Deep Dance

When: Voskuil: Oct. 18–21; Thayer: Oct. 4–6
Where: Voskuil: Ritz Theater, 345 13th Ave. NE, Mpls., 612-436-1129; Thayer: Southern Theater, 1420 Washington Ave. S., Mpls., 612-340-1725

This October, two of the Twin Cities’ smart, talented female choreographers present new work. Vanessa Voskuil and Deborah Jinza Thayer, different as they are, both create vivid stage images fraught with emotion. Voskuil, better known as an ensemble performer, has recently been garnering attention for her choreography. Her work “The Silents” (showing with Ben Siems’s “All Nora’s Daughters Can Fly”) investigates human fragility and death. “Life is this struggle, this fragile state of existence,” says Voskuil. “What does it all mean when we come to the end?” If that sounds grim, don’t worry; the depth of Voskuil’s thinking is matched by the breadth of her vision.

Thayer, a New York transplant (and previous McKnight grantee), returns to the Southern with her first evening-length show in several years. In such pieces as “All That Glitters” and “Meet the Nation,” Thayer sets resonant themes—childbirth, creation, politics—in strange environments—tubing, harnesses, panes of glass. “I create these internal worlds, these environments,” she says. “They’re metaphors for our life.”