Audience Response
"Beth Graczyk invites us to remember that change is indeed possible - that how we feel right now is not set in stone - that it and we will shift. She reminds us that we each have the capacity to transform from moment to moment as she does - through every breathtakingly, detailed second of her crafting of space and time." - Amy Miller, GDC Director
"It's been a long time since dance critic Apollinaire Scherr, writing for the New York Times, cited the maxim "Talking is talking and dancing is dancing" and lamented how rare it is to find the two working together artfully. Beth Graczyk has that rare talent: she is equally precise and expressive in movement and word." - Jen Mack, Data Analyst & Enthusiast
"Penelope engages! She inspires! You sit, rapt, suddenly reacquainted to your BEING, eyelids presenting themselves as miracles, skin reawakened and aware of cloth and air. You embody possibility. I crave her." - Alicia Walter, Chef & Enthusiast
"It's been a long time since dance critic Apollinaire Scherr, writing for the New York Times, cited the maxim "Talking is talking and dancing is dancing" and lamented how rare it is to find the two working together artfully. Beth Graczyk has that rare talent: she is equally precise and expressive in movement and word." - Jen Mack, Data Analyst & Enthusiast
"Penelope engages! She inspires! You sit, rapt, suddenly reacquainted to your BEING, eyelids presenting themselves as miracles, skin reawakened and aware of cloth and air. You embody possibility. I crave her." - Alicia Walter, Chef & Enthusiast
Selected Press
"Beth Graczyk’s choreography was volatile and pushed all the right buttons to create a kind of a feeding frenzy of desire and self expression" - Jacquelyn Claire, StageBiz, For PGEC's Virgo Star Production, Nov 2019
Shanghai Theater Academy - Published writing about teaching with Amy Chavasse: HERE, October 2019
June 2019, Kerala, India
"Graczyk makes me feel that being human is utterly ridiculous and gorgeously triumphant at the same time — and, isn’t it?"
"A focused exploration amidst the contours of human interiority, One of You is Fake seeks a solace that the present moment, or near-past, or fast-approaching future for that matter, can never quite provide. As its audience, we are left with a firm belief in a pursuit of honest connection; true human relationships — physical, emotional, electronic or otherwise — may be our one saving grace."
-Tara Sheena, Culturebot, NYC, May 2017 on One of You Is Fake at La MaMa Moves Festival
"Throughout, her dance movements portrayed a natural and seemingly effortless control of her body to offer a believable notion of communicating with inanimate objects and a convincing translation of feeling into gesture."
"In all, these "plays" and their associated objects lean toward a hybrid form of performance art and conceptual sculpture as much as the overall category of dance by collaborating fully with the props, the other performers and even the audience for an intriguing, capable and totally piquant experience."
- Ron Schira, Reading Eagle, PA, Oct 2017 on One of You Is Fake for New Arts Program
“neurotic and darkly humorous” – The Stranger, Seattle, 2017, Corridor Festival for performance of Beast
"Beth Graczyk: if SNL had a modern dance department she'd be handing out the hall passes."
- Holley Farmer, Bessie-Award Winning Performer, 2016
"...Beth Graczyk (a stand-out performer of the evening whose excitable, squirming persona was oddly captivating)..." - Elena Light, Dance and Circumstance, NYC, for Raja Feather Kelly's Andy Warhol's 15 (Color Me Warhol), 2015
"Graczyk’s movement weaves tight choreography with elements of spontaneity. Through a process that requires the performers to constantly calibrate to their environment, she creates moments that live and breathe." - Ciara McCormack, Seattle Dances, 2014
"Beth’s movement is confident and strong, loose yet strictly stylized. The established language of folding and swoop allows us to further imagine organic life exploding in all directions. I’m given the story of knowledge shared and spreading out before us, and also the satisfaction of watching a deft and mindful choreographer. Efficient and exact in her movement she blends hard and soft, angled and round to the betterment of both." - Eric Pitsenbarger, Stance, 2014
“Haim's dancers are impressive, especially Jim Kent and Jody Kuehner in an extended slow-motion acrobalancing duet, and Beth Graczyk in an intricate solo where she pushes first tentatively, then angrily against her own physical limits.” – Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times, 2012
“Beth Graczyk (of Salt Horse) is a helluva dancer. She's got the moves but also the acting to suck you right into whatever she's doing”. – Brendan Kiley, The Stranger Slog, 2012
“In Salt Horse's Titan Arum however choreographers Beth Graczyk and Corrie Befort create a nightmarish world that intrigues and fascinates; a world through which dancers navigate, encountering mythical and sublime creatures, investigating power and leaving interpretation to the viewer’s discretion.” – Rachel Gallaher, CityArts, 2011
"The best "special effect," however, is the dancing. While much of "Man" is physical theater, when actual dance is called for - especially in Graczyk's work with Rioux - the performers know exactly how to forge a fluid, tumbling dynamic from an array of stunted movements. In their hands, the everyday gradually builds up to the reckless and impassioned.” - Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times, 2010
“It is so damn hard to get allegorical storytelling translated into movement. Images fall flat, or feel overweighted, or just so free-floating and random that the stage becomes an endless crazy carnival written in an unknowable tongue. But here in Seattle, the legacy of great achievers in movement poetry (33 Fainting Spells, Pat Graney, Robert Davidson) continues in strong health this month with the full-evening premiere of “Man on the Beach” by Salt Horse. Trust me on this: you’ll never forget the mysterious, swollen moments of human struggle and satisfaction created by choreographers Beth Graczyk and Corrie Befort and musician Angelina Baldoz.” - Breathlesspace, Jean Lenihan's Writings on Dance and Other Movements, 2010
"Beth Graczyk was so electrifying that I thought that she had physically caused the audiences’ cell phones to ring." - Stephanie Skura, Bessie-award winner, 2008
"Watching Beth Graczyk and Corrie Befort in Salt Horse is like listening to two distinct voices singing together, sometimes hitting the same note, sometimes harmonizing, sometimes going wildly discordant---but always deeply attuned to each other, knowing when to be in synch and when to clash. The movement itself---sometimes graceful and liquid, sometimes skittish and jangled---engages the audience, but it's the interplay of their bodies, something as impossible to describe as the air between their flashing limbs, that is the true subject of this marvelous dance."- Bret Fetzer, Seattle Critic, 2008
"Dancer Beth Graczyk also is notable for the remarkably soft precision in her gestures." Stacey Levine, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2007
"Graczyk does isosceles triangles, and their sharp, stable ghosts press into the air with every phrase." Annie Wagner, Stranger, 2006
"Beth Graczyk performs with great specificity, so that a tumbling sequence has myriad details all flowing into one another." Sandi Kurtz, Seattle Weekly, 2006
"One tends to think of dancers as vessels for a choreographer's vision, but some manifest themselves, presenting not so much a personality (as an actor might) but as an individual body, with its own way of learning and expressing the moves, its own nuances, textures, and habits (good and bad). Graczyk in particular, who was also in a piece last week, has developed a real authority as a dancer." Bret Fetzer, On The Boards blog, 2005
"Beth Graczyk, who has been dancing for almost everyone lately, does finely detailed work here, focusing our attention on her phrasing as she makes very specific choices about timing and energy." Sandra Kurtz, Seattle Weekly, 2005
"Beth Graczyk and Amelia Reeber skitter across the stage in the kinetic equivalent of a giggle." Sandra Kurtz, Dance Magazine, 2005
"This section followed a more stark but just as compelling solo by Beth Graczyk, whose grounded, full-bodied presence made her every gesture and motion magnetic." Bret Fetzer, The Stranger, 2004
Photo Credit: Effy Grey
"A focused exploration amidst the contours of human interiority, One of You is Fake seeks a solace that the present moment, or near-past, or fast-approaching future for that matter, can never quite provide. As its audience, we are left with a firm belief in a pursuit of honest connection; true human relationships — physical, emotional, electronic or otherwise — may be our one saving grace."
-Tara Sheena, Culturebot, NYC, May 2017 on One of You Is Fake at La MaMa Moves Festival
"Throughout, her dance movements portrayed a natural and seemingly effortless control of her body to offer a believable notion of communicating with inanimate objects and a convincing translation of feeling into gesture."
"In all, these "plays" and their associated objects lean toward a hybrid form of performance art and conceptual sculpture as much as the overall category of dance by collaborating fully with the props, the other performers and even the audience for an intriguing, capable and totally piquant experience."
- Ron Schira, Reading Eagle, PA, Oct 2017 on One of You Is Fake for New Arts Program
“neurotic and darkly humorous” – The Stranger, Seattle, 2017, Corridor Festival for performance of Beast
"Beth Graczyk: if SNL had a modern dance department she'd be handing out the hall passes."
- Holley Farmer, Bessie-Award Winning Performer, 2016
"...Beth Graczyk (a stand-out performer of the evening whose excitable, squirming persona was oddly captivating)..." - Elena Light, Dance and Circumstance, NYC, for Raja Feather Kelly's Andy Warhol's 15 (Color Me Warhol), 2015
"Graczyk’s movement weaves tight choreography with elements of spontaneity. Through a process that requires the performers to constantly calibrate to their environment, she creates moments that live and breathe." - Ciara McCormack, Seattle Dances, 2014
"Beth’s movement is confident and strong, loose yet strictly stylized. The established language of folding and swoop allows us to further imagine organic life exploding in all directions. I’m given the story of knowledge shared and spreading out before us, and also the satisfaction of watching a deft and mindful choreographer. Efficient and exact in her movement she blends hard and soft, angled and round to the betterment of both." - Eric Pitsenbarger, Stance, 2014
“Haim's dancers are impressive, especially Jim Kent and Jody Kuehner in an extended slow-motion acrobalancing duet, and Beth Graczyk in an intricate solo where she pushes first tentatively, then angrily against her own physical limits.” – Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times, 2012
“Beth Graczyk (of Salt Horse) is a helluva dancer. She's got the moves but also the acting to suck you right into whatever she's doing”. – Brendan Kiley, The Stranger Slog, 2012
“In Salt Horse's Titan Arum however choreographers Beth Graczyk and Corrie Befort create a nightmarish world that intrigues and fascinates; a world through which dancers navigate, encountering mythical and sublime creatures, investigating power and leaving interpretation to the viewer’s discretion.” – Rachel Gallaher, CityArts, 2011
"The best "special effect," however, is the dancing. While much of "Man" is physical theater, when actual dance is called for - especially in Graczyk's work with Rioux - the performers know exactly how to forge a fluid, tumbling dynamic from an array of stunted movements. In their hands, the everyday gradually builds up to the reckless and impassioned.” - Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times, 2010
“It is so damn hard to get allegorical storytelling translated into movement. Images fall flat, or feel overweighted, or just so free-floating and random that the stage becomes an endless crazy carnival written in an unknowable tongue. But here in Seattle, the legacy of great achievers in movement poetry (33 Fainting Spells, Pat Graney, Robert Davidson) continues in strong health this month with the full-evening premiere of “Man on the Beach” by Salt Horse. Trust me on this: you’ll never forget the mysterious, swollen moments of human struggle and satisfaction created by choreographers Beth Graczyk and Corrie Befort and musician Angelina Baldoz.” - Breathlesspace, Jean Lenihan's Writings on Dance and Other Movements, 2010
"Beth Graczyk was so electrifying that I thought that she had physically caused the audiences’ cell phones to ring." - Stephanie Skura, Bessie-award winner, 2008
"Watching Beth Graczyk and Corrie Befort in Salt Horse is like listening to two distinct voices singing together, sometimes hitting the same note, sometimes harmonizing, sometimes going wildly discordant---but always deeply attuned to each other, knowing when to be in synch and when to clash. The movement itself---sometimes graceful and liquid, sometimes skittish and jangled---engages the audience, but it's the interplay of their bodies, something as impossible to describe as the air between their flashing limbs, that is the true subject of this marvelous dance."- Bret Fetzer, Seattle Critic, 2008
"Dancer Beth Graczyk also is notable for the remarkably soft precision in her gestures." Stacey Levine, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2007
"Graczyk does isosceles triangles, and their sharp, stable ghosts press into the air with every phrase." Annie Wagner, Stranger, 2006
"Beth Graczyk performs with great specificity, so that a tumbling sequence has myriad details all flowing into one another." Sandi Kurtz, Seattle Weekly, 2006
"One tends to think of dancers as vessels for a choreographer's vision, but some manifest themselves, presenting not so much a personality (as an actor might) but as an individual body, with its own way of learning and expressing the moves, its own nuances, textures, and habits (good and bad). Graczyk in particular, who was also in a piece last week, has developed a real authority as a dancer." Bret Fetzer, On The Boards blog, 2005
"Beth Graczyk, who has been dancing for almost everyone lately, does finely detailed work here, focusing our attention on her phrasing as she makes very specific choices about timing and energy." Sandra Kurtz, Seattle Weekly, 2005
"Beth Graczyk and Amelia Reeber skitter across the stage in the kinetic equivalent of a giggle." Sandra Kurtz, Dance Magazine, 2005
"This section followed a more stark but just as compelling solo by Beth Graczyk, whose grounded, full-bodied presence made her every gesture and motion magnetic." Bret Fetzer, The Stranger, 2004
Photo Credit: Effy Grey