Hello community,
Happy start to summer!
I'm writing as Artistic Director of Helen Wicks Works, a contemporary aerial dance company that creates engaging, accessible, and spellbinding performance for multigenerational diverse audiences.
Welcome to the
Wicks Works Turns 10
Newsletter
Below you can engage with what we're up to and discover what's in the works this summer as we look ahead to the next 10 years.
Enjoy a brief reel of select choreography from the past decade!
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Save the Date info for upcoming summer premiers!
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 | Wicks Works Choreography Reel
Select works from the past 10 years.
This reel consists of choreography made in collaboration with artists:
Kate Hanes, Erin Yen, Sandia Sexton, Lindsay Leonard, Ciarra D'Onofrio, Saharla Vetsch and Helen Wicks.
Click Tracks Lighting and Rigging by Benjy Young
Saturn Landing Rigging by Dave Freitag
Edit by Clio Gevirtz |
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In honor of 10 years
We are raising $10,000
We are seeking your support because we are actively developing new works and are reaching out to YOU to help fully realize the potential of performance. We will continue to expand these new premiers beyond this summer season. You can help us grow!
Your tax-deductable donation goes directly to:- Space Rentals - for rehearsal spaces and performance venues
- Artist Fees - That's right folks! Paying performing artists, composers, riggers, lighting designers, costume designers and more.
- Documentation so that we can continue to share our work with broad audiences, continue to apply for funding, and continue to be part of the international network of vertical aerial dance and performance innovators
$5 - Every pebble affects the ocean
$50 - 2 hours rehearsal space rental
$150 - 1 harness for a Wicks Works collaborator
$500 - one day of rehearsal fees to develop new work in residency this summer |
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About the New Works in the Works Coming Summer 2024
Baby Lady and the Ham, Project AeriALL, & Radio Vision |
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| Saharla Vetsch and Helen Wicks create Baby Lady and the Ham with rigging design by Dave Freitag |
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| Baby Lady and the Ham is a new duet by performers Saharla Vetsch and Helen Wicks that uses a counterweight pulley system to explore interdependence, mutual support, and power in vertical space. Baby Lady and the Ham brings together individual performers’ intersectionalities while characters grapple with a desire for individual power. Together, the two characters work and fight to build a pluralistic world. Baby Lady and the Ham questions how power can be inverted using the dependent nature of the counterweight system. How will the two characters react in a world where when one rises, the other has no option but to fall? While we navigate a current political world in which narratives continue to divide, this aerial dance brings visual representation to the inevitable interconnectedness and ripple effect of choices and actions. Baby Lady and the Ham is rooted in a desire to shift individual power towards a shared, mutually supportive, and abundant collective humanity. |
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Project AeriALL
Making aerial dance and performance accessible to all bodies AeriALL is a collaborative project that creates aerial dance and performance for all bodies. It all started when Alex had an inquiry about harness based dance and Helen started envisioning. Since November 2023 Helen and Alex have been building a creative partnership with the goal to bring Alex / Glamputee’s performance into aerial forms. |
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About Project AeriALL Alex Locust and Helen Wicks are collaborating, researching and innovating aerial dance to create live performance work that is accessible, both to Alex / Glamputee and audiences. Alex is learning aerial forms, including rope and harness vertical dance, aerial silks, and aerial rope with Helen Wicks as guide, coach, and thought partner. We plan to have a public showing of AeriALL July 26 & 27, 2024 at Project Artaud’s SPACE 124. This is the first step towards a larger body of work that aims to create space for disabled artists to use the otherwise difficult to access aerial form to tell their stories and perspectives in the future.
More about Alex / Glamputee:
Alex is a Black-white biracial, queer, disabled drag artist whose work is a love letter to their expansive queerness, Black excellence, and crip magic. Recently crowned Butch Queen 2023, they point to disability justice artists as their North Star, celebrating the truth that embodiment looks good on every body and collective access is essential to queer liberation. |
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Radio Vision
A new solo by Helen Wicks |
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Radio Vision is a solo choreographed and performed by Helen Wicks that is part of an ongoing body of work on sound and moving image. Radio Visionweaves together notes by under acknowledged iconic composition teacher Nadia Boulanger and her students. Boulanger taught influential composers like Igor Stravinsky, Quincy Jones, Aaron Copland, Phillip Glass, and many more.
Radio Vision is a dance that is in conversation with the origin of visual broadcast, which paralleled Boulanger's life and work. The work examines the influence of Radiovision, an original name for Television, on contemporary sound and image. With a musical score by Simon Linsteadt, Radio Visiontravels through technological developments that brought orchestras, game shows, music videos, and sport to living rooms and private spaces, defining culture, voyeurism, and spectacle along the way. |
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Save the Dates:
July 26, 27 SPACE 124, SFs Mission District Dragons Dance and Wicks Works present POWER PLAYSan evening of new work in progress by Erin Yen, Helen Wicks, and Glamputee
August 17
Baby Lady and the Ham at SF Aerial Arts Festival
Fort Mason, Pier 2 Gateway Pavilion |
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Thanks again for considering a tax-deductible donation. Feel free to reach out with any questions. |
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We appreciate your engagement and support!
-Helen and the Wicks Works team |
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