Hatch Dance New Work Fund

Join us as we embark on our next bold new project, bringing together artists for innovative collaboration.  

Your support ensures we can continue to develop, connect, and share.

Here’s what we are dreaming up:

Hatch Dance is excited to undertake a new collaborative dance theater piece about sleep, dreaming, and rest. How to Cultivate Your REM Cycle will follow a burned out narrator who is seeking better sleep for increased productivity. Convinced that a recently purchased guidebook entitled “How to Cultivate Your REM Cycle” will have the answers, the piece unfolds as they try to follow increasingly complicated and convoluted instructions, navigating dreams and nightmares.

Through the creative process we will explore how the immense challenges of modernity impact not just sleep, but also disrupt our ability to trust what is within us. We will look at the absurdities of individualist solutions that disconnect us further from nature and each other. An allegory combining dance, theater, music, and philosophy, this piece will shed light on what we can do, together, to make this realm more hospitable for everyone.

Beyond this initial concept, we don’t know a whole lot about this new work yet. But that’s the point. If we knew, there would be no reason to make the piece.

This GIVE TO THE MAX DAY, November 21st, 2024, Hatch Dance is raising funds for the initial research and development of How to Cultivate Your REM Cycle. 

What does this first phase entail?

• Meetings with Artistic Director/choreographer Helen Hatch, theater director Jon Ferguson, and How to cultivate your REM Cycle protagonist Artemis Brown to begin conceiving the work, it’s themes, and script.

• Assembling the cast and crew

• Initial movement research rehearsals to develop vocabulary and choreographic scores that will be used it the larger rehearsal process.

• Production meetings and planning for Twin Cities premiere of the work in late 2025. 

Why it matters:

It’s evident in the work we make. 

Our projects are unique in the dance community, built through play, informed by discovery. We offer them because we see and feel their impact on performers and audience members. During past projects, we’ve witnessed artists dive deep and invest emotionally, leading to performances that then resonate with audiences. We see this as no accident, but rather a result of the creative process that values individual artists contributions while staying true to the logic of the work.

“There is a certain logic that begins to emerge, regardless of what we think a piece will be when we start. The task is to find that logic and let it guide the way. We make more material than we could possibly need, so in the process of selecting what stays, the possibilities are infinite. It becomes vital to listen to the work and let intuition lead. The more we listen, the work expands beyond us and into its own.”  -Helen Hatch

“Hatch has shown herself to be a choreographer willing to take risks. She often takes an intuitive approach to dance-making, discovering the work with the dancers as part of the process.” -Sheila Regan, Star Tribune

“The show knocked my socks off. I can’t say why exactly, and it doesn’t really matter, but I was deeply moved. I cried several times and felt changed afterwards. Lighter, more hopeful.” -Hatch Dance audience member via post performance survey

Our productions are artist-centered, providing paid work for a community with limited jobs. 2024 has seen the loss of dance companies and theaters, and opportunities are scarce. Our sensitive creative process and high caliber work attracts more artists than we can hire and our contracts are coveted because we bring new artists together, forging bonds that extend beyond the final curtain.

“Hatch Dance has been an invaluable part of my artistic trajectory. They bring together artists who may not otherwise work together, forming an inspiring community of varied ages, movement experiences and interests.” -Gemma Isaacson, dancer.

GIVE TO THE MAX!

Your support ensures Hatch Dance can continue to develop artistically, connect collaboratively, and share broadly to new and old audiences alike. 

A donation of any size brings us closer to our goals.

 Thank you for your consideration and support!