ARTIST BIOS

The Bonnies

Kaitlin McCarthy and Jenny Peterson have been making strange performance works together in Seattle, WA since 2013. Often performing as “The Bonnies,” they gravitate to the grotesque/off-kilter/marvelous like moths to the flame. They have performed at WET’s Six-Pack Series, Velocity’s NextFest, OTB’s Open Studio, Boost Dance Festival, NEPO 5k, Seattle Intl Dance Festival, High F@ggotry, and other underground art salons and nightlife performance venues. In 2024 they premiered their first evening-length work, DRIVE WOLVES MAD, and toured it to Portland, OR and San Diego, CA. 

One of us is tall, one is short, both are Type A weirdos. Jenny is a Seattle artist working in dance, photography, and music/sound. She grew up a competitive gymnast in the Chicago suburbs and has never recovered. Jenny boasts 17 years of performing professionally in Seattle, including with the Pat Graney Company since 2008. She holds a B.A. in Dance and Visual Arts from UC Irvine and is a licensed massage therapist. Kaitlin is a Seattle-based dance artist, teacher, and journalist. She has performed with countless local choreographers since 2010, including regularly with Alice Gosti/MALACARNE. A prominent dance writer about town, she edits the publication SeattleDances and has a decade of experience specializing in teaching adult beginning dance. You can find out more at their respective websites: jennypeterson.com and kaitlinmccarthy.com.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Seattle performance duo The Bonnies (Kaitlin McCarthy and Jenny Peterson) merge their decade of comedy dance experience with their “more serious” art practice to debut an evening length joyride of grotesque femininity, experimental indulgence, and the intimacy of a friendship 15 years in the making. 

Inspired by the beloved absurdist 1966 Czech New Wave film, Daisies, The Bonnies harness their perceived femininity–the silly, slutty, trivial, and excessive–to craft a world where fantasies can play out on a larger-than-life scale: a candy-colored world of impulse and freewheeling femme chaos. In a collision of eras, The Bonnies pull from 60s cinema, Bruce Springsteen’s catalogue, the cultural phenomenon surrounding Lorena Bobbitt, and Jenny and Kaitlin’s fantasy bedroom dances–both adolescent and contemporary. Working their way towards euphoria, The Bonnies (and their giant rainbow monster puppet alter egos) teeter between vision and delusion, manifesting a shared destiny built from queer plutonic love. 

Featuring original music by Jenny and costume/design by Kaitlin, I’m on Fire, You’re on Fire, We’re on Fire grapples with the morally complex territory of fantasy, violence, and vulnerability of desire, cloaked as a ditzy comedy routine.

HOW TO SUPPORT

To join the community of support, please contact erin@velocitydancecenter.org, or make a gift at the link below. As a fiscally sponsored project, all gifts to this project made through Velocity Dance Center are tax deductible.