When Shannon Gray performs, one thing is always clear – she loves to move. Discovering circus after a lifetime of movement exploration, it has become the ultimate combination of play, self-expression, and connection with herself and others. Her development as an artist and performer has come in many different forms. Some examples being touring four consecutive years with The New Old Time Chautauqua, performing with Dream Science Circus, and creating intimate, music accompanied shows in in the downtown lofts of Montreal. Performing dance trapeze for her second year at Moisture Festival, her unique style is one that combines sensuality with power and, above all, honest emotion. This year she and Mark Growden are combining their talents and bringing to the Moisture Festival a truly unique event. Mark Growden is a singer, writer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer, visual artist, and workshop leader. Mark has released several critically acclaimed albums, including Saint Judas, which was awarded “2010 Rekkid of the Year” by music blog Stash Dauber and ranked in the 2010 Village Voice Critics Poll. Growden has toured the US extensively, composed original musical scores for a number of dance and theater companies and scored several films. In an interview at the time of the release of his album Lose Me in the Sand, Mark said “I grew up in an old logging town, less than a hundred people, on the Sierra Nevada/Cascade Divide …” Those rural mountain roots are ever present as Mark has explored new and different directions to take his music and his art. One reviewer described his delivery as “direct – powerful and precise as a street fighter” and yet his theatricality has led him to be compared to Tom Waits, Van Morrison, Old Red and Bertolt Brecht. We can’t wait to see this collaboration take to the stage and to the air at the Moisture Festival.
Shannon Gray and Mark Growden
