Heidi Duckler | Collage Dance Theatre




		Collage Dance Theater Press Kit


		Los Angeles Times \| February 7, 2010 “For Heidi Duckler, it's location, location, location” \| by Susan Josephs “It’s probably accurate to assume that most civilized visitors to Los Angeles City Hall's third-floor rotunda do not try to climb the marble columns, balance on the historic light fixtures or lie on the ground directly under the enormous bronze chandelier for perspective's sake…”

		Los Angeles Times \| CULTURE MONSTER \| February 6, 2010 “Dancing in architecture—meet Heidi Duckler” \| by Susan Josephs “For most of Heidi Duckler’s career, dance and architecture have remained intertwined. Since founding Collage Dance Theater in 1985, Duckler has created more than 60 sitespecific performances where architecture is “not just a backdrop but completely integrated into the whole experience of the performance,””

		Los Angeles Times \| November 19, 2007 by Lewis Segal \| Review of My Beowulf \| California State University, Los Angeles “The prevailing satiric tone freshens the classic story without trivializing it, and the simplicity of the staging keeps the key issues and performances front and center.” …“The Old English epic never had it so good…”

		Los Angeles Times \| July 28, 2007 by Victoria Looseleaf \| Review of My Beowulf \| REDCAT, Los Angeles “Full-blown dance erupted in the last section, with [Marissa] LaBog alternately hawking real-estate and writhing, kicking and punching as part of the ‘dragon’ ensemble…DJ Elseware furiously scratched, mashed and mixed on the side of the stage in Duckler’s metaphorical take on today’s harsh, good-cversus-evil world…”

		89.3 KPCC \| March 12, 2007 Review of Beowulf on Ice Click here to listen...

		The New York Times \| July 25, 2006 by Jennifer Dunning \| Review of Laundromatinee \| New York “As a weary, doggedly oblivious stage housewife washed, dried and folded her clothes, dancers raced through a piece that was funny, occasionally dark and strangely poignant…”

		Los Angeles Times \| February 11, 2006 by Victoria Looseleaf \| Review of C’opera \| L.A. Police Academy, Los Angeles “A superior work of choreography and music plays off its loaded setting: the L.A. Police Academy…”

		The New York Times \| February 5, 2006 by Erika Kinetz \| C’opera \| L.A. Police Academy, Los Angeles “Capt. Richard Bonneau, the police department’s ombudsman, said, ‘It was decided it would be a good thing to do from the perspective of making a different type of contact with the larger community in Los Angeles, through the artist community.’”

		Los Angeles Magazine \| February 2006 by Erik Himmelsbach \| C’opera \| L.A. Police Academy, Los Angeles “At the police academy, the ridh visual contradictions—the rock gardens, the training grounds, that coffee shop decorated with fading photos and billy clubs—will become C’opera’s costars…”

		L.A. Architect \| September 2005 Dancing Through Architecture \| by Camille LeFevre “Duckler is one of a few choreographers in the United States who eschew the traditional proscenium stage and instead create works that are inspired by, created within, reflective of and therefore integrally connected to a specific place…”

		Preservation \| July/August 2004 by Kerri Westenberg \| Review of A Hunger Artist Perino’s Restaurant, Los Angeles “…she shined the crystal chandeliers in the oval ballroom, tuned the Steinway grand in the cozy piano bar, and dusted off the rounded, high-back booths in the salmon-pink dining room. Then she and her dance troupe gave Perino’s the spectacular, if unorthodox, sendoff it deserved.”

		Los Angeles Times \| April 2, 2004 by Lewis Segal \| Review of A Hunger Artist \| Perino’s Restaurant, Los Angeles “…as Pleshette coos Kafka at us over a menu or Chris Stanley performs intense contortions on a chair to keep us entertained until the entrees arrive, we glimpse exactly how much illusion still leavens our daily bread.”

		The New York Times \| May 25, 2003 by Laura Bleiberg \| Review of Sleeping with The Ambassador Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles “In this warren of once-chic shops we were voyeurs, inching along past picture windows made into ghostly dioramas. Three guys tap danced in the barber shop. Disembodied ladies' arms poked out through black holes, modeling rings and bracelets in the jewelry store display. In another window, a brown-paper mummy lay in a mound of popcorn packing material…The dance concluded in the oversized lobby, with its rows of rectangular white columns that went on so long it was like looking at infinity. The dancers came out in pajamas and— after wild cavorting over the couches—they collapsed at our feet. Big applause.”

		Los Angeles Times \| May 8, 2003 Location…Location…Location \| by Christopher Reynolds “In the collective memory of 20th century Los Angeles, says Duckler, ‘the Ambassador is a big place. And I wanted to take a big bite out of it.’”

		Dance Magazine \| December 2002 by Heidi Landgraf \| Review of Cover Story Herald Examiner Building, Los Angeles “…an 80-year-old Cuban woman told the choreographer, ‘You’ve inspired me to keep on living.’”

		Daily Breeze \| May 6, 2002 Review of Cover Story \| Herald Examiner Building, Los Angeles “No doubt about it. Heidi Duckler and her Collage Dance Theatre are a Los Angeles treasure. Her site-specific multimedia performances combine history and cultural commentary in a way that takes audiences on an eye-opening odyssey.”

		Back Stage West \| March 30, 2000 by Scott Proudfit \| Review of SubVersions \| Subway Terminal Building, Los Angeles “Iconic, profound, yet playful, it's the kind of thing Collage does best, and it'salso some of the best theatre to be found in L.A. or anywhere.”

		L.A. Weekly “We go for those ooh and aah moments when Duckler forgoes the obvious in favor of surreal, often painterly grandeur.”

		Dance Magazine “Duckler is a choreographer of site dance at its most original and compelling.”

		Dramalogue “Duckler paces her vignettes flawlessly, contrasting beautifully patterned surreal abstractions with farcical pantomimed chores.”

		Los Angeles Times “Heidi Duckler, the reigning queen of L.A. site-specific dance-performance, is one choreographer who really cooks.”

		New Times “Best interactive performance group. Collage Dance Theatre. Imaginative in the extreme.”

		Miami Light Project "...illuminates the truth that lies beneath the surface of a place.”

		KCRW Dance Notes “Her art is deadly.”

		The World & I “As site-specific dance, Duckler’s work also succeeds because it is ecumenical”