CATHERINE CABEEN
PRESS
Give Me More at Theater for the New City 2018
Catherine Cabeen/Hyphen’s “Give Me More” is a Rallying Cry for Action
“The three-part, 75-minute work on January 26 led off with “Glitter in the Gutter,” a wonderfully incisive comedic duet with choreography, text and luminous performances by Cabeen and Kristina Berger… The second piece, “This American Koan” highlights gender roles, overconsumption and environmental destruction and provokes big questions, which should give us all pause… The ensuing scenes hit the mark, with word and movement by the seven skilled performers, who put on and take off the various garments, which are still attached together… (In) The final section, “…yet again,”…Her strong, assertive dance proclaims self-empowerment and advocacy for others. We can’t wait for the next installment.”
Bonnie Rosenstock ExploreDance.com 1/26/18
https://www.exploredance.com/article.htm?id=4839
“In this imaginative reflection on gender politics within the dance world, Catherine Cabeen / Hyphen extends to the Theater for a New City audience three delicious morsels of commentary and offers the audience a full palette of sensations to savor...Through yogic centeredness, contemporary extensions and elongated extremities, Cabeen and company exhibit brilliant use of speed and dynamic juxtaposition in their work and allow the audience to settle comfortably into the knowledge that resides within the bodies of each dancer… a multifaceted gem of social commentary… Cabeen’s fluctuation between the traditional male and contemporary female brings with it a conversation of tension and release with a through-line of truth and a woven theme of strength from beginning to end…Cabeen’s musicality, lyrical energy and respectful acknowledgment of both the male and female energies that humans possess holds the attention of the audience with a gentle yet attentive security and reminds those watching that no one has power over what we think, and to have strength to disagree with those who feel they do. That humans are more than the sum of our parts is made manifest by Catherine Cabeen / Hyphen’s work ‘Give Me More’ and the responsibility of honoring all aspects of the human soul is met and excelled by the talents of each performer in the company.”
Brandon Kazen-Maddox EYE ON THE ARTS, NY 1/30/18
“…Whether speaking about bullying, sexual abuse, racial inequity, gender, immigration or the environment, one can feel the desire of the dance community to be involved and seen. They are calling out concerns of our time by embodying them theatrically, imploring audiences to action, recognition, healing, or maybe, in a manner that only the arts can, a new way of understanding. Catherine Cabeen, an infinitely curious and engaged woman, is part of this artistic movement. Passionate about digging into world issues, she challenges herself as professor, choreographer, and dancer to dynamically add her voice to larger discussions. Give Me More, her latest work, was partly inspired by a 2015 lecture she attended on the United Nations’ shifting point of view regarding addressing world goals.
…Today 200 pounds of donated clothing — yes, that’s 200 pounds of discarded scraps donated by the fashion industry and Cabeen’s students at Marymount Manhattan College — form a continuous web of interrelated parts that has become an integral prop for her company to navigate. Cabeen found the clothes to be loaded with issues that she is interested in diving into: gender, class, age, consumerism, and desire, being a few. Says Cabeen, “I got excited about the idea of collecting recycled clothing and stitching it together, and what that said about connectivity.” …In Give Me More, Cabeen takes on the dance establishment while performing in drag, as a character called THE DUDE: “He is everything I never want to be, and quite frankly, he is everything that is so common in the dance world. I am trying to push this performance over the top in order to make visible a level of misogyny and emotional abuse that I think is so pervasive, so common, that it’s almost invisible."”
Christine Jowers Dance Enthusiast 1/22/18
“This Thursday, Catherine Cabeen/Hyphen presents Give Me More, a world premiere, at Theater for the New City. The three-part work explores “the relationship between conditioning, consumption, and self-worth.” The evening-length work about desire, and how it shapes us, begins with a duet called “Glitter in the Gutter” and is followed by two other sections exploring consumer consumption, gender roles, and personal agency. Featuring Cabeen and Kristina Berger, the first section tracks different chapters in their lives as dancers and deals with the desire for different identities as time goes on. According to Cabeen: “It points out that ‘the grass is always greener on the other side,’ but that when you get there, it may turn out to be astroturf…” Candice Thompson engaged the two in an email conversation about their dance lives leading up to this moment and how mining their experiences resulted in a rich, and hilarious, collaboration…”
Candice Thompson diy Dancer 1/24/18
As part of Group Shows 2015-18
“One of the most engaging works opened the second half of the program. Catherine Cabeen, founder of the interdisciplinary performance group Hyphen (NYC) created and performed . . .yet again. Danced to music by Westin Oxking Portillo and a text in which Cabeen and Jeff Morrison have an infuriatingly civil conversation about women’s choice and oppression – filled with words and phrases like “emotional” and “your kind” and “your place” – Cabeen’s lanky body moves from agitated angular movements to swirls and curves that exude confidence and control... ...yet again is visually satisfying and emotionally cathartic.”
Julinda D. Lewis RVART Reviews 4/29/18
“While all the contributions were of a high caliber, the solos by Karlie Budge and Catherine Cabeen stood out, as did group works by Samuel Pott and Pascal Rioult… Catherine Cabeen’s gorgeous angles and leggy, luscious tilts in Left embody the sensuality of many a Graham goddess. Accompanied by DJ Cheb, i Sabbath, and Mos Def, Cabeen adds hip-hop swagger to the archetype.
Christine Jowers The Dance Enthusiast 1/18/17
“In its fourth year, the festival continues to attract high-level artists, including principals and soloists from the Martha Graham Dance Company and 2015 festival sweetheart Catherine Cabeen, artistic director of modern dance company Hyphen.”
Marni Elyse Katz The Boston Globe 7/15/16
Preview of the Cape Dance Festival 2015 featuring Catherine Cabeen – Hyphen and Jeffery Cirio
Jeanette de Beauvoir Provincetown Magazine 7/17/15
http://provincetownmagazine.com/2015/07/22/dancing-with-and-beneath-the-stars/
Fire! at On the Boards 2013
"a beautiful, steady-pulsed piece of work, propelled by a trance-inducing score…blurring the boundaries between capture and embrace"
Michael UpChurch, The Seattle Times, 1/17/13
http://seattletimes.com/html/thearts/2020162432_cabeenreviewxml.html?prmid=head_main
"Riveting… an engrossing feast for the senses... a mysterious, wondrous universe that won’t be soon forgotten"
Alice Kaderlan, Crosscut.com 1/18/13
http://crosscut.com/2013/01/19/dance/112559/how-do-you-dance-fire/
"...the solo artist, separated from herself, confronts the archetypes in her subconscious... Her choreography is brilliant."
Omar Wiley, The Seattle Star 1/18/13
http://www.seattlestar.net/2013/01/catherine-cabeen-fires-away/
"...a complex and abstract piece of work—there is no straightforward story or plot, rather the piece is rich with the physical expression of emotion and choreography that is admirably danced... exquisite"
Rachel Gallaher, City Arts, 1/18/13
http://cityartsonline.com/color-and-collision-catherine-cabeens-fire
"Any time Catherine Cabeen moves her limbs and allows an audience, you should run, not walk. As a dancer, she is undeniably extraordinary. It does not matter what the movement is. She will not let go of your eyes as long as she is onstage. The tiniest roll of her shoulder, a knee slowly turning out, the release of a hip joint—every motion means."
Jen Graves, Stranger SLOG, 1/19/2013
"entrancing...powerful...discursive"
Michael van Baker, Sunbreak, 1/19,/2013
Where They May @ Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park 2012
“… one of the city's most exciting dance troupes”
-Melissa Davis Seattle Times, Aug 16, 2012
http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/picturethis/2018938335_contemporarydanceinstallation.html
Ready, Aim… in On the Boards NW New Works Festival 2012
“Choreographer Catherine Cabeen has chosen the studio space for a new solo work that continues her experimentation with text. “Ready, Aim…” retells the story of 20th century dance history and allows Cabeen to talk frankly about her experience as a female dancer who was literally shaped by the “shots” her teachers, directors and audiences took at a her body. The intimate studio will enable her to connect more closely with the audience and gauge its reaction more readily than in the larger upstairs theater.”
-Alice Kaderlan Crosscut, 6/6/12, “When the creative process is the main act”
“The first weekend of On the Boards' experimental showcase, the 2012 NW New Works Festival, was wildly uneven. But its best moments — provided by choreographers Catherine Cabeen and Kate Wallich and by singer-chorale leader Sara Edwards — were knockouts… Cabeen's "Ready, Aim ... " started out as a dreamy intersection between Cabeen and a huge expanse of silvery cellophane. With her usual command, Cabeen kept you off-balance, making you wonder whether there might be more than one person rattling around under the gleaming material… Then, emerging from her crackling cocoon, she abruptly turned to the audience and asked, "I don't know — is this working?" …What followed was a hilarious monologue on dancers' body-image insecurities and what Cabeen called the "meaningless-crotch-in-contemporary-dance" issue (demonstrated as she moved continually in time with her own caustic commentary). Cabeen is slated to do a piece called "Fire!" next season at OtB. If this is an excerpt from it, I can't wait to see the whole thing.”
-Michael Upchurch Seattle Times 6/12/12
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/2018406763.html
“Cabeen's rants are clearly necessary and still timely even now when we're riding the third or fourth wave…”
Amanda Manitach, CityArtsOnLine, June 10, 2012
http://www.cityartsonline.com/nw-new-works-boards
Press on Hyphen's repertory program 2012
Catherine Cabeen: A Top-Tier Dance Talent In Seattle: A New Show This Weekend Reveals New Facets To This Charismatic Dancer And Dance-Maker.
“Catherine Cabeen is a riveting performer. She has extensions that reach to the sky, the grace of a gazelle, and a ferocious intensity that makes it impossible to look away when she’s on stage…Every move she makes, whether it’s the intricate articulation of a finger or the undulation of her torso, is a study in physical discipline and elegance.”
- Alice Kaderlan, crosscut.com March 24, 2012
http://crosscut.com/2012/03/24/dance/22123/Catherine-Cabeen:-a-top-tier-dance-talent-in-Seattle/
Cabeen's 'Hybrid 2012' Plays Brilliant Mix-And-Match At Velocity
“There aren't many pleasures to equal watching dancer Catherine Cabeen in performance with musician Kane Mathis… In "5 Windows," she attaches herself to him, balancing against him and all but perching on top of him at times — this, while Mathis dazzles the audience with a virtuoso performance on the oud.
Cabeen's precise yet fluid articulation of her hips, torso, shoulders, limbs and digits "reads" like the most cadenced, seductive prose, full of bright imagery and subtle repartee.”
- Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times, March 23, 2012
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2017823138_dr24cabeen.html?prmid=head_more
Catherine Cabeen’s Hyphen Will Leave You Breathless
“Cabeen’s choreography treats your brain as an erogenous zone…every inch of Cabeen is expressive, from the shape of and tension in her fingers and toes, to a sinuous wave kicking up as if from the pelvic floor, to her fondness for arabesques forced past the pretty.”
- Michael van Baker, Sunbreak, March 23, 2012
http://thesunbreak.com/2012/03/23/catherine-cabeens-hyphen-will-leave-you-breathless/
CCC Premires Four New Works At Velocity
“Choreographer Catherine Cabeen's intricate weaving of energy and limbs has no equal… Add to the mix Kane Mathis's musical prowess on the oud , a traditional North African and Middle Eastern instrument, and one's body immediately becomes lulled into every detail of Cabeen and Mathis's interactions.
Cabeen's dancers and collaborators are dedicated to the work so much so that you can feel it with every balance and leap, and strum of the oud. Those looking to be inspired to get to dance class, wondering what new boundary to push in choreography, or wanting to see some spectacular bodies truly moving, should not miss Hyphen 2012.
- Jacqueline Brock, Seattle Dances, March 24, 2012
http://seattledances.blogspot.com/2012/03/ccc-premiers-four-new-works-at-velocity.html
Dance and Music Share the Stage in Catherine Cabeen’s Hyphen 2012
“Cabeen is hypnotizing. Whether it’s her primal movement or her piercing stare, she commands the stage (and the audience’s attention) with every whipping move, every body roll and every kick. The physical exertion was visible in the sweat that flew off her body. She dances like a fiend… Cabeen’s repertoire this time around was simpler than the evening-length show at On the Boards last year, but it was no less stunning.”
- Rachel Gallaher, City Arts, March 23, 2012
Joining Disciplines with a Hyphen: Catherine Cabeen and Company at Velocity
“Catherine Cabeen is an intelligent dancer. She’s known for being passionate, dynamic, vivid and beautiful–all of which is certainly true. What she is less known for is having interests that are not purely dance… Catherine Cabeen’s work is… a testament to the belief that dance can be intelligent and provoke not just emotional responses but thoughtful responses as well. Where many choreographers and dancers are content to approach dance as either a reason to create visual imagery or to turn motion into emotion, Ms. Cabeen prefers to probe more thoroughly. She is obviously a woman who thinks deeply about dance not simply from the physical point of view but from the meaningful point of view as well.”
- Omar Wiley, Seattle Star, March 25, 2012
Cabeen’s Gravitas in Boost Dance Festival 2012
“Next was Catherine Cabeen’s Gravitas, a solo work putting on full display the magnificence of the human ability to jump. Rich with smokiness, the soundtrack, composed by trumpeter Chad McCullough, inspired perilous choreography that burst from the floor like breaths from the underworld, each leap hovering like plumes of volcanic ash. Though Cimmerian in color, the work also has an incredible lightness, performed effortlessly by Karena Birk, a testament to Cabeen’s uncanny eye for striking visuals.”
- Steve Ha, Seattle Dances, March 17, 2012
http://seattledances.blogspot.com/2012/03/2012-boost-dance-festival-week-1.html
“Ms. Birk also gets a lovely solo dance in Catherine Cabeen’s latest piece Gravitas… by turns elegant, witty and even blissful: an excellent balance, doubtless helped along by Ms. Birk’s natural savoir vivre. “
- Omar Wiley, Seattle Star, March 20, 2012
http://www.seattlestar.net/2012/03/owilley/boost-dance-festival/
Press on Hyphen 2011 at the Joyce SoHo
“…highly kinetic, complex movement… Tall and long-limbed, with a beautiful line and gorgeously arched feet, Ms. Cabeen is her own greatest asset. In an opening solo, “Composites,” she demonstrates the fundamentals of her style, clearly built on her own capacities for rapid change of dynamics, sudden bodily isolations and luxurious, balletic extensions. …Ms. Cabeen’s movement invention can be fascinating. In another solo, “Breeze” (danced here by Sarah Lustbader), she invokes hip-hop and martial arts. In a duet, “Distances,” Ms. Cabeen and Echo Gustafson move with slow, sculptural, yogic coilings, and in a final solo, “Segments,” Ms. Cabeen enacts a kind of demonic possession as Mr. Mathis plays marvelous rippling sounds on the kora. … “Chromatic Dispersion,” a visually exquisite duet, beautifully performed by Ms. Lustbader and Ms. Gustafson. Deploying Mr. Cepress’s giant paper fans, fastened to one side of the body, they first unfold them into peacock-like semicircles, then pull them out to encircle their bodies. The evocations are multiple: kimonos, flamenco dresses, tents, sculpture, Picasso’s designs for “Parade.” Neither costume nor movement would mean much without the other. Now that’s collaboration.”
-Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times, May 13, 2011
“…Cabeen herself is a feast for the eyes, not only as a mover but as a crafter. Composites was a thesis statement of sorts for the evening. A solo set to music by Julian Martlew, and the text of writer Jay Mcleer it is built on a phonic movement vocabulary that reflects the text. The work shows not only her range and a dancer (technique clean as a whistle) the liquidity and articulation of her back, arms, (even her feet), and the clarity of her gesture, but it exposes her courage; her courage to be aggressive, confrontational, fully feminine with an assaulting beauty of both face and form, then masculine with a “don’t try me swagger”. It shows her ability to be classic and iconoclastic concomitantly, all within a small space and window of time with boundaries overlapping. She has the
courage to tell what feels like quiet little secrets with the body, and through the eyes. She challenges you to watch while daring you to look away. …Distances a duet for Cabeen and long time friend and colleague Echo Gustafson was perform with the two musicians, Kane Mathis (on the Oud) and Julian Martlew (on the
Dobro) sitting on either side of the stage as the women explore the concepts of space and distance physically by intertwining, weaving, and unweaving their bodies together and apart, bearing and shifting weight, in the most confounding of ways. There was a meditative, aquatic, Tai Chi feeling about it. It was almost a study on intimacy and closeness, and then when the two individuals separate you (and they) have to figure out and establish who and what they are alone, before they come back together. The physical synchronicity between these to dancers was clear, when connected they seemed to think with one mind, it was difficult to establish where one woman ended and the other began. It was utterly fascinating to watch the various way of becoming intertwined, knotted with
someone and yet finding a graceful way of extracting one’s self. What a physical metaphor for relationships…There are hints of Jones and Graham like tiny markers in her work, yet it is clear that she has digested her experiences and come to an understanding about what they (as influences are) and what they mean to her, there are respectful references to her linage that organically emerge almost the way ones cadence and intonation of speech is like that of your families, you can’t hear it but anyone listening can hear the similarities. She is organic, and authentic and it comes through her work, she takes risks, and not because
they are there for the taking but because she doesn’t know how else to be. When viewing Catherine Cabeen, and her work I feel it’s not about “liking “ it or not, it’s not about getting it- or being “smart” enough to get it. It’s about something that we see very little of nowadays in dance (and elsewhere for that matter) it’s really about art and creativity, and making work because you are so moved to…Invariably when work is made without “agenda” it has the freedom to do what we “say” art should do, and that is, make you feel, think, question, imagine, reflect, in no particular order and possibly without judgment but simply by and for experience…It should inspire you, disturb you, soothe you but is always, always leave you altered, and that is what Cabeen’s work does, she slithers inside plants a thought, an image an idea and just as quickly as she entered she slips back into the darkness.”
- Theresa Howard, My Body, My Image Blog, May 17, 2011
http://mybodymyimage.com/catherine-cabeen-and-co-joyce-soho-review
Press on Catherine Cabeen and Company’s “Into the Void”
“Sound can be a trance. Colors can be an embrace. Air can be a shape… "Void" is a dreamlike, gender-fluid, near-subliminal exploration of what Klein means to Cabeen. Take it as such, and it's a seductive piece to watch unfold. …Even with video, musical score and lighting (by Connie Yun) in constant shapeshifting
movement, Cabeen's choreography — with its light-limbed elegance of line — deftly holds its own. Michael Cepress' costumes add to the flow and flair of the protean dance action.”
- Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times, Friday, April 29, 2011
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2014913536_cabeen30.html
“One of the great gifts an artist can give another is to inspire a work, and the reciprocal gesture (because art is fundamentally based in a gift economy) is to reawaken interest in someone whose work has been misunderstood, overlooked, or fallen out of fashion. Catherine Cabeen’s Into the Void (at On the Boards through Saturday) doesn’t resurrect conceptual painter Yves Klein, who would have been 83 this year: It says “Thank you for your life’s work”–and “Bet you wish you’d thought of this.” It is sometimes joyful, sometimes embattled, frequently gorgeous, and always in pursuit of the elevating moment, the one you suspect might flash across your mind’s eye in a dark time. … As Klein, Cabeen adopts, with glorious extensions, one-footed judo poses that evolve from forceful push to feline fall in a way that explodes the distinction. …The dancers also lift each other up, perch on shoulders, and the ensemble catches Cabeen and she leaps, again and again, into the “void”–the nothing that becomes something through the energies of art. … Klein was one of those artists who would tell you that the painting was just what was left over after the moment of creation; as you watch Cabeen and her collaborators dematerializing the body and its adornments into light and motion, you understand exactly what he meant.”
- Michael van Baker, The Sunbreak, April 29, 2011
http://thesunbreak.com/2011/04/29/catherine-cabeen-on-the-yves-of-creation-review/
“In its world premiere performance, Catherine Cabeen’s Into the Void presented a rich, unmitigated journey into creativity… The overall quality of Cabeen’s choreography throughout is free of gravity but not relaxed; each gesture is suspended for a moment in time, finding its own tempo and giving equal substance to every inch of negative space surrounding the dancers. Conventional ideas of up and down, left and right were completely eliminated in even the simplest roll of a shoulder or undulation of the spine. …Some of the finer points of the choreography in Void included unusual interactions between the performers, who rather than act and react to each other seemed triggered by one another instead. The touching of feet or hands would send one spiraling away, highlighting a transfer of energy between them in nonlinear fashion. At other times a simple touch caused another body to pulse, sending a wave through the adjacent dancer. Combined with a sense of expansiveness through their backs and length in their extremities, each dancer exhibited a sense of infinite reach into space. …To say that Into the Void is art at its finest is an understatement—it is an experience that uses contemporary movement in all the right ways and is arguably at the forefront of a new generation of dance artists. Powerful in imagery and brimming with sophistication, Cabeen has created a portal through which an audience can view something they may have never been able to imagine on their own. With two performances remaining this weekend, Into the Void is not to be missed—it is a guaranteed escape from reality, not into fantasy, but into imagination and ingenuity.”
-Steve Ha Seattle Dances, April 29, 2011
http://seattledances.blogspot.com/2011/04/into-voidcatherine-cabeens-newest-work.html
“Celebrating the visually abstract, Catherine Cabeen’s world premiere of Into the Void at On the Boards last weekend …created an air of excitement in the theatre before the lights even dimmed. As the audience entered the theatre, Cabeen was already on stage, laying in a square of light and dressed in drag as Klein. …No knowledge of Yves Klein and his work was needed to enjoy Into the Void. Cabeen packed the 70-minute show with varied elements and strong modern dance, and a lack of narrative allowed for open-ended interpretations and emotional response. In Cabeen’s numerous nods to Klein throughout the show, surely this was the strongest shake of all.”
-Rachel Gallaher City Arts Magazine, May 1, 2011
http://www.cityartsmagazine.com/blog/2011/05/cabeen-straight-twist-klein
Into the Void PREVIEWS:
“Anyone familiar with Catherine Cabeen's vivacious work can expect the sensuous beauty of her Breezes and the explosive transitions of her earlier Segments will surely inform her exploration of gender and emptiness in the enigma of Yves Klein. Into the Void is a new and bold work that will prove her reputation to those who doubt and reaffirm her place as one of Seattle's finest dance choreographers.”
-Omar Willey, Seattle-st, Arts & Events, April 2011
http://seattlest.com/2011/04/27/into_the_void_with_catherine_cabeen.php
“In rehearsal last week, the dancing was swift, sinewy and downright risky at times… you should have a "Void" that's really something.”
-Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times, April 2011
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2014873872_cabeen26.html?syndication=rss
A conversation with Seattle dancer-choreographer Catherine Cabeen, presenting "Into the Void," an homage to French artist Yves Klein, at On the Boards April 28-30, 2011.
“When Catherine Cabeen opened "The A.W.A.R.D. Show!" at On the Boards in late 2009, a lot of local dance lovers did a double-take and asked, "Where did she come from?" Her lanky sidewinding moves, alternately fluid and sharp, were mesmerizing. Her sense of theatricality, in both the flair of her performance and the shapeliness of the piece, was impeccable.“
-Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times, April 2011
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2014871179_cabeenqanda26.html
“Catherine Cabeen creates “a painting in time and space” with her new dance Into the Void at On the Boards… Cabeen, a feminist scholar, is less interested in having women roll around in toxic paint and more in the metaphor.”
-Laura Dannen, Seattle Met , April 2011
http://www.seattlemet.com/blogs/culture-fiend/catherine-cabeen-goes-into-the-void-april-2011/
Press On Cabeen’s Choreography 2009-2011
“Catherine Cabeen in her Into the Void, an interdisciplinary work inspired by Yves Klein that premiers at On the Boards in April. (PHOTO p70) …Catherine Cabeen, formerly with Bill T Jones and the Martha Graham Dance Company, promotes interdisciplinary collaboration as a form of public scholarship. She performs widely, recently in New York (she still performs with Richard Move) and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania… OtB takes risks and supports some of the most exciting performing arts anywhere. This season includes Catherine Cabeen’s Into the Void, Crystal Pite/Kidd Pivots’s astonishing Dark Matters… (PHOTO p 78)
-Gigi Berardi, Dance Magazine, 1/1/2011 pp70-78
“Beautiful and compelling… Cabeen’s work sums up the best of the Seattle Dance experience.”
-Alice Kaderlan KUOW Seattle 7/1/2010
“Cabeen's a remarkable dancer and choreographer, as anyone who's seen her work knows.”
-Jeremy Barker- Sunbreak 5/20/10
“Catherine Cabeen may be the most striking dancer-choreographer to emerge on the local scene in the past year. She wowed audiences at On the Boards' "A.W.A.R.D. Show!" in December with a slinky, angular solo that wasn't really a solo at all because it was so entwined with Kane Mathis' performance on African harp. Then, without missing a beat, she substituted at the last minute for an injured dancer in Spectrum Dance Theater's "Farewell." Now we have a chance to see her guide her own company through "Form and Fluidity," an evening exploring "shifting intersections between words, rhythm, meaning,
movement, sound and color."”
-Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times 5/21/10
“Guest artist Catherine Cabeen and Gustafson created and danced a stunning duet exploring the struggle of two people to relate and join with each other. Titled
"Distances," the dancers projected arms, feet and legs into negative spaces of almost joined bodies, discovering moments of contact and support with deep leans on each other's backs. Musical excerpts from "Escalay" by Hamza El Din flowed with the delicate fluid progression of moves on stage. Again, the change in dynamics from frantic speed to a more introspective, sustained quality of energy was welcome.”
-Jennifer Noyer, Albuquerque Journal 6/6/10
“Catherine Cabeen, Friday night's finalist, got the evening off to an extraordinary start with "Segments," which she both choreographed and performed. Still, this wasn't a solo. Every move she made was tied so closely into Kane Mathis' alternately percussion-harsh and string-lush live performance on the kora (a 21-string West African harp) that "Segments" was virtually a duet. Along a stark strip of light, Cabeen progressed toward Mathis almost as if he had her by a string. When he rapped the body of his instrument, she was staccato-sharp in her response. When he strummed arpeggios, she undulated with the sound. Beaten back, then lured forward again by the music, she made a slantwise progress across the stage that finally culminated in a meeting and a kind of emancipation too good to give away.”
-Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times, 12/12/2009
“Friday’s victor was Catherine Cabeen for her solo “Segments,” performed to the live music of kora player Kane Mathis. Mostly staying within a broad diagonal shaft of light, Cabeen engaged the evocative sound of Mathis’ 22-stringed African harp at times internalizing the music in muted movements, or openly engaging it with her long-limbs and strong technique. In the most striking moment she approached Mathis and did a modified penché arabesque in which she pitched forward, head to the ground, one leg extended to the rafters, with her body’s line neatly referencing the long neck of the kora. A former performer with the Martha Graham Company, and that of Bill T. Jones, Cabeen is a beautiful dancer…”
-Spider Kedelsky, Crosscut.com, 12/17/2009
“Choreographer Catherine Cabeen used clear archetypal gestures, folk-inspired motifs, and various apparatuses to create a first act that was beautiful to behold. Each god used his or her apparatus to extend their performance and powers. Charly McCreary as Priapelga performed beautifully on the silks, giving life to humanity. Katrina Alston and Jeremy Hale as the dark gods, Veles and Chernobog, were suitably creepy on their trapeze. Jon McClintock as the god Perun and Amy Shuster as Fire performed a thrilling duet on the rope. When the gods, realizing they were too attached to humanity, withdrew themselves, Slav climbed on the backs of his fellow humans to reach up to heaven in a particularly effective (and affective) sequence. In their isolation, the gods grew more attached to humanity and when they returned, the entire stage lit up in a frenzy on and around each apparatus. The humans danced their archetypal folk motif around each god, including the dark ones who found themselves being drawn into the rapture. While it was hard to know where to look, this chaos served the story well. Everything about this first act was top notch and engrossing: the choreography, the costumes and Kane Mathis’s original music. You could not help but be turned into a child again with eyes full of wonder.”
- Michael Seidel, Seattle Dances 4/24/2010
Press On Cabeen’s Performance 2002-2011
"While Graham and and Terry discussed the representation of Medea along with the creative process for such a psycho-dramatic character; (Cabeen) a crazed, terrifying, animalistic creature enters stage right."
-Catherine Bravo, The High 5 Review of Move’s The 1963 Interview, 8/9/11
“Last evening, Baryshnikov Arts Center residency artists Greg Tate (music) with Germaul Barnes and Gabri Christa (dance) presented an invitation-only, informal
showing of their improvisatory Burnt Sugar/DANZ project… And given that most of the dance artists involved last night have sizzling dance skills and presence, that sugar was burning… the evening belonged to extraordinary, imaginative movers like Barnes and Christa and like Daniel Gwirtzman, Kyle Abraham, Ayo Jackson, Catherine Cabeen, Nejla Yatkin and Christian von Howard, who know how to get a groove going or take full advantage of whatever's already happening on the floor.”
- Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody, A blog on arts, culture & whatever, 6/30/2010
“Catherine Cabeen/Joel Myers and Kelly Ann Barton/Ty Alexander Cheng delivering especially fine one-on-one moments. (Cabeen, a beautifully angular, icy-edged dancer, deserves particular praise…)”
-Michael UpChurch, Seattle Times 2/24/10
“Joel Myers, at the end of his emotional rope, is a twitching contrast to coolly elegant Catherine Cabeen (a last minute stand-in for injured company member Kylie Lewallen). Cabeen is not a constant onstage presence, as are the other dancers. She appears, disappears, then reappears, the calm eye of the storm amidst the frenzied audio and continuous waves of movement. Late in the performance, as Cabeen moves to center stage, the relentless soundtrack fades to birdcalls, and a calm melody. Cabeen gracefully extends her arms, her fingers relax and unfurl, a brief counterpoint to all that clenched
salutation. She is an angel in repose, and the audience finally gets a chance to ungird the loins we’ve tensed in self-defense against 90 minutes of nonstop stimuli… it was guest artist Catherine Cabeen who shone on opening night. Perhaps it was the role she was given to perform.”
-Marcie Sillman, Art Dish Northwest Forum on Visual Art, 2/23/10
“The intimate duets Meyer danced with Catherine Cabeen require the audience to stop for a moment and reflect on their meaning in the context of the overall performance and the bombardment of information coming at the audience. At the beginning of each duet, Meyer uses his body and breathwork to illustrate his intimidation by the structured presence of Cabeen. You breathe with him and feel his discomfort. As they exit the stage,
you sit back and reflect on “Who is China?” and “Who is America?” in this intimate and complicated dance.”
- Gabriel Bienczycki and Zebra Visual, Seattle Dances, 2/24/10
“…compellingly cool-edged Catherine Cabeen”
-Mary Murfin Bayley, City Arts Online, 2/24/10
“The strongest pieces on the current program are the two solos. “Lust” derives from a production of “The Seven Deadly Sins” first seen at Jacob’s Pillow in 2001. It consists of the commanding Catherine Cabeen in slow, controlled poses, glacial yet remarkably difficult to sustain in their stretched, balanced, twisted positions. Ms. Cabeen, dressed in a striking unitard by Pilar Limosner and accompanied by insistent club music from DJ Savage, looks like a goddess caught between ecstasy and terrible vengeance, frozen into a statue. The solo ends with her hands splayed and shaking and her mouth open in a silent
scream.”
-John Rockwell, New York Times, 12/21/06
“The most compelling pieces shown at DTW by his company, MoveOpolis!, are solos. Lust premiered in 2001 at Jacob's Pillow as part of The Seven Deadly Sins (dreamed up by Robert la Fosse). Catherine Cabeen is stunning in the role Move created for New York City Ballet principal Heléne Alexopolis. If Uma Thurman could dance, this is how she might look. Wearing an elegantly cut unitard by Pilar Limosnes, with a faux-nude upper part, Cabeen slowly twists and arches her tall slim body to a pounding beat by DJ Savage. Repressed erotic hunger molds her into improbable positions. Her feet claw the air like those of a butoh dancer. She stands on tiptoe, knees bent, hovering forward, and reaches her long, winging arms so far behind her that you imagine them straining at their shoulder sockets. Golden, almost translucent in Donalee Katz's lighting, she crumples to the floor from a long balance in arabesque. Shuddering, she opens her mouth in a silent howl and instantly covers it with one hand.”
-Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice, 1/10/07
“The most riveting work of the program, “Lust.”… which was originally a solo performed by Helen Alexopoulos as part of a multi-choreographer Seven Deadly Sins
project at Jacob’s Pillow in 2001. Now danced with searing intensity and diabolical focus by Catherine Cabeen, it seemed to embody the inner monologue of a performer on display — perhaps a go-go dancer, something Move knows something about. Positioned downstage and mostly rooted in place, Cabeen twisted, balanced, reached and stretched with fiercely slow deliberateness as a loud, incessantly pounding score played. Her sleek simple unitard left her body open for inspection. The solo was sensual in a disturbing way, as her blank, distanced presentation undercut the physical allure of her long, pliable body. A sense of horror — at the plight of being scrutinized, or at being unable to escape from voyeuristic eyes — intruded when she opened her mouth wide into a grotesque expression, or when she extended her hand with splayed fingers.”
- Susan Reiter, danceviewtimes, 2006
“The highlight of the program's first half was Catherine Cabeen's riveting tour-de-force performance of ``Lust," originally commissioned for the 2001 Jacob's Pillow program "The Seven Deadly Sins." Retooled to omit the original's stark bobbed wig and paparazzi, the new version is a startling, slow-motion study in self-absorption. Cabeen, who danced with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, displays extraordinary control and flexibility, as she seems to explore the outer limits of what her body can do. There is almost a sense of masochism as she distends, forces, hyperextends, and over-rotates her body into grotesque contortions, as if pain will lead her out of a drug-induced haze.”
-Karen Campbell, Boston Globe Correspondent, 8/12/06
“Yet, the unpredictable element representing the transformation spiral of the kundalini from the heel to the crown of the head, where the sacred marriage takes place, is the androgynous sky goddess. The archetype appears in the form of the bare breasted Catherine Cabeen, wings represented by sleeves of white fringe. This is the embodied icon of an authentic feminine liberation.”
-Lisa Paul Streitfeld, NY Arts, July/August 2006
“Ayo Janeen Jackson's Deconstruction With a License to Ill (powered by Tupac Shakur's rage) mutated a white woman—dutiful Catherine Cabeen—into an admixture of B-boy, Hindu deity, Marcel Marceau, and Nadia Comaneci faster than you can read all that.”
-Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Village Voice, 2/3/04
Berardi, Gigi, Finding Balance 2nd Addition, Routledge, New York, 2005 pp68-70.
“The most riveting individuals proved to be a tall, blonde woman with a pony tail, Catherine Cabeen, and a petite, nappy haired African American woman, Ayo Janeen Jackson. Cabeen was often featured in solo set apart from the company. And in the varied groupings and pairings that appear to be the signature of the company, (Tall and Short, Male and Female, Male and Male, Female and Female) when the two performed together the result was just stunning.”
–Maverick Arts Magazine 2004
“This motif resurfaces amid the later dancing when Catherine Cabeen enters upstage in the same walk and balances for what seems like forever, before creeping back off stage, only to repeat the same sequence again. Of course, Jones picked the perfect dancer for this role. With her long, pliable legs and exquisitely arched feet that, when raised into releve, resemble the strokes of calligraphy, Cabeen is a pleasure to watch.”
-Vanessa Manko, The Dance Insider, 2002