"We would like to believe that our bodies and our brains are fantastically flexible and responsive to change, containing – at any moment – both the abstract and the specific. Well... what we've learned is that this is both gloriously true and frustratingly untrue. But that's okay, really, and this dance proves it. There will be a swan, a prince, a robot, sexual behavior and two chairs. Sometimes all at once." —Wally Cardona & Jennifer Lacey

Tool Is Loot is a collaborative creation by choreographers Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey with composer Jonathan Bepler. It is the culmination of a year-long process of aesthetic disorientation.

...utterly original, deeply comic and deviously beautiful.
—The New York Times

In the last 10 years, Wally Cardona has created projects of every scale, in a wide range of venues/festivals in the U.S. and abroad, including BAM/Next Wave, PICA's TBA Festival, Helena Presents, International Festival of Arts & Ideas, the Cannes Festival and Dance Umbrella/London.

Jennifer Lacey, based in Paris since 2000, has continually questioned the form a "dance" can take on. She has founded a number of highly regarded projects with "ambiguous borders": Projet Bonbonniere, a research and living project designed to rehabilitate Italianate theatres; Prodwhee, a disposable series of performances using the dance residency as currency; and Robinhood, a mythic and invisible performance with artist Cerith Wyn Evans. Her extensive work with visual artist Nadia Lauro has been commissioned by many large-scale festivals (Lyon, Montpellier, Kyoto, Vienna).

Notes on the creation process

To create Tool Is Loot, Cardona and Lacey first worked apart, in the U.S. and France respectively, for one year. In each project they created an "empty solo," designed to make itself completely available to an outside eye or opinion. Each artist then solicited weeklong encounters with individuals with skill sets far outside of dance: an astrophysicist, a sommelier, an architect, a film editor, a medical supply salesman, a kinetic sculptor, a baroque opera singer, an art critic, an acoustician and a social activist.

Now, as the two choreographers come together in Tool Is Loot, the identity of each artist is simultaneously undone and strengthened in a duet that carries the ghosts of aesthetic positions that are not their own. The opinions and interpretations of composer Jonathan Bepler, via his original musical score, and lighting designer Thomas Dunn, via his original design, function as yet further clarification and re-interpretation of Tool Is Loot.

Workshop and Panel: Delightful Disorientation. At Inkub8, 2021 NW 1st Place, Miami. Thursday, January 19, 2012.
Workshop: In relation to Tool Is Loot, Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey will share some games where meaning, intent and form can shift to create multiple interpretations of a dance. 6:00-7:30 pm.
Panel: With Wally Cardona, Jennifer Lacey, Lisa Beal and Alain Filiz. The panel will discuss Tool Is Loot, its themes and creation process. Moderator will be Helena Thevenot, series facilitator for Nomad Dance Dialogues. Lisa Beal and Alain Filiz were selected as "non-dance" participants in the creation process of the Miami performance of Tool Is Loot. Dr. Lisa Beal is Associate Professor of Physical Oceanography at UM's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Floral designer and inventor Alain Filiz is the owner of Black Eyed Susans. 8:00-9:15 pm.

Read more about Wally Cardona at www.wcvismorphing.org

This project is part of Is Paris Burning?, a series that fosters innovation in dance with a series of encounters. Is Paris Burning? is funded through John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's KnightArts Challenge. Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit KnightFoundation.org.

Tigertail's 2011/2012 Season is made possible by community partners and supporters including: Aquarius Press; Albion Hotel, Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation; Biscayne Times; Books & Books; Bresaro Suites; The Children's Trust; City of Coral Gables Cultural Arts Program; City of Miami Beach Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council; Consulate General of Brazil; Consulate General of the Netherlands; E.S. Moore Family Foundation; Florida Dance Association; Funding Arts Network; The Galler Group; Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau; John S. & James L. Knight Foundation; JPMorgan Chase; MiamiARTzine.com; Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; Miami-Dade County Public Library; Miami-Dade County Public Schools; Miami River Inn; National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, supported by lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, with additional funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Community Connections Fund of the Metlife Foundation, and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust; National Endowment for the Arts; National Performance Network with major funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency), Altria, MetLife Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation; Pridelines; Publix Super Markets Charities; Safe Schools South Florida; Sain-Orr Royak DeForest Steadman Foundation; The Law Office of Linda M. Smith; Sleepless Night; South Arts; State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; The Miami Foundation; VSA Florida; Vortex Communications; WDNA & WLRN FM; Wells Fargo and our many private supporters.