Join us for a screening of Bebe and Zoe’s selected work and conversation between Bebe, Zoe, and you (and popcorn and candy and drinks, of course!).

See work from their archives, hear about their processes, how their work was made and what they think about it now. This is an opportunity to see and hear about work not available otherwise!

Tickets above, drinks by donation + FREE popcorn and candy!

SCHEDULE

7:15pm doors open

7:30-9pm screening of Bebe and Zoe’s work and conversation with Bebe, Zoe and you, have drinks, eat all the popcorn and candy because Zoe isn’t taking any home.

QUESTIONS: admin@zoejuniper.org

ADDRESS: Base: Experimental Arts + Space

6520 5th Ave S #122nd, Seattle, WA 98108

How it all began - a note from Zoe

I was first introduced to Bebe’s work when I was about 12 or 13 years old and lived in Gainesville GA (read: small town), my dad drove me two hours to see The Hendrix Project in Athens GA. My mom took modern dance classes with José Limón and Martha Graham (!!) when she was a student at Connecticut College and my dad loved Jimi Hendrix, but I was clueless. Up to that point my knowledge of dance was my weekly ballet classes with a capital B and the PBS Great Performances videos of Barishnykov, Martha Graham and NYCB that I got from the library. Seeing Bebe’s work, my mind was blown. I sat in the audience afterwards stunned, I couldn’t quite understand what I had just experienced. I didn’t know dance could be like this, I didn’t know you could dance to music like that- I didn’t know anything like this was possible. After that, the world of dance and music was blown open for me.

Fast forward to 2007: I am so bold as to ask Bebe if she would be willing to act as a sort of mentor and come watch rehearsals, offer feedback, etc. Bebe generously watched various rehearsals through the years, gave me frank and deeply insightful feedback, allowed me into her rehearsals and in 2018 served as a formal mentor through a choreographer mentorship program with Jacob’s Pillow and the Princess Grace Foundation.

I have studied Bebe’s work and its vast territory like a student learning how to paint like the masters- staring at each piece, drawing them to learn the physicality of brush strokes, the control of paint and the understanding of each element's effect on the viewer. Or like my boyfriend teaching himself at fifteen how to play the guitar like Eddie VanHalen, not to sound like Van Halen but so that he has the skills to make his own songs. ;) I have learned so much from Bebe and am grateful to continue to. I’m thrilled to get to know Bebe in this way and so excited to open it up to all of you!

We remember remembering - Bebe

I think that part of the reason I choreograph dances has to do with revisiting memory in some weird, made-up way. I am taken away by the chance to crystallize fleeting encounters I may have seen or remembered, stopping time and action long enough to read them from the inside—from the flesh, from a distance. I fact-check my attention, choreographically: What’s the rhythm? Where’s the focus? What’s the next dream move? I don’t carry the catalogue of my life in my head; well, not all of it anyway. But I do collect kinds of time, kinds of impulses and resolutions that I see around me.

Memory is the container; remembering activates the practice. I abstract the nutrients, shift the emphasis and make something new. I rearrange sensation and image, according to the form that emerges. It is the thrust of intention that sends an arm into space just so, rather than its placement there. I follow the timing between gestures, the rise of attention between people, the toss of their weight, the offhand smirk of a shoulder. Held in position a bit too long. My reasons for dancing does not need to be— nor is it—the reason for watching. My reasons for dancing—for dancemaking—might sit alongside the reasons one watches these dances, but then how would I know that? We come together empty handed, hearts and minds at the ready.

© Bebe Miller

A glimpse into Bebe + Zoe's work

Bebe Miller

Necessary Beauty (2008)

Tiny Sisters (1994)

Zoe Scofield

Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil (2025)

About Bebe + Zoe

Bebe Miller, a native New Yorker, formed Bebe Miller Company in 1985 to pursue her interest in finding a physical language for the human condition. BMC has been presented by such venues as 651 ARTS, BAM Next Wave, DTW, Jacob’s Pillow, Joyce Theater, PICA, REDCAT and Wexner Center for the Arts. Named a Master of African American Choreography by the Kennedy Center in 2005, Bebe is in the 2012 inaugural class of Doris Duke Artist Awardees and has been honored by Movement Research, Danspace Project and New York Live Arts. A Distinguished Professor Emerita in The Ohio State University’s Department of Dance she currently lives in a forest on Vashon Island, WA.

Zoe Scofield (she/her), is a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, and a dance and visual artist based in LA. Zoe is the co-artistic director and founder of zoe | juniper, a dance and visual art company since 2005. Her work has been commissioned and presented by Jacob’s Pillow, New York Live Arts, On the Boards, RedCat, MASS MoCA, The Frye Art Museum, The Joyce Theater, PS 122, Carolina Performing Arts, and The Met Museum among others. Zoe works in performance, video installation, photography, opera and film. She has received funding from the Mellon Foundation, Princess Grace Foundation, NEA, NEFA, NPN and more. Zoe’s current piece, Tell the truth and shame the devil, is a live dance and music collaboration with Xiu Xiu. Zoe has a MFA in Dance from the University of the Arts.

Free and reduced access supported by 4Culture

Banner Photos: Bebe Miller in Necessary Beauty (2009) by Julieta Cervantes | Zoe Scofield by Juniper Shuey

screening + kiki with Bebe and Zoe

May 22 | 7:15pm at BASE