By Liquid Music blog contributor Amy Chatelaine

“Standby lights…”

“Lights on…”

“Standby music and haze…”

“Music and haze go…”

Unfurling across the stage, a thick fog poured into the rapt audience scattered throughout Minneapolis’s Northrop auditorium. An atmospheric shift is what it felt like, the room charged with electric tensions caught in the spotlight beams hovering overhead.

Choreographer Kate Wallich and Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas and Alan Wyffels) are back together as creative partners following their 2019 success, The Sun Still Burns Here, joined now by collaborator Tate Justus. We were about to enter the first contours of their new movement landscape, the highly-anticipated sophomore project scheduled to premiere in the 2025-26 arts season, commissioned by Seattle Theatre Group and Liquid Music l Northrop.

And we couldn’t be more thrilled.

“Standby shrimp on ice…”

“Enter shrimp on ice…”

An amplified voice continued to cue the opening scene into being, element by element, its source imperceptible until a crewmember slowly wheeled a limp figure forward from stage right. Splayed across a pile of empty Culligan bottles, Kate Wallich rested one arm across her chest, a microphone tilted up to her mouth.

You might expect to hear cues like this during a rehearsal for traditional stage performances. But when collaborating on a work-in-progress across artistic genres, what cues create a container for an entirely new world to emerge? What cues signal that it’s working?

The fog continued to roll and wrap us in its ambiguities — between performance and daily life, voyeurism and participation. It was not a fog for us to decode as an audience, but to enter with the performing artists as they traversed these points of tension across the stage.

Ten days of their first creative residency yielded an astonishing 30 minutes of material, presented by Kate, Mike, Alan, and Tate, and brought into the minds and bodies of the audience in the vibrant talk-back that followed.

TURNING TO THE AUDIENCE

House lights came up, and the quartet pulled up chairs at the stage’s edge, joined by Kate Nordstrum, Liquid Music Founding Director and facilitator of the Kate Wallich x Perfume Genius match in 2019.

Wallich opened the talk-back by turning the mic to the audience of Liquid Music | Northrop subscribers and guests, inviting us to share our impressions and observations: “Any sort of ‘Wow, that made me feel dark,’ or ‘That made me feel light.’ Not necessarily, ‘I liked that’ or ‘I didn’t.’”

After a brief pause, the first hand went up: “When you looked directly into the camera, that felt exciting.”

Then — in the familiar levee-break of most Q&As — the gates opened to a flood of voices from across the room:

“The flow of going from a lot of music and sound to just the fan felt very intense.”

“It felt like getting sucked inside a TikTok video.”

“I felt my pupils dilating.”

“There was something very liminal and intimate and other worldly.”

Welcoming the audience into a shared starting point of the body — its sensation, its associations, its knowing — was in many ways a brilliant primer for us to step into their creative process as collaborators in our own right, offering crucial feedback in these early stages of discovery.

Photo by Jayme Halbritter

While you wait in this gestation period ahead of the 2025-2026 season, know your anticipation is shared as Kate, Mike, Alan, and Tate continue to meet over the course of the next year: to listen, and to move their way through what this piece has to say, to what it wants to become.

In the meantime, I sat down with Kate Wallich for a deeper dive into their process of becoming — as cross-genre collaborators, and as publicly engaged artists.

IN CONVERSATION WITH KATE WALLICH

[This interview took place on June 23, 2024, and has been edited for clarity and conciseness.]

Kate Wallich: I’ve always said my skill set is — and this is the dancer side of me — that I can feel where there is a lack in the world, and then figure out how to bring the right people together to meet the need. It’s when I want a place to go that doesn’t exist, a place to belong. I start to build, and then assess if it’s the right thing: going through rounds to see if it’s a fertile thing, if my desire for a place to belong is shared, if there are other people who need that, too.

I started a series in Los Angeles called WIP, which stands for work-in-progress. One of the goals is to shepherd an audience through the creation of a work. Each WIP features a moderated dialogue kind of like what we did with Kate [Nordstrum] at the show, and I feel that conversations like this are important when you’re just starting to develop a work: understanding where we’re at as a society, and understanding the public implications of the work.

Amy Chatelaine: How would you say your WIP approach is informing this current project?

KW: Mike and I made The Sun Still Burns Here in 2019 — that creation process actually started in 2018, and was the last stage work that I’d made. Post-pandemic, I made a huge move to Los Angeles. Mike and Alan live in LA, and that was part of the reason I wanted to move. We’d developed a deep artistic relationship and a lot of movement language through the creation of The Sun Still Burns Here. In order to go harder and deeper into those, we needed to be in closer proximity.

My desire to make dances has shifted as I’ve gotten older — I’m no longer functioning in the confines of a dance company, which I did for 10 years. Part of the reason why I brought in the idea for WIP is because I was feeling myself go through a process in my body where I was going to the studio alone, and it wasn’t like this end goal, but something that was developing. And I needed an opportunity to put that in front of an audience and see what exactly was happening, why I was having that desire.

I was using my practice I’d always used in a dance company: I go into a studio, I start to develop a movement language, and then I start to see how I can transcribe that onto other dancers. In that process, I actually realized what I was working through was a self-care practice, and that a desire to transcribe movement onto dancers in the same way I had done inside the context of a dance company wasn’t really there anymore. It was clear that throughout the pandemic and this really profound experience I had with Mike and Alan through the creation of The Sun Still Burns Here, that something in my cycles of creation were shifting in a major way.

I think because I have this entrepreneurial side to me, sometimes I need a container in order to discover something about my creative practice, before I can find the expression. And so I did that with WIP, and a lot of major discoveries came out of that. And it was also a confirmation for me that I did want to go deeper and harder into this relationship with Mike and Alan and figure out what this movement world is going to be.

We have a lot of questions going into this project, but the leading questions are defining themselves right now. And so what you saw [in the open rehearsal] was all the past experiences we’ve had — of movement languages, body memories, rehearsals, understandings — they were all coming into this pot, and for this first time being looked at. Not even sorted through, not even strategized, really. Just looked at, witnessed, and then put out into a play zone to start seeing what could be there.

AC: During the talk-back, you emphasized the role of trust in making a collaborative piece like this, and it’s really clear that you’ve developed that across these six years of your artistic relationship. And it’s also sounding like part of the draw to a WIP approach was to cultivate that sense of trust in yourself and your intuition. I just hear that as the work so many of us are doing right now, developing trust in our bodily intelligence.

In your creative partnership, how do you support one another in tuning into and really staying with, remaining curious about, and respecting the intelligence of your intuition and what the body holds?

KW: It’s really interesting, because I have this deep relationship with Mike and Alan — it’s both very professional and very personal. We’re also friends and spend a lot of time together, almost more like family. And Tate is a new tone and personality that we brought into that mix.

So to speak about bodily trust and supporting each other throughout the creative process — you had mentioned the role of cueing. One of the things that has been coming up so far in this process — I did work with a dance company for a long time, and for dancers, it’s like “noted, locked in, sealed.” It’s just part of their body intelligence; they can remember choreography. Not only am I working with three non-dancers who don’t really have that, but Tate has never really been inside of our structured rehearsal or creation process. There’s not the body memory to become three-dimensionally aware. Part of that cueing was to create repetition, which builds body memory. It was really a practical thing.

All of us are in a place of trying to trust and support each other, and I’m also trusting what that’s revealing for the piece we’re creating as well. And not just in terms of cueing. Like Tate’s desire to just come on stage with those boots — I didn’t direct that. That was Tate’s idea. He didn’t really have the idea, even; he just did it. And I love that.

As a choreographer, I have my own internal ways of strategizing behavioral outcomes inside of a room, especially when dealing with a lot of different dynamics. But everybody else has their own approach to that and their own practices, and what’s coming out is a mixture of that. And I think that’s because there’s this mutual — I don’t even know if it’s really even trust right now; it’s almost like an openness, and a mutual respect, or awe, maybe? Like we’re all in awe of each other — and maybe that’s too grandiose. I’m like, “I like your ideas. I want more of your ideas.” And because we all have that for each other, I think that something interesting is coming out.

I think bodily trust is something that comes with time, and learning and listening, and practice.

AC: Hearing you reflect on this, I keep going back and forth between practices in your process and practices in public life. Like your practice of role reversal, which I’ve seen used by facilitators in conflict transformation work, when bringing people together across significant difference — in ideology, in values, in approaches to live into those values. And hearing you say that before trust is even established, there’s a necessary openness and respect, and even something like awe — that just strikes me a wise starting point for the creative work of our civic life as well.

I’m wondering, for those practices, where did you first encounter them as a tool in a collaborative process?

KW: I think a lot has come down to finding practical solutions for a need. And a lot of this is coming from my body. I’ve always been in the works I’ve created, because as a dancer I need to experience something in my body in order to understand what needs to happen, and what choices I need to be making.

In my early days directing in a company, I could step outside and watch and be like, Yes. No. Or, Yes, but slow down your thought process. But being inside the role of the dancer, I needed someone to tell me I was making decisions too fast. Because I couldn’t do both at once.

I realized earlier on in my practice that in order to do two things at once, I needed to develop a practice of duality. So I started to put duality practices into our morning warmup: how can I be thinking of the physical endings of my body while also seeing the birds eye view of my body? And that took so much control, because I’m really responsive and reactive.

But I also realize, when you talk about process and public life, that can be a really unhealthy way of being a person in the world. So I also had to develop these practices in my actual life, to be able to hold back feelings I may have in my body and have that bird's eye view in my real life as well. If something triggers me, I’m not just going to react in my body. If I was taking the director’s role, I wouldn’t want to see that either — that’s unhinged. Maybe there are times for unhinged on the stage, but that’s very designed and contained.

So I had to develop practices to practice that. I love a framework, like: when a text activates you, you wait 20 minutes to respond — that’s a framework I can follow. I think because I’m a choreographer, when I’m in the studio that’s already how I think, you know? I’m a container / framework person. And so figuring out how to build those practices into my life in some ways comes from choreography. And then sometimes I would learn a framework from the world, or from having to go through a mediation process with someone, and I’d be like, “Oh that’s actually really helpful. Are there ways to integrate that into the studio as well?”

AC: Totally, it’s all creative work at the end of the day: human relationship and stage production.

At the very beginning of the open rehearsal, you were reflecting back to 2018 when you first met Mike and Alan, and you said something really gorgeous: that you saw two people living their life in the way you were wanting to, in the relationship between the art they were making and how they were living. Could you say more about that?

KW: Yeah, exactly. And speaking of frameworks or tools to navigate being a person in the world, I think we all spend a lot of time on that and we like talking about it. So when we met, I think we had this cosmic moment of “Oh, we can do that together.” It’s very rare that you meet people who are willing to go to that line. Or maybe you don’t get the opportunity to, because when you are in a dance studio or in a process, that’s a level of intimacy you don’t just get meeting someone in a coffee shop, or honestly even with a casual friend.

AC: Do you have a shared litmus test for when something’s working as you’re creating this together?

KW: I think it’s a relational sense of alignment we’ve developed over time.

Part of the 2018/2019 commission was that we were co-directing together, which was new for me. When Mike and I started working together, I think I was very attuned to that shared leadership. But also, Mike didn’t have the experience of directing in this genre. I wanted him to feel a part of the dance making process, and he wanted me to feel a part of the music making process. So I suggested an infrastructure to be able to find alignment, to pose questions that helped us say, maybe we didn’t like this, or, could you consider the fact that you don’t like what I’m suggesting right now. To actually have that conversation.

And I think since, we’ve been able to build on that. This is where role reversal comes in. I’m like, “Mike I really want you to see this, because I want you to see if you like this direction we’re going.” But then also creating these opportunities for everybody.

When things feel right, my metaphor I use a lot for sensing energy — things can sometimes feel like your spine is out of whack, or your back is slightly off, and when you can just crack it into place, that’s alignment. And I think we can all sense that. And then you can invite languaging and ask people to make sure everyone is aligned before making a decision to go on.

AC: You were talking about how, as a choreographer, there’s this fluidity between the containers and frameworks you’re finding in the world and what you’re bringing into the studio, and vice versa. Going back to the role of the audience in an open rehearsal, as witness to your creative process, specifically: do you have hopes or curiosities about how they might pick up the practices you shared, and bring them into their own lives, especially in the world as it is now?

KW: I think we really do, and I think we learned a lot from The Sun Still Burns Here. Oftentimes in other practices, the curator plays a significant role and wall text is a big deal. And dance and live performance is such a visceral thing. Not to say visual art isn’t visceral; it totally is. But I think one of the things we lacked in The Sun Still Burns Here was getting people to feel what we were feeling, and to fully understand what we were attempting to do.

Now, I feel like we’re in this place where we’re like, Okay, we’re continuing this collaboration: what do we want people to go away with? What do we want people to feel? And also, what are we exploring? And how are we turning this into a question, or a statement, or a thesis in some way?

We honestly don’t know what that is right now. I think in a lot of ways, we brought in questions, we brought in practicalities of, Who’s here? What are our identities? What are our identity politics? What are the shared viewpoints? What are the universal viewpoints? Where are we at right now in the world, in our lives? These are all big things, but I think what’s revealing itself is this deeper thing.

So right now we’re creating this space for tonality, for a certain energy in the room with an audience. And we’re trying to figure out what that is. What is that space doing, how is that space creating a larger echo or imprint on the world or culture? I think that’s rooted in queerness and in non-traditional relationship dynamics. I think that’s rooted in our own privileges as white people. There’s a lot in there that’s hard to pinpoint, but is rooted in who we are as people, and who we are in the world.

AC: Everything you named, I think we can get so locked in our heads about, so philosophical about — and distanced from the lived realities. And the thing that’s so striking, so convincing about your process is having the starting point being in these body-based practices. I think that attunement to the body, its intuition and its stored memory, is both an old intelligence but a fresh intelligence I see others reaching for as a corrective that’s fertile and helpful.

KW: I made a work in 2017 that I would describe as more about creating space to tune into the mundane or the boring. The way the work manifested was really slow, like when you watch a slow movie, even if a lot is happening. Or something like watching a garden grow. If you remember [from the open rehearsal] that sort of desperate landscape where we were all doing our own task-based things — imagine that for a whole hour.

I do think that in taking the approach of psychological attractions — letting everything just be in the pot — that the greater conceptual meaning will start to reveal itself over time. But you actually need time for that to be revealed. And that’s why I’ve been so excited about starting this creation process with a residency. We’re probably going to use a lot of what we developed already. But in terms of what the work is, what the work means, how the work is resonating with people, I think it’s going to take some time to pinpoint.

AC: What does it look like from here?

KW: This was a big start, and we’ll need more creation. We’re planning more residencies for the next year in various places to keep visiting the work, spending time away from it, going in and out – kind of like how a painter paints and steps away, and then returns. It takes a long time to make the painting, and that’s kind of what we’re doing right now.

Follow Kate Wallich:
Website: katewallich.com
Instagram: @katewallich (instagram.com/katewallich)
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/theycfamily

Follow Perfume Genius:
Website: perfumegenius.org
Instagram: @perfumegenius (instagram.com/perfumegenius)
Facebook: facebook.com/PerfumeGenius
X: @perfumegenius (x.com/perfumegenius)

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