quotes
“Marrying intelligence and art together seamlessly.”
Jim Tobin, Bay Area Dance Watch
“Throughout, it was clear that the content emerged from a deep conversation between choreographic thinking and technology … What stayed with me most after the work was how, through subtle means, Nicely and Elswit created a work with visceral impact … Breath Catalogue points to a different future wherein technology has the potential to facilitate embodiment.”
Hope Mohr, The Body is The Brain
“For art to be contemporary, it must reflect our current conditions. Digital and information technology is part of the fabric of our society — it can exploit or it can inspire. When handled thoughtfully, emerging technology can deepen the human experience, as Nicely and Elswit demonstrated in Breath Catalogue.”
Joe Ferguson, SciArt in America
“Megan Nicely’s Somatic Experiment #1 Scrunch [is] a visceral, immersive, and creepily spooky choreographic wonder. From its vocalization score (provided live by Jim Brashear) to its deconstructed set to its gritty, animalistic syntax, this piece is all dance theater.”
Dance Commentary
“Megan Nicely’s not-so-nice (in a good way) gothic solo [By the Throat] got me wrapped in a warped Mary Shelley-type fantasy. It was unsettling at times…but as she lifted her dark skirts and whirled beautifully, dare I say it, I wanted that dark vision of hers to grow….”
The Dance Enthusiast
“Rejecting clichés and the sophomoric route of literal simplemindedness, Nicely set a taught, definite, and sometimes disorienting mood for her piece…with her theatrical (almost filmic) artistry. …the performers seemed to let the movement flow through them rather than push themselves into it—the hallmark of world-class dance.”
San Francisco Bay Guardian Talkback
“…promising ensemble-work chops. […] The fluid phrasings and rippling use of the spine are compelling…”
San Francisco Examiner
“…intelligent explorer[s] of humanity’s most mundane and most absurd impulses. … humor and heartbreak, individual wanderings and musings on the meaning of death, all expressed with abstract theatricality and precise fluidity of movement. In other words: good dance.”
SF Gate
“…Nicely translates potential into kinetic energy and back again…”
San Francisco Bay Guardian