Moscow— January 19, 2026
Loess
An evolving sculptural installation and dance/sound performance series by Corrie Befort
From March 5th – May 30th, 2026, Moscow Contemporary presents Loess, Corrie Befort’s evolving sculptural installation and performance series commissioned by Moscow Contemporary through generous funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Loess (pronounced luss) is a reimagining of the Palouse landscape’s shapes and inhabitants, natural and unnatural. Landforms and bodies accumulate, re-organize and bury each other over the exhibition’s three months. Throughout, dancer and inter-media artist Corrie Befort will be visibly at work inside the installation, changing its seasons, contours and character to embody the eroding, human-handled, surreal loveliness of the Palouse. Befort interweaves natural and artificial materials including wool, nylon, grasses, cattail, jute, shellac resin and synthetic polymers, sourced primarily from local suppliers and fields, to create both massive and palm-sized forms.
Embedded in the installation are dispersed sound environments and localized sonic elements created by sound artist Jason E Anderson. These synthesized sounds merge with and distort the visual textures.
Over five performance weekends, acclaimed dancers from Seattle, Portland and NYC join a brilliant local cast, as well as an ensemble of wet-felters, to inhabit and re-calibrate the shifting textile environment. Each performance is a unique event, scored for its specific casting and altered scenography. Technical and responsive, these select dancers manipulate Befort’s choreographic structures and improvised scores to Anderson’s synthesized sound. Finely tuned group patterns manifest and disintegrate, carving paths and demarcations. Each performance includes a brief discussion between artists and audience about how the scores operate.
The performance schedule is as follows:
Thurs March 5th, 2026
6-7pm Opening Reception, free
7pm Performance with Local Cast, $10
8-9pm Q+A with artists
Sat March 21st, 7pm + Sun Mar 22nd, 2pm, $12
with Emily Stone (PDX), Chelsey Byrd Lewallen (Moscow) and Local Cast
Fri/Sat April 10th + 11th, 7pm, $12
with Ben Goosman (NYC), Mary Margaret Moore (SEA) and Local Cast
Fri/Sat May 8th + 9th, 7pm, $12
with Hendri Walujo (SEA), Linda Austin (PDX) and Local Cast
Sat May 30th, 7pm, $12
Closing Performances with Local Cast
Performance Tickets: https://www.moscowcontemporary.org/loess
Music & Sound Design: Jason E Anderson (Gift Tapes, LIMITS, WSU Libraries Audio Lab & Synth Lab)
Local Cast: Michael Schumacher (Amsterdam/Clarkston), Corrie Befort, Hannah Turner (Spokane/Moscow) and Deena Goodgold (Chicago/Moscow), with guests from the University of Idaho Dance Ensemble and Animal Dances class among others.
Loess is the most current iteration of Unnamed Shapes, Corrie Befort’s ongoing intertwining of movements, images, objects and time. Unnamed Shapes has been supported by the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, the Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation, and through Performance Works Northwest and UW bst residencies.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Corrie Befort is a dancer and inter-media artist presenting time-based visual and performance works for stage, screen, museums, galleries and non-traditional spaces since 2001. Formerly based out of Seattle and Tokyo/Yokohama, she has danced professionally between the US, Japan and Europe. Befort co-created performance companies Salt Horse and LIMITS, has designed scenography and effects for acclaimed Seattle/NYC artists and directs internationally award-winning films. She currently lives in the Palouse region of Eastern WA where she develops inclusive movement education programming for Moscow Contemporary, adapts textile and filming techniques, works with sound-artist Jason E Anderson/LIMITS and dances with Michael Schumacher.
Befort’s work has appeared or been presented through Dance Ga Mitai (Tokyo), BankART (Yokohama), ODC San Francisco, SF MoMA, The Northwest Film Forum., The Seattle Art Museum, The Henry (SEA), On the Boards, SCUBA touring program and Risk/Reward among others with residencies at the P.A.R.T.S school (Brussels), La Figlia (Fraine, IT), Performance Works Northwest (PDX), bst (University of WA) and Studio Current.
Websites: https://www.cBefort.com + https://www.moscowcontemporary.org/loess
