The dance artist Zoe Scofield photographed in 2013, in garments by Anna Telcs. Photo by Kelly O
Good morning. It’s Monday, May 11, the start of another so-called week.
For many people including professional dancers, today looks exactly like yesterday did. (Except that yesterday’s glorious weather is now turning back to the usual cloudy/rainy bullshit.)
In a hilarious video from the award-winning Zoe Scofield, who makes “dance dreamscapes that make theaters feel like bottled lightning,” as Brendan Kiley once put it, the choreographer and dancer draws on her face, “smokes” with a tiny pencil, and eats chunky peanut butter off of a spoon.
Zoe, a 2013 Stranger Genius Award winner and 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, is a dance and visual artist who has been living and making work in Seattle since 2002.
Born and raised in Gainesville, Georgia, Zoe began ballet at a young age, instilling in her a deep love and interest in structure, discipline, and performances’ ability to create transformative experiences.
In 2005, Zoe began working with video and visual artist Juniper Shuey on video works, photographic collaborations, and dance collaborations that have been shown in visual art galleries, museums, and theaters around the world.
Zoe has been awarded so many awards, grants, and residences that if we listed them here the English language would run out of letters. So let’s just look at a screenshot of her right before she eats that glob of unbelievably delicious-looking peanut butter.
Peanut butter is a tool for easing tensions between roommates, Zoe argues in her message today. Courtesy of Zoe Scofield
See more of Zoe’s work here and here. Read more about her here. Follow her on Instagram here or here.
Thank you, Zoe, for the laughs, and good luck nursing that tub of peanut butter. The Stranger editor writing these words cannot keep peanut butter in the house—he would go through one of those tubs in two days. But you’re a dancer; you have discipline. And the advice about roommates is solid.
Thank you for this peek into the glamorous life of professional dancers.
Good luck making the best of your shit-sandwich Monday, everyone.
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Previously in this series:
Aham Oluo’s message to the city on May 8.
Pete Rush’s message to the city on May 7.
Trent Moorman’s message to the city on May 6.
Renée Valencia’s message to the city on May 5.
Justin Huertas’s message to the city on May 4.
Charles Mudede’s message to the city on May 1.
Kathryn Rathke’s message to the city on April 30.
Anthony White’s message to the city on April 30.
Miss Texas 1988’s message to the city.
Matt Bishop’s message on April 27.
Cherdonna’s message to the city on April 26.
Shenandoah Davis’s message to the city on April 25.
Lorena González’s message to the city on April 24.
Clyde Petersen’s message to the city on April 23.
David Ritt’s message to the city on April 22.
Sara Porkalob’s message to the city on April 21.
Julia Sweeney’s message to the city on April 20.
Linda Derschang’s message to the city on April 19.
Molly Sides’s message to the city on April 18.
Nick Garrison’s message to the city on April 17.
Tomo Nakayama’s message to the city on April 16.
Rebecca M. Davis’s message to the city April 15.
Heather McHugh’s message to the city on April 14.
Brandon O’Neill’s message to the city on April 13.
Kate Wallich’s message to the city on April 12.
Rebecca Brown’s message to the city on April 11.
Lucien Postlewaite’s message to the city on April 10.
Betty Wetter’s message to the city on April 9.
Amanda Morgan’s message to the city on April 8.
Nancy Guppy’s message to the city on April 7.
Jonathan Biss’s message to the city on April 6.
Chris Jeffries’s message to the city on April 5.
Lesley Hazleton’s message to the city on April 4.
John Roderick’s message to the city on April 3.
Bill Carty’s message to the city on April 2.
Price Suddarth’s message to the city on April 1.
Kary Wayson’s message to the city on March 31.
Ellen Forney’s message to the city on March 30.
Major Scales’s message to the city on March 29.
E. J. Koh’s message to the city on March 28.
Ken Jennings’s message to the city on March 27.
Demarre McGill’s message to the city on March 26.
Lynn Shelton’s Message to the City on March 25th.
Timothy White Eagle’s message to the city on March 24.
Cookie Couture’s message to the city on March 23.
Sarah Rudinoff’s message to the city on March 22.
John Osebold’s message to the city on March 21.
Ben Gibbard’s message to the city on March 20.
Nathan Chan’s message to the city on March 19.
