liberty in pursuit of something new
INTERVIEW WITH westFEST guest artists, undercurrent
Hilary Grumman and Alethea Alexander are Co-Artistic Directors of Undercurrent, a Seattle-based floorwork dance company. Their website says that they are “dedicated to creating and experimenting with floorwork technique, biomechanically sustainable movement practices, experiential design, immersive performances, interdisciplinary collaboration, and care-centered community building” — but what does that all mean?
Us: Can you tell me about the beginnings of Undercurrent and how things sort of percolated for you, Hilary?
Hilary: Undercurrent has been around for almost 10 years now. So there's been a lot of different chapters of it, but early percolations began when I was training and dancing for a lot of different floor work companies. What I found was a lot of pretty high-injury-prone approaches to moving close to the floor. It felt cathartic and really exciting for me as a young dancer, but very exclusive to certain body types. And I was certainly one of them.
After quite a few injuries, I eventually was like, I want to do this, but I want to make it something that I could withstand for more than just a year or two. So, I moved back to Seattle and founded Undercurrent alongside two other women, Ashley Jade and Liv Fauver, as a community class gathering space in 2017. After about a year, we started doing small pop-up performances in the community, which felt like a sweet way to branch out even though I believe the heartbeat of Undercurrent is the physical practice and weekly ritual of class.
Us: Alethea, what was your entrance into working with Undercurrent, which has now grown to you being the Co-Artistic Director of the company?
Alethea: I started taking class pretty early on in Undercurrent's development. As someone who grew up with a love of ballet, I saw a pretty cool mirror between what I loved about ballet and Undercurrent’s approach to class. Everything had a form and a logical progression, which I felt was something that was lacking in a lot of the contemporary, modern classes I was taking at the time. From then on, I fell in love with Undercurrent, one, because I got to do new hard things with my body, which is definitely still part of what we do and everything we make and everything we teach. And two, because that was really well supported by the pedagogy that had been developed and is continually developed. We're still pushing those boundaries.
And, now, we've been creating work together for the past three years, which is an aspect of Undercurrent that has just exploded in the past year.
Us: You are bringing a piece of work to present as part of westFEST’s Ignite 2026 performance. Can you share some insight into this piece, Surface Tension.
Alethea: At this point, I am thinking of the work that we're bringing as kind of an excerpt of a larger work that does not yet exist. So we're bringing all of what we have, but I think it will keep building.
Hilary: Yeah, so for Surface Tension, Alethea and I feel really thrilled and excited about what we're responding to on stage, which in this case are these two hanging lights. They hang just four feet off the floor and showcase this really low ceiling that we all have a long term shared movement language around. I think it highlights and amplifies the risk at play and the honed physical practice that we've come accustomed to. They will swing differently at Westside Theater than they have at On the Boards and Cornish Playhouse where we've shared this work before, but we're excited about it. We have built the work around community caretaking and this idea that high risk, especially high physical and emotional risk, can only happen in a way that feels realistic, aligned, sustainable. It can only happen if it's predicated and built on a deep level of attunement, of trust, of truly sharing responsibilities on stage.
Alethea: And what these lights do, being as heavy and metal and sharp as they are, not only highlights, but it forces every performer in the work to hyper commitment to one another, saying I'm here for you.
Us: Along with Surface Tension, you will also be creating a new work with our westFEST Performance Cohort that will be performed in conjunction with your work in Ignite 2026. Do you have any thoughts forming for what you might create or how you will begin this very quick process?
Alethea: We just wrapped another festival in Seattle, literally, where we premiered a new work that we made for a different set of festival participants. So it's fresh, and there are a couple ideas and physicalities and shapes of organization of bodies from that piece that we're still really excited by. We will usually begin with offering information rather than asking for information, and probably the key focus of this work will have something to do with connectivity among the 16 Performance Cohort participants.
Hiliary: Yeah, community care is usually our starting place. I think we're in a creative brain space around concepts like leaning into one another and choosing systems of reciprocity, symbiotic relation, enmeshment, and even long-term commitment. We’re curious about how those ideas could shape or what kind of movement could transpire with a group of people, even if you're only with them briefly.
Us: westFEST is all about creating a home for dance in the Mountain West and for artists to come together in community. As a smaller company, similar to Bare Bait Dance, could you speak to what excites you about the future of dance in this area of the country?
Alethea: I have been drawing parallels in my mind between what I imagine is part of the feeling and ethos of Bare Bait to a company up in Bellingham, Washington that I danced with for a little while. And I loved that environment because it offered a sensation of dance that was really dedicated but that was not elite or exclusive or too precious to be honest. There was a sense of humor and a lightness and a desire for dancing. I would say that Seattle as a city is almost like a bigger version of something like that. I think there's like a liberty in pursuit of something new that I feel in this city and that I'm excited to fly with.
Hillary: I think another layer that I see at Bare Bait and with Undercurrent is the privilege of standing on a long history in one place. I know deep relationships that have come out of Bare Bait that have lasted decades, and a lot of our physical community is in that long-term relationship with us at Undercurrent. It is such a testament to the culture and the creative play space that is held within these communities.
Undercurrent will be performing in IGNITE, presented as part of our 2026 westFEST New Works Festival, Aug 14 - 16, 2026. To learn more about westFEST: CLICK HERE