SUPERCELL
premiering 2023
available for touring

SUPERCELL is an evening-length multidisciplinary quintet performance, responding to climate change, media sensationalism, desensitization, & environmental collapse. The title refers to supercells, large storms of deep, persistent updrafts often resulting in many tornadoes. While supercells are terrifying, ominous, and harbingers of great damage, they are simultaneously breathtaking environmental events when witnessed from afar. The effect is similar to sensationalist media, instantly amplifying catastrophic events for an insatiable public consumption. 

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Throughout the creation process we will consult with advisory cohorts in Maryland and Pittsburgh, composed of scientists, educators, climate activists, anthropologists, sociologists, sustainable design experts and a dramaturgical advisor.

In addition to public facing performances, SUPERCELL project also houses a companion workshop titled De-Mystifying the Box. Within this workshop, slowdanger will engage participants in creative process frameworks and somatic experiences to sense deeper into the micro-ecosystems of our bodies. We will use groove, effort, awareness modalities, and authentic movement to move collectively for 1.5 hours. The final half hour will be used to engage in a collective dialogue process surrounding the themes of SUPERCELL and the local impacts of the climate crisis on our Pittsburgh community. 

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SUPERCELL serves as part 2 in a trilogy of slowdanger works, alongside “VLX” (pt. 1, 2018) and “empathy machine” (pt. 3, 2019). The work will premier in-person in 2023 at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and the Kelly Strayhorn Theater. 

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After hosting a SUPERCELL technical residency at the National Center for Choreography-Akron earlier this year, NCCAkron Executive/Artistic Director Christy Bolingbroke reflected, "With SUPERCELL, slowdanger has accomplished the best that contemporary art and performance can offer - an embodied experience for the viewer perhaps overwhelmed by processing the enormous weight of today's issues and the spectrum of feelings that may surface at any moment, even the absolute absurdity of living through these times."

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directed by: 

taylor knight  | anna thompson

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SUPERCELL collaborating artists:
Aj Libert |  | Nile Harris

kira shiina | Jasmine Hearn | Christian Warner

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SUPERCELL design collaborators:
ProjectileObjects (Set and Technology)

Harbour Edney (Lighting)

Mad Recital (Costumes)

Jasmine Hearn (Additional Sound and Bibliography)

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advisory committee:

michelle king | Nathan Darity | Jennifer Roberts | Jasmine Hearn | Heather Kelley

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project manager:

Joshua Bristow

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SUPERCELL is made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Mellon Foundation..

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SUPERCELL is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-
commissioned by Kelly Strayhorn Theater and NPN. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the

Doris Duke Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency).
For more information: www.npnweb.org

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Funding for the SUPERCELL was provided by the A W Mellon Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation

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SUPERCELL  is also supported by the Opportunity Fund and The Heinz Endowments, with additional residency support from NCCAkron, The Space Upstairs and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Department of Dance. 

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