna Hanson has directed three full-length dance theater works, all commissioned by On the Boards in Seattle: We Never Like Talking About The End, Gloria’s Cause and The Clay Duke. Gloria’s Cause toured North America in 2011 and 2012 and was called “a delicious dance-theater investigation of the American Revolution” by American Theatre Magazine. Dayna is represented by ArKtype.

Dayna's short dance films include Diesel Engine, A Moving Portrait of Me and My Dad, Rainbow and Improvement Club (short version).

Improvement Club
Dayna’s first feature-length film, Improvement Club, is a hybrid film that combines narrative with dance film elements and original music to tell the story of a hard-luck performance troupe in search of an audience. Improvement Club premiered in Narrative Competition at South by Southwest Film Festival in 2013 and is currently in the festival circuit. Produced by Mel Eslyn and shot by longtime collaborator Benjamin Kasulke, Improvement Club is a semi-fictionalized adaptation of Dayna's dance theater production, Gloria's Cause.

Awards
Among numerous grants and awards, Dayna received the Artist Trust Arts Innovator Award in 2012 and United States Artists Oliver Fellowship in Dance in 2010. She is 2006 recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Choreography. She has received grants from MAP Fund, National Dance Project, National Performance Network, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, 4Culture and others. Dayna received an Artist Trust Media Fellowship in 2009.