The team
Creative Destruction Collective
Mission
Creative Destruction is a shorthand economics term widely used to describe the driving force underlying free market capitalism, and is highlighted in the mission of the Collective: to explore the legacy of colonial exploitation and its effects on the world in which we live.
Meet the Team
Christina Lindhout
Professional dancer Christina Lindhout choreographed, produced, and directed the ballet. She performed with Verb Ballets from 2014 to 2020 including several international tours. In addition to performing and choreographing, she directs the school at Verb Ballets Center for Dance, and is an Adjunct Dance Faculty member at Baldwin Wallace University.
Corrie Slawson
The original concept for FEAST: a ballet was developed by contemporary artist and Executive Producer Corrie Slawson. Her work merges layers of printmaking, drawing and painting. Her work has been exhibited in the U.S. and internationally, including at MOCA Cleveland, The Toledo Museum of Art, Akron Art Museum, Centro Cultural Tijuana, SPACES, at The Massillon Museum, and Zygote Press.
Dr. Dalindyebo Shabalala
The narrative for FEAST: a ballet was developed with special expertise provided by Dr. Dalindyebo Shabalala, University of Dayton Associate Professor of Law and UN Presenter on Climate Change and Human Right. He has been an adviser to developing countries and civil society in negotiations at the UNFCCC, WIPO, the WTO, the Convention on Biological Diversity and in several regional and bilateral free trade agreement negotiations.
Marc Lefkowitz
The narrative for FEAST was written with expertise provided by Marc Lefkowitz who served as Director of the GreenCityBlueLake Institute at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Marc Lefkowitz is a sustainability consultant with over 15 years of experience as a researcher, project manager, and thought leader who has been driving community conversations in environmental policy, education, and community engagement.
Kelly Korfhage
Professional dancer, Kelly Korfhage choreographed, produced, and directed the ballet. Kelly has danced with Verb Ballets since 2016 and also teaches regionally. She is also a Russian Pointe Brand Ambassador.
Project Purpose
FEAST: a ballet combines sculptural and painted objects created by visual artist Corrie Slawson with original choreography by dancers Christina Lindhout and Kelly Korfhage to explore the peaks and valleys of human consumption. With FEAST, the complex narratives of seven commodities—Beef, Bananas, Coffee, Sugar, Minerals, Rubber and Timber—are represented.
The story of FEAST is a window into a system of ruler and ruled, consumer and consumed, complicity and resistance, and the pleasure and pain it produces. Dissent and desire are tangled up within a system designed to exploit human and natural resources and leave only some on top.
The real-world inspiration for the setting of FEAST is America and Europe’s Gilded Age of unchecked wealth and growth. The ballet depicts how this time period was blinded by the glitter and glory of an endless cycle of overconsumption. The dancers fall prey to a system with deeply troubling structures: as it farms and manufactures our desires it also feasts on human bodies and natural resources.
Project History
The concept for the ballet derives from Slawson’s work “Let Them Eat Steak” — an installation of over 365 hand-cast plaster steaks, some gilded, some marbled and a dozen trompe l’oeil painted in oil that appeared in the exhibit “Artifice and Persuasion” at American Greetings Gallery in 2018.
Bringing the steaks into a performance setting is part of the larger discussion of multiple systems: economic, environmental and social. The artwork acknowledges that what generates material comfort also accelerates climate change and relies heavily on exploitative labor practices.
Ms. Lindhout and Ms. Korfhage produced and directed the 32-minute, five-part ballet which was recorded at Verb Ballets’ studios in September, 2020. Wasted Talent Media produced the film of the project. Ms. Slawson also created the costumes and set pieces. The music is a new recording of selections from Dmitri Shostakovich’s Sonatas, Piano Trios and String Quartet performed by students and recent graduates of the Cleveland Institute of Music. For complete biographies of the Creative Destruction Collective (producers), dancers, artistic production, musicians, and crew.