The Stone Dance Collective, part of Chop Shop: Bodies of Work, at the Meydenbauer Center Feb. 13 & 14. Photo by Zebra Visual.
"The first day of class, whenever I have new students, I ask them, 'What is modern dance?'" Eva Stone said recently over coffee at Edmonds' Walnut Street cafe, near her home. "And they all stare blankly at me. And I say, 'Children, it's a rebellion!'"
In person, Stone looks the part of the classic suburban mom, casually dressed, her blond hair cut shortish and pulled back. But the appearance of domestic normalcy is mostly a facade--in person, Stone is as vociferous and passionate a proponent of contemporary dance as any you're likely to meet, at once strongly opinionated and an ambassador for the art form overall.
Since moving to Seattle in 1995, Stone has been the choreographer and artistic director of her own company, the Stone Dance Collective, a teacher at both the Washington Academy of Performing Arts and the International School, and, for the last three years, the driving force behind Chop Shop: Bodies of Work, the Eastside's biggest festival of contemporary dance, which goes up this weekend at the Theatre at the Meydenbauer Center in downtown Bellevue (Sat., Feb. 13, 7:30 p.m. & Sun., Feb. 14, 3 p.m.; tickets $15-$25).
Raised in Phoenix, Arizona, Stone began choreographing work at age 14, before she really studied dance technique, which left a strong impact on her art. "I really had to create my own language," as she described it. After graduating from Arizona State, she bounced around the country--studying choreography at Harvard, dancing in Boston, performing musical theatre in LA--before heading to the Laban Centre in London to complete her master's. It was there that she first founded her collective and met her husband, before relocating to Seattle, where she restarted her dance collective on Capitol Hill.
"My work is not cutting edge, it's not experimental," she said. "I believe in making an arc in my work, in going from A to B. That doesn't mean in a literal way, but I'm very focused on communicating an idea. And if we start here," she continued, gesturing with one hand, "I'm going to take you on a journey and end here."
After performing wherever she could get presented for a few years, the company went on hiatus when Stone had her first child. Afterward, she started teaching at the Academy of Performing Arts in Remond 1997, before moving to the International School around 2004. It wasn't until 2007 or so that Stone relaunched her dance company, when she started encountering former students, kids who she'd turned on to modern dance, who'd gone on to study dance and have professional careers elsewhere before moving back to the east side, some starting families of their own.
"This kind of leads to the success of Chop Shop, because even though they were my students, I was drilling into them these wonderful and fantastic concepts of this brave world of modern dance--even they were all ballerinas!" Stone said with an excited chuckle.
"I affectionately say I'm trying to poison their sweet little minds. I always tell tease them, tell them, 'Come to the dark side!'"
Ultimately, teaching became a crucial turning point for Stone. "I was teaching the kids," she explained, "but I was also teaching the parents" about modern dance, and after ten years on the east side, teaching and evangelizing the art form, Stone has developed a network of students, former students, and their families who form a core constituency for Chop Shop.
The festival originated in 2008 from the simple need to fill a day at the Meydenbauer theatre. "This was back when you couldn't get in," Stone explained. But with a Sunday slot to fill, she was offered the chance to present, which she initially turned down because her company simply didn't have the material to fill a whole evening. But pressed to take advantage of the opportunity, she decided to call some people to see if she could fill out the program. Ultimately, the first year of Chop Shop took place as a single Sunday afternoon performance, including three pieces by the Stone Dance Collective, along with works by Mark Haim, DASSDance, and the Phffft! Dance Theatre. In its first year, the festival broke even.
Starting in 2009, with support from Bellevue Parks & Recreation and grant funding, Chop Shop grew to a two-night event, and this year features companies as well known as Spectrum Dance, Seattle Dance Project, and Olivier Wevers' Whim W'Him, as well as young companies like Michael Rioux's the Sho. Chop Shop also features master classes with choreographers and dancers appearing in the festival, as well as Stone's "Reading Dance" lectures, in which she, with the help of the artists, deconstructs parts of the movement to help new audiences better understand the language of dance. Stone also presents a series of free Introduction to Contemporary Dance lessons for the community as part of the festival's outreach program.
"The whole purpose of the festival is, I want everyone to love this art form as much as I do," Stone told me. "It's, you know...constantly fighting against people going home, turning on something electronic, and finding that satisfaction there. And I'm guilty, I do that too. But to have that live experience, to experience that as a human being, watching other human beings, that creates something."
"And then to walk out and it's gone," she said with a grin. "That's the great thing about this art form--it doesn't exist. We work and work and present and then it's gone. We have nothing to hold on to. And that thrills me."
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