KSD & Michael Owcharuk - November 13 & 14 | 8 PM

Karin Stevens Dance presents KSD & Michael Owcharuk, a 60-minute evening of contemporary dance and live music featuring the return of a beloved work alongside five world premieres performed by Seattle composer Michael Owcharuk and his seven-piece ensemble. Performances take place November 13 & 14 at 8:00 p.m. at YAW Theater in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood.

The concert celebrates more than a decade of artistic collaboration between choreographer Karin Stevens and composer Michael Owcharuk. Built on years of friendship, mutual trust, and creative exchange, the evening brings together six dances that explore the many ways partnership shapes our lives—from intimate relationships and everyday encounters to community, belonging, and our shared humanity.

Owcharuk's new five-part suite, Partners, serves as the heart of the program. Blending jazz with Ukrainian folk traditions, Americana, tango, and classical influences, the music reflects on the countless forms partnership takes: those we choose, those we inherit, and those that emerge unexpectedly through the ordinary rituals of daily life. Several movements incorporate musical ideas inspired by field recordings gathered during Owcharuk's travels in Morocco, Spain, and France, creating a richly textured score that is both deeply personal and globally informed.

Stevens responds choreographically with five new dances, each inspired by one movement of Partners. The works move through the awkward vulnerability of learning to connect, the earthy tenderness of companionship, the exuberant joy of collective celebration, and the ceremonial circles that echo the music's Ukrainian roots. Continuing her long-standing commitment to collaborative creation, Stevens developed the choreography in close partnership with the six dancers, making this one of the most ensemble-driven creative processes of her career.

The program also features the return of Stevens' 2016 collaboration with Owcharuk, newly reimagined as Flesh, Soil, Sky. Originally created for four dancers to Owcharuk's string quartet The Upward Spiral, the work has been recreated for six performers. The dance is a soaring meditation on our human existence between earth and cosmos—grounded in soil while reaching toward mystery, beauty, and the unseen forces that sustain us through suffering, wonder, and love.

Known for creating physically expressive contemporary dance that bridges artistry, ecology, spirituality, and lived experience, Karin Stevens Dance has been commissioning and performing original music by Seattle composers since the company's founding in 2009. Live music remains central to the company's artistic vision, fostering meaningful collaborations across disciplines while supporting the vitality of the region's creative community.

Together, Stevens and Owcharuk invite audiences into an evening where movement and music become equal partners—celebrating connection, collaboration, and the enduring possibility of finding one another through art. Audiences can also experience Stevens and Owcharuk performing together in a special duet at this year's Bumbershoot Festival, offering a preview of the creative partnership at the heart of this November concert.

Karin Stevens Dance and this project are supported by 4Culture Sustained Support, the Glenn Kawasaki Foundation, the Abundant Blessing Foundation, the ArtsFund Accelerator Grant, and the generous contributions of the Karin Stevens Dance community.