Dark Room

“When those lights go off, it’s like being in space, watching stars streak by, an out-of-body experience.”
-Athima Chansanchai, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 24, 2006

“…. taking the standard voyeurism of performance to an entirely different level…. Dark Room is as much about seeing as it is about dancing.”
-Sandra Kurtz, Dance Magazine, March 2006

“The rest of the run… is sold out, but it is a show that people are talking about, and will keep talking about. It is a dance piece that messes with the conventions of performance, but is also a commanding work of visual art that, in its provocative enactment of mediated viewing, references filmmaking, photography, pornography, and video games… a tour de force of sex, violence, trust and fear. “
-Jen Graves, The Stranger, March 2, 2006

“As a frog catching flies, our first response is physical, from the gut, not the head.”
-Sandra Kurtz, Seattle Weekly, March 1, 2006

‘Dark Room sounds like it could be gimmicky, but the rough draft I saw… and Spaeth’s groping curiosity suggest a technological experiment that will produce unique and substantial results.”
-Brendan Kiley, preview in The Stranger, January 26, 2006.


FADE

“…ineffably bracing and smart.”
-David Schmader, The Stranger, March 17, 2005

“…childlike games are subverted by a strictly adult sort of play. “
-Brangien Davis, Seattle Times, March 21, 2005


Double Down

“The game Spaeth plays with our expectations is as skillful as the one she plays with convention. “
-Sandra Kurtz, Seattle Weekly, June 11, 2003

“In blackjack, when you decide to “double down” … you unavoidably render yourself vulnerable, you take a significant risk, and place your hopes into a single moment. Choreographer Crispin Spaeth understands this risk, this inexplicable faith in brief defining moments.”
-Min Liao, The Stranger, June 12, 2003


Engine Anthem

“Cool, elegant, but funny and sometimes almost hyperactive, Spaeth’s choreography has often had an almost mechanical edge – not in the sense of rote, but akin to the pops, whirs, and electric dynamism of a smoothly running machine.”
-Bret Fetzer, The Stranger, October 18, 2004

"[Spaeth's] choreography expresses a cool intelligence through its spiky, surprising moves. Expect something elegant and visceral."
-The Stranger, Fall Arts Preview of Engine Anthem, 2001

"... a reminder of dance's startling capacity to color gaps that language cannot fill."
-Stacey Levine, The Stranger, May 2000

"Crispin Spaeth's work is lithe and spiky, prone to staccato movements that would be called spastic if they weren't so seamlessly integrated into a fluid whole ... a troupe that exudes the ferocious dynamism of an internal combustion motor."
-Bret Fetzer, The Stranger, August 2000

"The coming together of dancers who believe the art of movement never should stray too far from the essence of being human."
-Roberta Penn, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 1998


History

"Spaeth's mind-bending choreography stands alone in the Seattle modern dance community ... "
-Lodi McClellan, Seattle Weekly, May 1998

"Spaeth may have created a quiet revolution in contemporary dance ... by finding meaning and motivation in each movement, [she] has broken into some very fertile ground."
-Mary Murfin Bailey, Seattle Times, October 1998

"Spaeth probably doesn't know it, but she is one of my local favs. Her work is inventive, perceptive and often a little crazy ... "
-The Stranger Fall Arts Guide, 1998

"Powerful, insistent, and beautifully performed."
-Seattle Gay News, 1998

" ... jumping and leaping all spiky-limbed like counter-point flames too hot for any sky to extinguish."
-Lodi McClellan, Seattle Weekly, October 1998

"Fast, clean, dynamic and diverse, Spaeth is a choreographer with flair and guts."
-Roberta Penn, Seattle P-I, May 1995

"Another standout was Crispin Spaeth's Manifest, executed expertly by the dancers, who haunted the stage with their subtle, stunning facial expressions ... fierce bodily struggles over everyday emotions are de rigeur in the world ofManifest - if life were really like this repressives like Limbaugh wouldn't exist!
-Stacey Levine, The Rocket, 1994

"Like DeNiro in Taxi Driver, Spaeth can twitch with great menace, and this suite of tense, careful moves made implosion look more deadly than any outward aggression."
-Jean Lenihan, Seattle Weekly, 1993

"Spaeth's short piece is just as pithy and ingenious as the music she uses ... Each gesture is simultaneously precise and unpredictable. Here is real talent."
-R.M. Campbell, Seattle P-I, December 1992