Kinesis Project dance theatre, the New York City and Seattle large-scale, outdoor dance company, led by Melissa Riker, is thrilled to announce their 2025 Summer performances in Seattle, beginning Sunday July 20, 4pm at Harbor Steps Public Stairway. The company known for their colorful, surprisingly intimate, yet spectacular works is teaming up with multiple Seattle musicians to create a stunning new work for downtown Seattle landmarks. Kinesis Project launches their season with a Sunday afternoon performance of Bridge Matter/The Reach on the renovated Harbor Steps, inches away from the Seattle Art Museum with a view of the waterfront. For more info, visit https://www.kinesisproject.com/events.

Performances of Bridge Matter/The Reach continue on Tuesday, July 22 at 4 pm at Harbor Steps; Friday, July 25 at 8:30 pm at Overlook Walk (1505 Alaskan Way Seattle, WA, 98101); and complete Saturday, July 26 at 6:30pm back at Harbor Steps.

While audiences can experience the performance from any direction, Riker says that the good viewing places are from the bottom of the Steps on Western, or from the Post Alley level of the Steps. The Post Alley level is also the ADA viewing place. Harbor Steps has an elevator to the level from 1st Avenue, or Post Alley leads directly into the space.

Bridge Matter/The Reach is choreographed by Melissa Riker in constant collaboration with the dancers of Kinesis Project Seattle: Hendri Walujo, Kimberly Holloway, Margaret Behm, Prasti Purdum, Kara Beadle

Music in the moment by Steph Richards (7/20, 7/22), Neil Welsh (7/20), Kate Olson (7/20, 7/22, 7/25), Natalie Twigg (7/22, 7/25, 7/26) and more

Costumes by Rebecca Kanach

Visual Art design by Celeste Cooning

Special Dates

On Friday, July 25, Bridge Matter/The Reach moves to the epic, sweeping Overlook Pass - directly above the Aquarium, and behind the Market. This excerpt of the piece is timed to offer audiences dance and sunset skies over the Sound.

Saturday July 26, 2025 includes a very special community event. Kinesis Project’s Seattle Installation of Care. All are welcome to interact - the event begins at 5:30 on Harbor Steps and anyone interested in taking 15-30 minutes to be present with a friend, family member or even a stranger is welcome to sign up for a time slot and color scheme to help create a visual, and community created moment in time. Installation of Care RSVP

Bridge Matter/The Reach is a dance of care, echoes and how our very humans ways of bridging our “cracks” parallel the Earth’s processes. This colorful work is the second collaboration with geologist Dr. Missy Eppes and her colleagues, specifically Dr. Stephen Laubach, both award winning and internationally respected scientists.

Kinesis Project is a dance organization that creates dance as public art, facilitates educational programs and produces site-specific performances with diverse communities. A company at the forefront of the international discussion of placemaking, art engagement and the cultural imperative of art in public space, Kinesis Project dance theatre invents large scale, space-changing, breath-taking experiences.

A MAP Fund grantee, Kinesis Project has been developing and creating Bridge Matter/The Reach since 2024 in NYC and Seattle. From 2022-2023, Kinesis Project and Opera on Tap toured Capacity, or the Work of Crackling to Los Angeles, Strasbourg France, Seattle, Vashon Island and New York City.

Even during 2020 Riker kept Kinesis Project working and creating consistently on both coasts thanks in part to COVID Relief Grants from Dance/NYC, the Indie Theatre Fund and generous donors. The company live-streamed multiple performances from Riverside Park South presented by Summer on the Hudson and continued creating and developing new work on both coasts in person throughout 2021 and into 2022, from Vashon Island, to Seattle to NY's Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Since 2005, Kinesis Project's work has been experienced in San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Vermont, Florida and in New York City at such venerable venues as Danspace Project, Judson Church, Joyce Soho, The Minskoff Theatre, The Cunningham Studio, West End Theatre and Dixon Place. In 2019-2020, the company's work was experienced in Seattle, Brooklyn, NY, Riverside Park, supported by New York City Parks, and in Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island. The company dances outside in sculpture gardens, universities, and annually since 2006 in Battery Park's Bosque Gardens and The Cloisters Lawn as well as hosting more than 30 surprise performances all over New York City and the tri-state area as an element of the company's earned income and outreach programming with volunteer populated flash mobs. Residencies include: Earthdance 2006, Omi International Arts Center 2008, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center 2011, TheaterLab 2014, Adelphi University 2014. Ms. Riker is a 2016, 2017 and 2019 CUNY Dance Initiative Residency Fellow, 2015 LMCC Community Arts Fund grantee, 2019 Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Grantee. In 2020 Riker and Kinesis Project received a Dance/NYC COVID Recovery Grant and Indie Theatre Fund Recovery Grant. She has been commissioned by The Brooklyn Botanic Garden for a surprise large-scale work and performances of her work Secrets and Seawalls at Omi International Arts Center, Long House Reserve, Gateway National Park in partnership with Rockaways Artist Alliance. Ms. Riker has received commissions from Carson Fox and the Ephemeral Festival in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 for large-scale outdoor events, NYU in 1998, for a pop-up outdoor work long before "flash mob" was coined, 2006 and 2008 grants from the Puffin Foundation for her work Community Movements, a dance work with community volunteers, Fellowships from the Dodge Foundation, Space Grant Residencies from 92nd St Y, The New 42nd St Studio, Gibney Dance Center, and The Joyce Theatre Foundation, and grants from The New York State Council on the Arts, The Bowick Family Trust, John C. Robinson and Amerigo Falciani and Melissa Graule to support the continued work of Kinesis Project dance theatre.

Steph Richards is “A rising force in avant-garde jazz” (Jazz Times), Steph Richards is a dynamic experimentalist known for her innovative approach to the trumpet and interdisciplinary expression as a composer. She has collaborated with visionaries ranging from Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton and John Zorn to art pop luminaries Yoko Ono, St. Vincent, David Byrne and Laurie Anderson. Her work as a composer is characterized by The New York Times as “boldly inventive…compos[ing] in ways that standard notation could never document” and her works span interactions with film, poetry, theatre, dance and scent. As a collaborator she has performed with progressive artists in jazz including Ravi Coltrane, Jason Moran, Nicole Mitchell, Mary Halvorson, Tomeka Reid and Jeff Parker while her conducting work, informed by the concept of Butch Morris’ "Conduction" has taken her to groups around the world where she continues to push the boundaries of musical expression. She’s a founding member of Bang on A Can’s Asphalt Orchestra, and has worked with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Braxton’s Tricentric Orchestra, Threadgill’s Kestra and the Kronos Quartet. Steph is currently on faculty at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her latest record “Power Vibe” (Northern Spy, 2024) has been heralded as “a halcyon force on the expanding concepts of free music…making Power Vibe easily the most emboldened and venturesome statement of her ascendant career” (All About Jazz). Steph is a Yamaha artist.

Saxophonist Neil Welch is a Seattle-based improviser, acoustic and electronic artist, curator, composer, recording artist and educator. His practice is firmly linked to the natural world, welcoming inspiration from the abundant wildernesses of the Pacific Northwest. These influences are sonically reflected by a measured use of space and activated silence, with such specialized techniques as multiphonic-acoustic chord playing, microtonal pitch content, and air/wind-based sound. He is also a deep practitioner in the sculpting of a compelling melody, played on horn voices ranging from soprano to bass saxophone. Neil’s performance and recorded works focus largely on current musical forms, with a strong emphasis on improvisation. He is a member of the acclaimed saxophone + electronics / drum duo Bad Luck, and Wayne Horvitz’s Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble. As a solo artist, Neil also particularly welcomes the emotive vulnerability of unamplified acoustic solo saxophone improvisation.

Neil embraces the power of community collaboration in the arts, often exploring varied ensemble instrumentations and interdisciplinary practices. He was a founding member of the Racer Sessions series (est. 2007 - 2024) and curator artistic curator (2014-16). Neil is currently a member of the collectively run Gallery 1412 artist space. With 7 solo releases and appearances on 60+ albums to date, Neil’s playing unabashedly embraces a vastness of sonic possibility. All About Jazz calls his work "stunning and extraordinary” and Downbeat Magazine calls Neil "an impassioned player.”

Kate Olson is an improvising saxophonist and music educator based in Seattle, WA. Since moving to Seattle in 2010, she has done her best to infiltrate the local, regional and international improvised music scenes. She can be heard performing with her own projects KO SOLO and KO ENSEMBLE, and as a collaborator with the Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble and Electric Circus (led by Wayne Horvitz), Birch Pereira and the Gin Joints, Battlestar Kalakala (formerly West Seattle Soul/the Pulsations), and with such Seattle staples as cabaret producers Can Can Presents and Verlaine & McCann. Kate has a BA in Music (Jazz Emphasis) from the University of Wyoming and an MM in Improvisation from the University of Michigan, and is currently on the jazz faculty at Pacific Lutheran University and University of Puget Sound.

Kate’s international resume continues to grow, including performances in Russia, Latvia, Turkey, Switzerland, South Korea, Cuba, and Slovakia. She has appeared on stage with Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, Bobby Previte, Skerik, Patricia Barber, Elvis Costello, Brandi Carlile, Sir Mix-a-lot, Seattle Repertory Theater, Cafe Nordo, the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra and Seattle Symphony Pops, among others. Kate was nominated in 2011 and 2013 for the Earshot Golden Ear Award in the Emerging Artist category, and in 2014, 2016, and 2024, she was nominated for the Best NW Instrumentalist Category, and in 2016 her band KO Ensemble was also nominated as best NW Alternative Group. In 2020 the KO Ensemble won the Golden Ear Award for best NW Instrumental Group and in 2022, KO Electric was nominated for Best Alternative Group. www.kateplayssax.com

Natalie Twigg is a renowned musician, at 18 she won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music where she studied the oboe with highly acclaimed soloist, Sarah Francis and the former cor anglais with the London Symphony Orchestra’s Christine Pendrill, she has since freelanced throughout Europe and America with orchestras, jazz, rock and chamber ensembles. From being called upon to play with Led Zeppelin to performing solo recitals at venues including St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Natalie has also played for the British Royal family on several occasions and was commissioned to write and record a lullaby for Princess Catharina Amalia of the Dutch Royal family.

Natalie is an audio-visual artist known for her evocative performances that blend classical music with visual storytelling.

With a background in both piano and oboe, Natalie brings a unique depth to her performances, captivating audiences with her mellifluous oboe improvisations and poignant piano pieces. Her work often explores themes of identity, memory, and the human experience, creating a sanctuary of sound that invites listeners into a deeply personal journey. www.natalietwigg.com

Kinesis Project’s 2025 Season is made possible by generous support from John C. Robinson, Emily and Anthony Seaver, Laura Seaver, Seattle Downtown Alliance, the Creative Engagement regrant program supported by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) in partnership with the City Council, Howard Gilman Foundation and administered by LMCC.

Bridge Matter/The Reach is a 2024/26 MAP Fund supported project, with development of the work made possible by Summer on the Hudson/Riverside Park Conservancy, Friends of Inwood Hill Park and The Prelude in the Parks Festival.

The company is grateful for the spaces and resources shared by Harbor Steps, and for the permits made possible by Seattle Waterfront Park.

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