Smoke Soup

Developed through a series of hugely popular sold out performances on BodyVox’s home stage in Portland Oregon, Smoke Soup is set to the haunting, propulsive music of vaunted songwriter and Grammy Award winner Joe Henry. Utilizing movement, imagery and Henry’s deeply personal, distinctly American music, Smoke Soup follows a cast of characters through a richly layered, intensely physical dance theater cycle.

Performed with a live indy rock band led by bassist Michael Papillo, Henry’s music is re-imagined as funk, tango, anthem, torch and rockabilly to create a theatrical cabaret that “....stirs together images of grace and struggle, earthiness and atmosphere, suggesting the ways we draw nourishment from ephemeral experience.” (The Oregonian)

“It is a strange thing for someone like me, who 
fishes for songs in solitude, to see them hauled up 
and consumed on behalf of someone else’s vision. 
Strange indeed; but wondrous. There is little, in fact, 
more satisfying than seeing one’s work tested beyond 
its original intent. In the case of BodyVox and their 
performance piece entitled “Smoke Soup,” I watch 
and listen while a vocabulary of my own invention is
used to speak sentences I couldn’t have envisioned. “I consider this a gift: that someone might offer me a new 
way into my own body of work. I can only imagine what 
this might do to my thinking here forward, but just barely.”
Joe Henry

Smoke Soup was created by Artistic Directors Jamey Hampton and Ashley Roland. Distinguished artists on the world stage, their unique approach was formed by their years working as creators and performers with innovative dance companies Momix, ISO Dance, and Pilobolus. They have each received both the American Choreography Award and an Emmy Award. A highly collaborative production, the work features additional choreography by founding BodyVox members Eric Skinner and Daniel Kirk.

Smoke Soup tours with 12 Dancers, 5 Musicians,
 3 Singers and 2 Technicians. BodyVox Tour performances include an outreach element that is developed 
in collaboration with 
the presenter.

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Photo by: David Krebs