PENNY WILDMAN

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EAMON FOLEY

Penny Wildman and Eamon Foley have worked together on a barrage of theatrical productions including the immersive Sondheim experience at The Wallis Theatre (2017), Merrily We Roll Along at The Wallis Theatre (2017), ANNIE at The Hollywood Bowl (2018), in addition to countless pieces of music video content and immersive-party experiences. They’ve choreographed for Tony-winning director David Cromer, Tony-nominated director Michael Arden, Todrick Hall, and have helmed their own theatrical and film work under the umbrellas PENNYWILDMUSIC and Grind Arts Company. With over a decade of collaborative experience under their belt, Penny and Eamon push the envelope for how close a theater experience can possibly be to an audience, and what unconventional styles from their wide lexicon can be brought into a theater piece.

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PENNY + EAMON

 
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PENNY WILDMAN

Penny Wildman is a Choreographer, DJ, Music Producer, and Digital Marketing Producer living in Los Angeles by way of New York City. Choreography credits include Ryan Murphy’s FUED: Bette & Joan, A Christmas Carol at The Geffen Playhouse, The Mystery of Edwin Drood at The Boston Conservatory, Little Miss Fix-It at PACE University, amongst others. She has choreographed for the likes of Enrique Iglesias, Marian Hill, Weird Al, Todrick Hall, Gucci Mane, Major Lazer, and more. She has performed at globally renowned festivals such as Coachella, SXSW, Lightning in a Bottle, HARD Summer, BUKU Arts Festival, etc. Her five-track debut EP will be released on Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak Records in January 2020.

Penny also Associate Choreographed both ANNIE at The Hollywood Bowl and Merrily We Roll Along at The Wallis Theatre, under the direction of Michael Arden. Penny is a faculty member of Broadway Dreams Foundation and where she offers workshops such as Acting Through Dance, Golden Age Repertoire, etc. Additionally, she is a Dance Instructor at the Wallis Theatre's Dance Educational Wing and has set both original pieces and pieces conceived by Jerome Robbins, with the permission of the Official Robbins Estate.

In 2015, Penny appeared on London’s prestigious West End in the iconic Broadway musical West Side Story and toured with the production throughout the US, Canada, Europe and Asia. Penny releases original concept visuals under the series #PennyWildWednesdays available to digitally access on Vimeo and Instagram.

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EAMON FOLEY

Eamon Foley is the founder of Grind Arts Company, which reimagines theater beyond the proscenium. Directing credits include reimagined, immersive takes on Nine, Sweeney Todd, The Last Five Years, 13: The Musical, Cyrano (FringeNYC, FringeFave Award), and the aerial-dance rock musical Hero (Author, Santos Dumont Prize for Innovation)Film projects include the virtual reality experience Sinnerman, the Queerty Award-nominated music video Brown Rice, and the dance film Color + Light. He has spearheaded immersive experiences including Paradise Lost (LaGuardia Theater Festival), The Moulin Rouge (Ludlow House), Black Party XL: Caligula (The Saint at Large), Love and Sex and Release the Beast (Grind Arts Co.) 

Other choreography credits include Michael Arden’s productions of Merrily We Roll Along (NAACP Theater Award Nomination) and Annie at the Hollywood BowlDavid Cromer’s Next to Normal at Writers’ Theatre, Swan Lake the MusicalBroadway Bares XXV, YoungArts NYC 2018, Heartbeat Opera Company’s Hot Mama, commercials for Macy’s and Deloitte, and films Small Talk,The Mediator, and BloodVape. He is slated to choreograph Sarna Lapine’s Lautrec at the St. James and Jeff Calhoun’s Complicated Woman. 

He performed in the original Broadway casts of Gypsy, 13: The Musical, Assassins, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Everyday Rapture. Eamon received his BA is Anthropology from Princeton University. 

 
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Penny Wildman

Penny is committed to sharing meaningful narratives whilst incorporating an eclectic movement vocabulary ranging from commercial to classical to give the audience a high energy dance experience. She is first and foremost a story-teller, able to seamlessly guide between styles to locate the energy that best communicates the narrative. Given her extensive experience with proscenium theatre, film, music festivals, and nightlife - working with a vast variety of niche characters/ performers is in her wheelhouse both stylistically and contextually.

 
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Eamon Foley

Eamon is interested in mediums that enhance movement to superhuman form. Aerial dance, which includes suspension, rope work, bungee, and vertical dance on walls, represents his quest to explore movement on the Y-axis, which embodies his ultimate goal of discovering new, interesting ways of moving bodies through space. He often collaborates with computer scientists and projection designers to integrate cinematography, projection, and body-mapping technology into his choreography. However, at the end of the day, it’s about pin-pointing the emotional crux of a moment and creating movement that communicates it viscerally.

 
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Theatrical Party Experiences

 
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Kanye Loves Kanye

Penny’s skills with wrangling large crowds and directing immersive audience/performer traffic were honed during her four year stint with Kanye Loves Kanye. KLK is Penny’s premiere event series highlighting Kanye West’s lyrical and melodic excellence. The event has featured a barrage of live musical entertainment, performance art, visual art installations, in-house music production workshops, and beyond. She has produced/organized over 18 installments of the series across Los Angeles, San Francisco, Anaheim, Chicago, New York City, and beyond; inhabiting iconic venues such as The House of Blues, The Globe Theatre, Webster Hall, etc. Each event attracts approximately 1,200 - 1,500 attendees. After selling the event to LIVENATION in 2018, Penny continues to oversee its expansion.


Black Party XL: Caligula

Eamon creative directed this past years Black Party at The New York Expo Center. The Black Party is America’s oldest gay party, having just celebrated its 40th anniversary. The theme was “Caligula", titled after the mad king of the Roman Empire. The 20-hour event transformed with five different vibes, 4-hours each, spanning the rise and fall of Caligula. The party boosts “strange live acts” including aerial dance, fire-performances, choreography, and more. The event attracted 1,500 patrons.

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THE Cure Series

Penny and Eamon have collaborated on multiple iterations of The Cure Series: pop-up parties with curated art and performances that have happened all over New York City. LOVE + SEX featured a dance/projection collaboration between Foley and computer science artist Avneesh Sarwate, in which live cinematography merged dancers’ movements in real time. The projection technology was then offered up to the party goers to play with throughout the evening. RELEASE THE BEAST combined live music performances with break-out dance performances in unconventional, pedestrian locations, and The Moulin Rouge party brought the beauty and mystery of burlesque to SoHo House.

 
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Choreo + Tech

 
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THE PENNY PAD

In 2018, Penny created a MIDI Controller Prototype that allows the musician to write/create songs using their feet: “Make a beat with your feet”. She applied Arduino sensors to a Dance Dance Revolution gaming pad, and mapped them to drumracks in Ableton Live, allowing the user to trigger samples by applying pressure to a beat on the pad. This was a part of a larger mission statement to marry the mediums of music production and choreography. In essence, she is able to make beats as she dances, so one can visually see the music come alive.


LIVE CINEMATOGRAPHY

Paradise Lost is an immersive theater experience that tells the story of Genesis through electro-punk music and dance. To bring the sumptuous imagery to life, we used video-capture technology that took dancers’ improvisational movement and heightened it onscreen with flames, delay-effects, and more.

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