It could be the term that describes the entity: multiform.



Barefoot Studios has never been about a singular approach. Sure, at its inception owners Paul and Josephine Zmolek presented movement as an art, but movement wasn’t the only art form represented. As it’s progressed to become the BareFoot Collective (the Zmoleks moved to Idaho), with five managing members helping to guide it, many of the same tenets and principles from its beginnings remain.



Much like the Zmoleks did their 10 X 10 (10 people peform for 10 minutes each), the collective brings an open showcase of artistic expression the last Monday of every other month. While this formula will be presented May 18 so as not to conflict with Memorial Day, and has been reduced to 8@8, the rest of the program remains the same: eight people get eight minutes each starting at 8 p.m. Writers, dancers, actors, filmmakers, musicians — performers are welcome to present a piece of work for workshop style critiquing.



Just as the Zmoleks presented Siteworks at the Museum of Glass in 2006, the collective has begun working on the 2009 version of the downtown dance festival.



And similarly to the way the Zmoleks brought movement education to Tacoma that featured less of a restrained and formal, balletic approach, so does the collective, bringing a varied group of classes to the table. But the collective is also offering a new smorgasbord of creative goodness to include collaborative presentations, space-for-hire in which to create, increased networking within the greater Tacoma dance community, and even a quarterly Sunday brunch that ends on a decidedly edible note: a potluck.

While that’s all well and good for our future creative movement intents and purposes, the here and now brings us right back to one key term: MULTIFORM.



What’s it all about? It’s an event happening Friday and Saturday, April 17 and 18, that promises to synthesize many of the aforementioned components in a slightly more polished setting than the 8@8 events.



Amanda Herman, one of the managing members of the Barefoot Collective explains. “The five of us (Herman, Katie Stricker, Rosa Vissers, Michael Hoover, and Carrie Goodnight) have an affinity for movement as our form of creative expression. But we’ve always been really interested in finding and working with creative people from different modes.”



MULTIFORM will bring together visual art, music, dance, food, drink, and conversation in an evening that will move participants physically through the space.



“With MULTIFORM, we really wanted to highlight and show that the studio is not just about movement,” Herman says.



“Doors open at 7 p.m. for food, drink, and art by Ellen Miffit, followed at 7:30 by live music — unaccompanied by dance — from Casey Connor. At 8 we transition up (stairs, to the dance studio space, improved with the removal of much of the banisters that once impeded people’s view of the stage) for dance. Then there will be an intermission, and more dance, and then Q&A, and more food and drinks.”



As for the dance program itself, it promises some thought provocation and a bit of fun. Vissers will present two pieces: insideoutandin, a duet (arguably, a trio?) examining the ins and outs of dancing in a single T-shirt, and Going Somewhere Else, a quintet looking at navigating public spaces. Guest Nicole Sasala, director of Seattle-based The Asterisk Project, will share Blank Slate, and Herman will present her In the Space Between as well as her latest work, Faux Pas Théâtral, eight tableaus that vary in silliness.



“One of the pieces I created is absurd,” Herman says. “La Dames de Toilette is one section (of Faux Pas Théâtral). It’s one woman dancing in a bathroom … I feel like I was doing a lot of serious stuff, and I think this piece encourages us not to take ourselves so seriously.”



[Barefoot Studios, MULTIFORM, April 17 and 18, 7 p.m., $15-$18, 1604 Center St., Tacoma, reserve your spot at 253.627.2273, barefootcollective.org]