A gallery installation. A performance. Atmosphere.
Meet Tammy Keiser, costume designer, and Amanda Pintore, the director of Atmosphere, the Lawrence Arts Center’s newest performance for very young children ages 2-6!
Tammy Keiser is a creator of small (preferably quirky and twisted) worlds that live on a stage. She also loves to dress the inhabitants of these worlds with her own unique style of garments. She lives to repurpose ANYTHING into functional, sometimes wearable pieces of paintings, sculptures, structures, attire… You get the picture! Ms. Keiser prefers trees, caves, and dragons but her time–and this bio space–is limited!
Amanda Pintore loves to build performances and experiences for very young children because they are her favorite people. She puts cheese on most things and likes to embroider and do puzzles when it is cold outside. She is very short, sometimes loud, and is her best self when surrounded by friends of varying height and volume.
So what is Atmosphere?
Finding its home in the middle exhibition gallery, Atmosphere is the newest event in the Theatre and Dance for the Very young program. This work is a six-week long installation and a recurring performance set inside the installation. The interactive (and touchable!) installation, designed by guest artist Sharon McCaman, will be open to the public from January 10 through February 22 for free. The ticketed performances of Atmosphere feature live music, dancing, and tactile exploration and will occur at select times each week starting January 16th. This production is built in partnership with the Ballard Center and families at the LAC who participated in our connected Play Lab series. In these research sessions, we collaborated with very young children to explore light, wind, clouds, rain, and sky and, as a result, built the production of Atmosphere based entirely on their ideas!
What do Tammy and Amanda do for Atmosphere?
Tammy is the costume designer for Atmosphere. She is building a fabulous world with costumes that light up, reveal surprises, and move like they are inspired by the elements. Amanda was a researcher in our Play Lab Series and serves as the director for Atmosphere. She is also the lead coordinator of the Theatre and Dance for the Very Young program. Email her at amanda@lawrenceartscenter.org if you want to know more!
