Lingo Productions
The project of KT Niehoff. It is the container for her creative works in all forms: performance, commissions, writing, film, teaching and research. Lingo expands and contracts in numbers depending on the demands of the work, yet is centered around a reoccurring cast of characters who have been instrumental in the creation of Lingo's vision.
In the last three years (2009-present), these bravehearts, lunatics, magicians, actors and yes, dancers, include: Bianca Cabrera, Shaun Kardinal, Aiko Kinoshita, Jody Kuehner, Ricki Mason, Michael Rioux, Kelly Sullivan, Ivory Smith, Aaron Swartzman, Evan Ritter, Scott Colburn, Markeith Wiley, Ben Delacreme, Joanne Whitzkowski, Alex Martin and others.
Lingo Productions has been presented internationally in Canada (Dancing on the Edge Festival, Vancouver BC), Japan (Alti Buyoh festival, Kyoto / Tori Hall, Osaka), Ecuador (Alas de la Danza, Quito - with support from Arts International), Germany (as one of four companies chosen to represent the U.S. at the 2004 Tanzmesse, Düsseldorf) and Cuba (Cuidad en Movimento, Havana). Nationally, the company has been presented by venues including On the Boards, Seattle, The Joyce SoHo, NYC, SUSHI, San Diego, Alverno Presents, Milwaukee, Jacob's Pillow Inside/Out Festival, The Southern Theater, Minneapolis (through an NEA funded touring initiative Niehoff created called SCUBA), The Oregon Britt Festival and Vanderbilt University, Nashville, as well as many colleges and universities throughout the U.S.
Lingo's artistic integrity has been recognized by such institutions as The National Endowment for the Arts, The National Dance Project, The National Performance Network, Meet the Composer, Seattle, Washington and King County Arts Commissions, Arts International, The Bossak/Heilbron Foundation and the Jack Straw Foundation.
Just as I found this womyn.. there was a moment of clarity in the future for her work.
The finale of Lingo Productions has happened, April 2013. A step that Niehoff says has
been a long time coming, this entails “the simple act of disbanding the
company itself. And all that goes along with the assumption, and the
responsibility that a company model requires.” In no way, however, is
this a finale for Niehoff’s art-making ambitions. Almost running
parallel to her theories on movement, it seems that Niehoff’s thoughts
on art are experiencing an “unhinging,” and a delving further into a new
branch of creativity. Collision Theory and
her other works on a variety of platforms have given Niehoff a new kind
of fulfillment, and she plans to continue experimenting even further in
that direction. “My sensibility, or my ideas of what an active art is,
has really started to change and shift over the last six years, and its
gotten pretty abstract,” she says.
Niehoff’s presence as a dance maker and
teacher in the community will be mutually missed. “I love the dance
community here so much.” she says. “But I want to develop a new
relationship with the art world and also the dance world here. I want to
mentor and be present and somehow be in it, but I need to do it in a
different way now.” If anyone is capable of doing things a different
way, surely Niehoff is.excerpt written by Mariko Nagashima for Seattle Dances
