Personal (artist statement):
My career boldly insists that audience and performance converse. I’d be in safer waters if my work answered instead of posed questions. But I’ve no interest in abruptly resolving this 15 year conversation between audience and art. My craft employs rigorous specificity to remain open to a terrain of inquiry – inviting rather than prescribing interpretation.
I constantly consider the relevance of the work. I am interested in pushing and questioning my relationship to the form as well as marking new dynamics with audience. I accept the risks inherent to work with one foot in the unknown as a consequence of my vision.
When constructing and presenting dance, my heart is summoned most on high by the kaleidoscopic, transformative encounters with wonder that emerge from this critical rapport between audience, performance and artist. This interchange creates an integral component of my choreography.
I am curious about the bounds of resourcefulness, both my own and that of others. Currently, my work attends to the physiological behaviors and abstract patterns of resourcefulness (efficiency and the lack thereof).
I research how a force of priority announces itself amid the sharp sponge of construction with amorphous elements. This oblique space is where I parse the work from the inquiry. The priorities themselves make meaning, which in turn is built into the structure of the dance composition.
Do fixed notions juxtapose differently with the motions of ideas? How does the materiality of body not know before knowing imagination’s material properties?
Less personal (artist bio):
Tahni is a choreographer and performer based in Portland OR. She is interested in body as cultural symbol, dance as brand identity, space as locator or non-locator. Since landing in Portland after graduating from Tisch (NYC) her varied collaborations and solo work have been presented at On The Boards and Bumbershoot (Seattle), PICA’s TBA Festival (Portland) and Fusebox Festival (Austin), as well as far off places in France, Idaho, and Georgia. Last year Tahni was curated into the PORTLAND 2010 Biennial and is an Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship awardee (2007). Her work has been supported by numerous Individual Project grants (RACC) and Oregon Arts Commission Professional Development Grants, as well as through private donations. She has been artist in residence through SOWA, Caldera, Alaska University in Anchorage, twice at Performance Art Forum (PAF) in St. Erme France.
This past spring Tahni was one of four Oregon Choreographers highlighted in the Art Gym’s exhibition Dance: before, after, during. Preparatory materials and processes, documentation and performances. Her work was presented at The Art (Dance) Show for Movement Research’s Spring Festival (NYC) and she went to Athens Greece for a residency with the gravediggers, a never ending/ever shifting collaboration with Elizabeth Ward (NYC) and Valentina Desideri (IT). As the Gravediggers they ask themselves: How can we create the conditions for our creation, performance, and enjoyment of our work?
She has worked with Dance Luminary Deborah Hay and most recently spent time in Europe where she performed in Vienna at Impulstanz through Eszter Salamon and Christine De Smedt’s TRANSFORMERS.
Tahni, along with Noelle Stiles, Danielle Ross and Robert Tyree, is making a-first-ever-of-it’s-kind in Portland dance newspaper. FRONT relies on the old-school tactics of the newspaper infused with new, current, future energy of dance theory and practices in the field. She is part organizer, along with Noelle Stiles and Kathleen Keogh, of Heavy Rotation. Heavy Rotation has been organizing classes + workshops, talks + discussions and fieldtrips. HR changes format to fit the desires and needs of its organizers and present/future participants.
Impersonal (artist cv)
PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS
2011
Untitled is a choice / The Lucky Penny/Atlanta
Untitled is a choice / Headwaters / Portland
SUNSHINE in progress showing / Marylhurst Art Gym / Marylhurst
SUNSHINE art object / Movement Research Festival / New York City
2010
CULTURE MACHINE / Disjecta Arts Center/ Portland
CULTURE MACHINE excerpt / PICA’s TBA Festival, Ten Tiny Dances / Portland
CULTURE MACHINE excerpt / NAAU Gallery / Portland
Here Now /open flight space/ Seattle
CULTURE MACHINE (in progress) / PORTLAND2010 Biennial
The Gravediggers with Elizabeth Ward / Dance Truck / Atlanta
2009
Transformers by Eszter Salamon / ImPulstanz / Vienna, Austria
.EVENT.SPACE / Ace Hotel event space / Portland
The Gravediggers with Elizabeth Ward / Pa-f / St. Erme, France.
2008
Freedom of Information by Miguel Guitierrez / PWNW / Portland
Information Studio / PSU Residency / Portland
Endless Ocean with Andrew Kudless / Fusebox Festival / Austin
2007
The Party Project / SOWA Residency / Portland
Endless Ocean with Andrew Kudless / PNCA / Portland
I am a bomb / RAKE Gallery / Portland
The Swallows with Marty Schnapf / Stumptown Café / Portland
Room / Fusebox Festival / Austin
Room / Reed College RAW Art Week / Portland
Passing out Heart Game with Emily Bulfin / RAW Art Week / Portland
Passing out Heart Game with Emily Bulfin / PDX Film Fest. / Portland
25 Dances That Saved My Life / Lewis and Clark College / Portland
25 Dances That Saved My Life / Plazm Magazine at Disjecta / Portland
25 Dances Lecture / Drop Collective / Boise
2006
Room / PICA’s TBA Festival / Portland
The Swells with Marty Schnapf / Reed College RAW Art Week / Portland
Island Desk with Marty Schnapf / On The Boards / Seattle
Island Desk with Marty Schnapf / Disjecta Art Center / Portland
2005
Island Desk solo / Ving Theater / Bellingham
Island Desk solo / Drop Collective / Boise
Island Desk Duet / Crow Bar / Seattle
2004
Under an Hour with Marty Schnapf / PICA’s TBA Festival / Portland
Under an Hour with Marty Schnapf / On The Board’s NWNW’s / Seattle
Under an Hour with Marty Schnapf / Bumbershoot / Seattle
The Events Preceding with Marty Schnapf / PDX Cont. Gallery /Portland
GRANTS, AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2011
The Drachma Project Residency (Athens, Greece)
Oregon Arts Commission Professional Development Grant
University of Alaska Residency (Anchorage)
Balance Dance Residency (Boise)
2010
Choreographer’s Venture / Impulstanz (Vienna, Austria)
Individual Project Grant (RACC): CULTURE MACHINE
Dance Truck Residency (Atlanta)
2009
P-af Residency (St. Erme, France)
Oregon Arts Commission Professional Development Grant
Individual Project Grant (RACC):.Event.Space.
2008
Portland State University Residency / OAC percent for Art Program
2007
SOWA Residency (Portland)
Critics Table Award for performance of Room (Austin)
Oregon Individual Artist Fellowship
Individual Project Grant (RACC): Endless Ocean
2006
Individual Project Grant (RACC): Passing out Heart Game
Caldera Art Residency (Sisters, OR.)
2005
Deborah Hay’s Solo Performing Commissioning Project (Inverness, Scotland)
Professional Development grant awarded through worksystems, Inc.
Individual Project Grant (RACC): Island Desk
Space Grant through Conduit’s Charged program.
2004
Dance Lab through NDP and NEFA (Seattle)
Individual Project Grant (RACC): Under an Hour
PUBLICATIONS + ORGANIZATIONS
FRONT: Along with four other zealots, Tahni Holt is making a-first-ever-of-it’s-kind in Portland newspaper. FRONT relies on the old-school tactics of the newspaper infused with new, current, future energy of dance theory and practices in the field. 45north.122west@gmail.com
HEAVY ROTATION: Headed by Tahni Holt, Noelle Stiles and Kathleen Keogh. Since 2009 HR has been organizing classes + workshops, talks + discussions and fieldtrips. HR changes format to fit the desires and needs of its organizers and present/future participants.www.noellestiles.com/HEAVY ROTATION.html
EDUCATION
BFA from Tisch School of the Arts, New York, NY / 1997