Life as a Modern Dancer

timesTWO: Writers Molly Rose-Williams and Todd Courage Reflect on the FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

It has been a wonderful experiment throughout the past year, diving into dance criticism and reflection on this blog platform. What are the various new angles and approaches to writing about performances - before, during, and after? We are exploring this with artists, audience members, and writers alike.

This week you can read our latest take on dance criticism. Two writers share their reflections on the four pieces of choreography in the 2019 FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival. How might the same performance be viewed through different eyes? How might their perspectives layer to offer a unique opportunity for reflecting on and celebrating the work they write about? 

Please join us! Today we reflect on "BackstitchBack" by Charles Slender-White.

"BackstickBack" by Charles Slender-White. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Take 1 - from Molly Rose-Williams:

The piece began with amber light streaming down the back wall to illuminate a line of five performers dressed in ornate, old-timey dresses and rompers. They moved with simple gestures in shifting groups of unison - sometimes all five together, and other times in groups of two or three mirrored figures. Layers of music, and a voice speaking the lyrics of “These Are The Days” in a deadpan tone offered a compelling audio backdrop. A single performer soon left the wall to deliver a lyrical performance downstage, and then returned to join the back line. 

The five fanned out, filling the stage and executing sweeping, graceful movements with formal lyricism and high skill. Chime-like voices in the audio track began counting from 1 to 6, then 1 to 8, alternating back and forth between the two counts with a cyclic regularity. The cycling numbers, lingering sentiment of “These Are The Days”, and (to my eye) old-timey costuming painted the piece with a tone of nostalgia. 

Then a man’s voice like a minister delivering a sermon layered into the soundscore over a violin. “Sometimes at the end of the day we need a story to relax,” he intoned. He launched into telling a story about a man and a woman sitting on a bench. The woman kept asking the man for reassurances of his love for her, and he kept providing them. Dancers Amanda Whitehead and Keanu Brady moved forward to interpret the story with more formal, lyrical choreography while the entire stage continued to constantly remake itself as all five moved through intricate, interlocking patterns.

I was struck by many of the elements in this piece - the costumes, the lighting, the soundscore, the impeccable skills of the dancers, and the interplay between ensemble and individual - but I wasn’t entirely sure how to read the whole, especially in relation to the love story that to me felt somewhat gendered and stereotypical. Specifically, I wasn’t sure where this tone of nostalgia was meant to land in relation to the story, the costumes, and the formal movement, which together evoked for me a sense of restrictive institutions and times past. In light of this reading, I found myself not enjoying the airy, lines-for-days dancing and intricate patterning in the way that I think, given a different handful of elements, I would have immensely.

Take 2 - from Todd Courage:

Charles Slender-White, Artistic Director of FACT/SF and the producer of FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival, was the last choreographer of the evening to unveil his latest creation "BackstitchBack." The piece opened in visually arresting Slender-White style. Mr. Medoff’s lighting produced two giant luminous arches wherein resided five bodies. These dancers, four women and one man, stood in stoic profile against the bare upstage wall à la bas relief, each with one palm affirming the dark concrete, feet parallel. Two dancers wore dresses. All wore blood-red socks. Slender-White’s penchant for design was as much on display here as his passion for dance. I suspect that he doesn’t limit dance solely to the category of “performing art,” but in fairness, appreciates the potential conversation of all things perceivable and the attending chance for great beauty. Past works, like this one, have attested to his interest in sculptural statement and the echoing impact that varied visual textures and layers can provide.

Intermittently, dancers began to break away from their source of origin, moving downstage in minimally advancing variations, challenging the proximity of their audience, only to retreat upstage again, tag up quickly, and then re-engage with the open floor and each other. A separate couple remained attached to the wall where they performed a slow, tactile duet in unison. It was at this point that a juxtaposition of opposites began to take shape. Billed as “the first iteration of Slender-White’s diptych on the looping nature of memory formation and memory loss,” this part of "BackstitchBack" could have symbolized one or the other of these phenomena, or a composite of both simultaneously. Either way, the choreographer’s gift for counterpoint grounded the work in craft and idea. At its strongest, the piece assumed the spirit of an abstract morphing movement collage, solos becoming duets, evolving into trios. At times the disparate nature of the many moving parts was reminiscent of a Greek chorus as a foundation for more specific bits and pieces that happened in and around it. Form and relationships seem to be additional passions for Slender-White. His uncanny ability to blend and synthesize complex patterns is dizzying and how his spatial configurations related to the aural element of excerpts from Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach curiously supported the dancing. “Just lean into it,” he offered when asked about his use of the now-famous score. While watching, I took his advice and emerged deeply satisfied. “My love for you is higher than the heavens, deeper than Hades, and broader than the earth. It has no limits, no bounds. Everything must have an ending except my love for you.” The audience succumbed to the breathy tonality of Glass’s text as we watched the dancers curl away from us in fetal stillness, a developmental posture, and yet so quickly forgotten as new memories crystallize.

 

Molly Rose-Williams is a Bay Area artist and writer. mollyrosewilliams.com

Todd Courage is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and dance scholar. He is currently artistic director of courage group and continues to build a diverse repertory of work in the San Francisco Bay Area.

timesTWO: Writers Molly Rose-Williams and Todd Courage Reflect on the FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

It has been a wonderful experiment throughout the past year, diving into dance criticism and reflection on this blog platform. What are the various new angles and approaches to writing about performances - before, during, and after? We are exploring this with artists, audience members, and writers alike.

This week you can read our latest take on dance criticism. Two writers share their reflections on the four pieces of choreography in the 2019 FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival. How might the same performance be viewed through different eyes? How might their perspectives layer to offer a unique opportunity for reflecting on and celebrating the work they write about? 

Please join us! Today we reflect on "my beloved comet" by Maurya Kerr.

“my beloved comet” by Maurya Kerr, performed by Alex Carrington & Chelsea Reichert. Photo courtesy of FACT/SF. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Take 1 - from Molly Rose-Williams: 

The third piece of the evening returns to me in poetic moments and a felt sense of rigorous duration. It began with two dancers traveling downstage like lopsided mirror images of one another. They were identical in tone, speed, and cadence, but one crawled while the other walked. Slowly, steadily, they continued towards us with focus so sharp and wide it could’ve sliced through to another dimension. Then the lights went out.

They came up to illuminate a neck-to-neck duet, the two dancing with and around one another, in spite of one another. In their unbreaking connection, I felt a sense of deep intimacy, and also challenge and tension. Lights out.

The piece continued this way. Pools of light in the dark, moving snapshots of something at once eternal and instantaneous. The relentlessness of the images, and moments of darkness between, lent a kaleidoscope effect to my experience as I watched. Overhead, Ben Juodvalkis’ unforgiving soundscore - as relentless and rigorous as the movement in its range of tones, moods, and effects, but consistent in the droning quality of something that never came to a close - lent a dystopian quality to the universe I saw unfolding onstage. I found myself leaning very far forward. 

The sound of the dancers’ labored breathing and the neverending soundscore became my last felt vestige of time. Moments of darkness like black cocoons seemed to traverse something much larger, while the dancing itself became fractal - at times enormous, at times minute, but always with a razor sharp focus. Their two bodies fit together with shapes both organic and mechanical. This juxtaposition was echoed in the soundscore (at one point wind became a helicopter became the ocean). An unusual virtuosity accumulated like layers through duration as their unceasing intimacy - impersonal, unromantic - continued to unfold in the face of their own exhaustion.

Near the end of the piece, the lights came up on dancer Chelsea Reichert moving on the ground like a dying fish - tension wracking her body and her focus never wavering. In that moment, I felt as if her humanity had been slowly eroded over time like a rock under the constant flow of a powerful tide. The dancers finished by moving backwards in the way they began, this time parallel to instead of towards us, as if nothing had changed except for the orientation of the universe that continued to shift on its axis. 

-------

Take 2 - from Todd Courage:

The evening’s third offering was Maurya Kerr’s my beloved comet, an investigation into wonderment and what complex social forces might limit or prohibit that. The piece felt experimental; a courageous endeavor. Fourteen sections, short and shorter, for two dancers,  showcased Ms. Kerr’s current concerns both socially and artistically. As a viewer, letting go of any prescribed narrative seemed key to the success of the work. To experience this episodic piece as independent movement studies, or many small duets, invited the audience into the unfolding of an artist’s process, sometimes clear and flowing, sometimes unresolved and less certain. To see Ms. Kerr’s intellectual exercises in this context was fascinating and, frankly, wonder-inducing. What initiated this choreographer’s growing concern for time and how might that be represented in the dancing body? What power might stillness hold in relationship to an expectant audience? Might the urgency of the choreographer’s message – slow down – be somehow related to the comet she alludes to? Or do we metaphorically grab its tail in a last ditch attempt to escape the world’s madness by yielding to the hypnotic nature of what we see? And, of course, how can one ever really not construct social meanings from two interacting bodies? A phenomenological quandary.

Each section possessed its own aesthetic character punctuated by blackouts: a decelerated crawl, the exploitation of physical weight, posts and lintels, slowly orbiting celestial bodies, spatial opposites, underwater plant life, breath and its expressions, repetitive rotations, pendulous migrations, running and falling, whipping spirals, and romantic intimacies. I began to imagine myself walking through adjoining galleries in a museum, stumbling across each looping vignette at my whim, lingering in some, moving more deliberately through others, finding connections, analyzing parts, questioning some decisions, endorsing the artist’s perseverance. Ms. Kerr presented a confrontational movement dialogue addressing unhurriedness, change, personal risk, and permission.

 

Molly Rose-Williams is a Bay Area artist and writer. mollyrosewilliams.com

Todd Courage is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and dance scholar. He is currently artistic director of courage group and continues to build a diverse repertory of work in the San Francisco Bay Area.

------------

Related writing:

Wonderment, Imagination, and Duration: Maurya Kerr and Dazaun Soleyn on the FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival

timesTWO: Writers Molly Rose-Williams and Todd Courage Reflect on the FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

It has been a wonderful experiment throughout the past year, diving into dance criticism and reflection on this blog platform. What are the various new angles and approaches to writing about performances - before, during, and after? We are exploring this with artists, audience members, and writers alike.

This week you can read our latest take on dance criticism. Two writers share their reflections on the four pieces of choreography in the 2019 FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival. How might the same performance be viewed through different eyes? How might their perspectives layer to offer a unique opportunity for reflecting on and celebrating the work they write about? 

Please join us! Today let's explore Dazaun Soleyn's piece "a message of truths."

Claire Fisher in "a message of truths" by Dazaun Soleyn. Photo courtesy of FACT/SF. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Take 1 - From Molly Rose-Williams:

Dark stage. A single figure entered in low light walking slowly upstage. A recorded voice began to speak: “Damn, you stuck dodging the devil the older you get.” There was liquid power in the language, words rushing forth like a coursing river or rich soil. “Here come the Devil, talking to you with a smile and shovel, ready to bury you and your lil' hustle.” 

Onstage, as the light continued to rise, I realized the figure’s head was covered with a mask - a beanie hat pulled low with two eyes and a mouth cut out and two horns sewn on top. Their face anonymous and shrouded, I felt as if their humanity itself was obscured from view - the buried figure the poetry alluded to. But burial is not the only fate possible, the speaker insisted: “You do get to decide if this tide will capsize you. The Devil can die, too.” 

As the poem made way for Coltrane’s saxophone ringing out, the piece transitioned into what became for me a physical representation of the poem’s words. Dancer Claire Fisher moved upstage left for a sensual, tortured solo while standing in a pile of red leaves. Her transformation continued as she travelled downstage right to a pile of flat blue marbles, where she rubbed her body with them as if anointing herself, or cleansing some residue of the past. 

The symbolic landscape introduced by the props and the promise of the words was so powerful, I found myself seeking the same clarity, nuance and dynamism in the movement language - a physicality that could both interpret and surpass what felt clearly portrayed through the other production choices. While the movement was stunningly executed, articulate, embodied, and evocative, I felt it didn’t develop as far as it could over the course of the piece. It stayed roughly the same, even while Claire interacted with the strikingly disparate piles of red leaves and blue marbles. 

I found that the props were also such striking images and so clearly full of symbolic significance that I was distracted by my impulse to interpret their precise meanings. I eventually landed on a rough heaven/hell interpretation, but only after considering a number of alternate options (paper and glass? autumn leaves and winter snow? fire and water?) that prevented me from fully sinking into the physical experience of witnessing her transformation. The poem primed me for a narrative experience, and I became quite literal in my viewing of the work.

Eventually, Claire broke free from the mask. She launched into bigger dancing that plunged her into an arabesque, flinging her to melt against the wall. This movement, such a departure from the relatively contained movement in the rest of the piece, provoked a satisfyingly visceral response in my body. The opening track had made me hungry to not just witness, but feel the transformation they spoke of. I did in that moment - I wonder about the experiences of my fellow audience members.

-----

Take 2 - From Todd Courage:

A figure appeared in a white mask that enveloped her head entirely save holes for her eyes and mouth. Her long curly black hair hung loosely from under this spectral shroud. She shared the performance space with “rooms,” territories delineated by either a pile of fallen leaves or a glistening pool of beads. Her introductory movement was small, circular, and gestural. She seemed to be distantly responding to a poem we were hearing. “The piece of peace that you release in the world will be a poison to the devil,” the voice said. The dancer touched the earth as if to ground herself to something real, something she might be sure of. Before long the concealed dancer stood in the center of the leaf pile. At times she appeared to represent the trunk and bare branches of what had once been luscious and green. Maybe this was one truth, I thought. Maybe enough brutal hardship renders us conciliatory, bare, and wanting to hide. In spite of the cheerful pinks, reds, and oranges of the leaves, a sadness prevailed.

To the sultry music of John Coltrane, the dancer interacted with the leaves, moving on and through and with them, occasionally sweeping at them, or grasping handfuls that slipped from her grip, wafting back to the floor. Another truth: death is final, its own absolute. “The devil could die too,” the poet reminded us. Is hope a constant truth all its own?

Watery movement brought the dancer diagonally downstage. There, she stooped before a collection of glass beads resembling a small pool where a washing ritual ensued, efficient and purposeful. This cleansing necessarily enabled Ms. Fisher to remove her mask, revealing a lovely young woman glowing in moonlight. She tied her hair back; another transformative pivot.

The next section was made up of a more recognizable vocabulary but was no less beautiful. This is the result of the diverse training of the dancer; for her, an arabesque turn was as familiar as a fluid floor slide.

The end of the piece involved the soloist picking up the bygone mask, bringing it back to the scattered leaves where she would bury it. She walked away from that agent of soulful compromise whole and healed.

 

Molly Rose-Williams is a Bay Area artist and writer. mollyrosewilliams.com

Todd Courage is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and dance scholar. He is currently artistic director of courage group and continues to build a diverse repertory of work in the San Francisco Bay Area.

------------

Related writing:

Wonderment, Imagination, and Duration: Maurya Kerr and Dazaun Soleyn on the FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival

timesTWO: Writers Molly Rose-Williams and Todd Courage Reflect on the FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

It has been a wonderful experiment throughout the past year, diving into dance criticism and reflection on this blog platform. What are the various new angles and approaches to writing about performances - before, during, and after? We are exploring this with artists, audience members, and writers alike.

This week you can read our latest take on dance criticism. Two writers share their reflections on the four pieces of choreography in the 2019 FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival. How might the same performance be viewed through different eyes? How might their perspectives layer to offer a unique opportunity for reflecting on and celebrating the work they write about? 

Please join us! Let’s explore the opening piece in the festival.

Joy Davis and Eric Mullis. Photo courtesy of FACT/SF. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Take 1 - From Todd Courage:

The program opened with “Halidom,” a duet choreographed and performed by Joy Davis and Eric Mullis. As Del Medoff’s single downspot illuminated the upstage right corner, the two dance artists emerged slightly staggered, in white tops and pants, feet firmly planted, while their arms carved an entrancing figure-eight design. Infinity, I thought. How beautiful. This looping motif, while existing then and there, still managed to mysteriously destabilize this viewer’s relationship to time and space. The effect of the opening arm pattern hypnotically invoked ancient observance, sacred and essential.

Their snake-like arms diverged from unison to dialogues of complementary tensions, and soon the two were engaged with each other in strange and poignant variations of kinespheric tracing, more arms radiating from an animated epicenter, spoking outward like rays of energetic light. What could this mean, these strange and wonderful shifting tableaux?

The lights ultimately divided the space into two separate worlds. Stage left, Mr. Mullis walked in small circles, his mouth opening in increasing agony and his hands growing in a type of contracting suffering. Ms. Davis’ parallel world was calmer, gentler. She moved with deliberate fluidity in contrast to the expanding horror of Mr. Mullis. Their accompanying planes of existence felt less like a metaphor for chaos and order, and more like equal parts awe and cataclysm.

It cannot be refuted that their dance was indeed a dance, but it was so much more. Their interminglings assumed the stuff of ritual: a special place and time, transformative action, but we as officiants. The physical language moved beyond two dancers dancing.

---

Take 2 - From Molly Rose-Williams:

“Halidom," created and performed by Joy Davis and Eric Mullis, began with wintry, ethereal lighting. Two figures upstage right moved in unison, a swooping gesture that sliced the air in front of them with a ghostly precision. I was mesmerized for a few moments before the image of their gestures crystallized into legibility as figure 8’s, the symbol of eternity. They kept moving.

Maybe it was the cool blue lighting, the ghostly spacey soundscape, or the austerity of their durational movement that occurred with no visible tonal, energetic, or emotional change - I found myself transported to an arctic landscape. The figure 8’s continued, slipping in and out of perfect unison, identical figures interlocking at odd angles – horizontal, vertical, and every angle in between, incremental like a clock that never arrives at a certain hour but ticks in perpetuity.

The gentle insistence of repetition without emotional charge felt like an offering, or simple observation. “Can we peel back the layers of qualification or meaning we ascribe to the experience of living and simply exist?” their dance appeared to ask. Nonetheless, even without any particular destination, I felt an imperative in the insistence of the continued, deeply grounded, yet ethereal duet.

Eventually the mirage split. The lighting changed as an orange glow grew and cleaved into two pools of light – one round and rich, and the other angular, and duller. In the round rich pool, Eric Mullis stepped slowly in a circle with his hands out front, legs low and bent, and mouth agape, as if offering, pleading, questioning, all with the same unemotional insistence that gave the piece such an imperative tone. The contrast between the deeply emotive image of a wide mouth with the blank energy of simple steps that continued always in a circle struck me deeply, evoking imagined scenes of ritual and sacrifice. For me, it contained both a recognition of how minute we are within this vast universe, and how vast we are within our own experiences of it. 

While the interlocking slicing infinity signs and the nearly crouching circular procession with mouth wide open both struck me deeply, much of the rest of the piece slipped from memory as soon as I saw it, as if the surface of my mind was made smooth by the lack of punctuation or musicality in the dancers’ relationship to the phenomenological. But even as it slipped away, it left a clear impression in a plane just outside the realm of language. I still feel it as a space at once vast, intricate, and imperative.

------

Todd Courage is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and dance scholar. He is currently artistic director of courage group and continues to build a diverse repertory of work in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Molly Rose-Williams is a Bay Area artist and writer. mollyrosewilliams.com

 

For a Dance Education Course: A Reading List (UPDATED August 2019)

This topic is one of my great passions --- so much so that I am creating three different reading lists here, based on what course or courses you might offer at your college or university. The lists can be used for: dance for children, teaching dance to middle school and high school students, and a general course on dance education. (Please note that a few blog posts appear in more than one list.) I also list 8 books to consider for courses as well.

Dance Education Course: Dance for Children

Becoming a Teaching Artist: An Infographic and Graphic Organizer

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: 50 Perspectives

Five Questions for Dance Educator Anne Green Gilbert

A Pulse on the Dance Teaching Artist Field: Training Programs, Methodologies, Philosophies, and Complementary Educational Language

My Dance Week: Ashley Boyack

My Dance Week: Valerie Gutwirth

Prep Time

A Pulse on Dance in LA Unified School District

Picture Books to Use in Children's Dance Classes

25 Playful Props for Preschool and K-5 Dance Classes

Five Ideas as You Begin to Teach Afterschool Classes

Five Ideas as You Begin to Teach Preschool Age Students

Eight Resources and Ideas for Teaching Parent/Child Dance Classes

Five Year Olds Dancing

Dance Classes with Children 1-5 Years Old

Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials: 55 Objects and Ideas for New Preschool-12th Grade Teaching Artists

Ten Resources for Teaching Artists as We Prepare for the Year Ahead

Dance Education Course: Middle School/High School

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: 50 Perspectives

Prep Time

My Dance Week: Kristin Blatzheim on Teaching Full-Time at a High School

My Dance Week: Falon Baltzell on Teaching Full-Time at a High School

My Dance Week: Teaching Full-Time in a 6th-12th Grade Public School (Sarah Billings Wheeler, NYC)

My Dance Week: Teaching Full-Time in a Public Middle School (Amber Johnson, Florida)

My Dance Week: Teaching Full-Time in a Public Middle School (Jennifer Smith, California)

Artist Profile: Linda Carr of Berkeley High School

Artist Profile: Wendy Jones of Lowell High School

Artist Profile: Angela Demmel of Moreau Catholic High School

Teach dance in a high school? 14 reflection questions as you grow and develop your program

Advocacy/PR/Documentation: Ideas for K-12 Dance Teaching Artists

Jan Erkert's Book, Harnessing the Wind

For Middle School Dance Educators: A Graphic Organizer to Support the Choreographic Process for Your Students

Teaching Technique to Teens and Adults

Teaching Resource: Dance Studio Life Magazine

Working with a Youth Ensemble

A Pulse on the Dance Teaching Artist Field: Training Programs, Methodologies, Philosophies, and Complementary Educational Language

A Pulse on Dance in LA Unified School District

A General Dance Education Course

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: 50 Perspectives

Jan Erkert's Book, Harnessing the Wind

Teaching Technique to Teens and Adults

Five Questions for Dance Educator Anne Green Gilbert

Becoming a Teaching Artist: An Infographic and Graphic Organizer

My Dance Week: Kristin Damrow

My Dance Week: Jayme Klinger Host

My Dance Week: Jennifer Smith

Building a Dance Company: On the Topic of Educational Programming

The Beautiful Relationship of Being an Artist and a Teacher

Liz Lerman's Online Toolbox

Prep Time

Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials: 55 Objects and Ideas for New Preschool-12th Grade Teaching Artists

Joan Woodbury on Teaching

For Studio Instructors: Weekly Ideas and Reflection Questions for Fall Semester Youth Classes

Book Recommendations for Your Courses

Body, Mind, and Spirit in Action: A Teacher's Guide to Creative Dance by Patricia Reedy

Creative Dance for All Ages by Anne Green Gilbert

Dance Pedagogy for a Diverse World: Culturally Relevant Teaching in Theory, Research, and Practice by Nyama McCarthy-Brown

Harnessing the Wind: The Art of Teaching Modern Dance by Jan Erkert

Dance Education Essentials: 55 Objects and Ideas for New Preschool-Twelfth Grade Teaching Artists by Jill Randall and Valerie Gutwirth

The Teaching Artist Sutras by Michael Wiggins

Teaching Artist Handbook by Nick Jaffe, Rebecca Barniskis, and Barbara Hackett Cox

Step by Step by Sheila Kogan

This topic is one of my great passions --- so much so that I am creating three different reading lists here, based on what course or courses you might offer at your college or university. The lists can be used for: dance for children, teaching dance to middle school and high school students, and a general course on dance education. (Please note that a few blog posts appear in more than one list.) I also list 8 books to consider for courses as well.

Dance Education Course: Dance for Children

Becoming a Teaching Artist: An Infographic and Graphic Organizer

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: 50 Perspectives

Five Questions for Dance Educator Anne Green Gilbert

A Pulse on the Dance Teaching Artist Field: Training Programs, Methodologies, Philosophies, and Complementary Educational Language

My Dance Week: Ashley Boyack

My Dance Week: Valerie Gutwirth

Prep Time

A Pulse on Dance in LA Unified School District

Picture Books to Use in Children's Dance Classes

25 Playful Props for Preschool and K-5 Dance Classes

Five Ideas as You Begin to Teach Afterschool Classes

Five Ideas as You Begin to Teach Preschool Age Students

Eight Resources and Ideas for Teaching Parent/Child Dance Classes

Five Year Olds Dancing

Dance Classes with Children 1-5 Years Old

Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials: 55 Objects and Ideas for New Preschool-12th Grade Teaching Artists

Ten Resources for Teaching Artists as We Prepare for the Year Ahead

Dance Education Course: Middle School/High School

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: 50 Perspectives

Prep Time

My Dance Week: Kristin Blatzheim on Teaching Full-Time at a High School

My Dance Week: Falon Baltzell on Teaching Full-Time at a High School

My Dance Week: Teaching Full-Time in a 6th-12th Grade Public School (Sarah Billings Wheeler, NYC)

My Dance Week: Teaching Full-Time in a Public Middle School (Amber Johnson, Florida)

My Dance Week: Teaching Full-Time in a Public Middle School (Jennifer Smith, California)

Artist Profile: Linda Carr of Berkeley High School

Artist Profile: Wendy Jones of Lowell High School

Artist Profile: Angela Demmel of Moreau Catholic High School

Teach dance in a high school? 14 reflection questions as you grow and develop your program

Advocacy/PR/Documentation: Ideas for K-12 Dance Teaching Artists

Jan Erkert's Book, Harnessing the Wind

For Middle School Dance Educators: A Graphic Organizer to Support the Choreographic Process for Your Students

Teaching Technique to Teens and Adults

Teaching Resource: Dance Studio Life Magazine

Working with a Youth Ensemble

A Pulse on the Dance Teaching Artist Field: Training Programs, Methodologies, Philosophies, and Complementary Educational Language

A Pulse on Dance in LA Unified School District

A General Dance Education Course

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: 50 Perspectives

Jan Erkert's Book, Harnessing the Wind

Teaching Technique to Teens and Adults

Five Questions for Dance Educator Anne Green Gilbert

Becoming a Teaching Artist: An Infographic and Graphic Organizer

My Dance Week: Kristin Damrow

My Dance Week: Jayme Klinger Host

My Dance Week: Jennifer Smith

Building a Dance Company: On the Topic of Educational Programming

The Beautiful Relationship of Being an Artist and a Teacher

Liz Lerman's Online Toolbox

Prep Time

Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials: 55 Objects and Ideas for New Preschool-12th Grade Teaching Artists

Joan Woodbury on Teaching

For Studio Instructors: Weekly Ideas and Reflection Questions for Fall Semester Youth Classes

Book Recommendations for Your Courses

Body, Mind, and Spirit in Action: A Teacher's Guide to Creative Dance by Patricia Reedy

Creative Dance for All Ages by Anne Green Gilbert

Dance Pedagogy for a Diverse World: Culturally Relevant Teaching in Theory, Research, and Practice by Nyama McCarthy-Brown

Harnessing the Wind: The Art of Teaching Modern Dance by Jan Erkert

Dance Education Essentials: 55 Objects and Ideas for New Preschool-Twelfth Grade Teaching Artists by Jill Randall and Valerie Gutwirth

The Teaching Artist Sutras by Michael Wiggins

Teaching Artist Handbook by Nick Jaffe, Rebecca Barniskis, and Barbara Hackett Cox

Step by Step by Sheila Kogan

For a Senior Seminar Course: A Reading List (Updated August 2019)

Black Bodies Sonata - Kayla Farris and Nik Owens. Screen shot image from the film by Deborah Corrales and Kayla Farrish.

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

This is one of my favorite lists to create each year and very close to my heart. These 50 posts hope to inspire and share through various artists' personal stories about their career paths. (Don't worry - they only take 3-5 minutes each to read.) These posts also aim to offer resources that young dancers can research and use right away. Assign about 4 posts a week for the semester.

I also highly encourage you to use A Life in Dance as required reading. Author Rebecca Stenn shares more about the book here. (And, I offer some ideas for reading assignments here.)

Feedback and stories are always welcome - randalldanceprojects@gmail.com.

And let me end with one of my favorite quotes from the blog. From Linda C. Smith's artist profile:

Enjoy the journey. Be patient. Decide why you love to dance and then just DO IT. Don’t question yourself every day. Just get up and work and work and work.

Dance is for everyone but life as a professional performer is not for everyone. There are so many ways to make dance part of your life. Don’t get stuck. Experience dance on many levels. Teach it, perform it, make it, fund it, watch it, write about it…love it.

Jeremy jae Neal. Photo by Benjamin Allen.

----

Musings on Wellness

----

My Dance Week: Kayla Farrish

My Dance Week: Amber Johnson

My Dance Week: Banning Bouldin

Eight Examples: "My Dance Week" in New York City

----

City Guides - students can read all of them or select a few to read (17 cities are featured)

"Go Home" by Debra Knapp

Advice on Moving to NYC: Four Perspectives

----

What I Look for in a Dancer

The Performer's Perspective: What I Feel, What I am Exploring....

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 1 Day until Let Slip the Witches with Bellwether Dance Project

----

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Five Bay Area Artists Share Perspectives

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Becca Levy, Rebecca Stenn, and Joanna Kotze

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Onye Ozuzu, Jill Patterson, and Abby Fiat

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 1)

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 2)

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 3)

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 4)

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 5)

Becoming a Teaching Artist: 5 Ideas as You Begin to Teach Preschool Age Classes

----

Building a Dance Company: The Art of Decision-Making By Sumi Clements

Building a Dance Company: Financial Advice from Six Choreographers

Studio Practice/Studio Time: Jodi Melnick

Building a Dance Company: How Much Does a Dance Project Cost? (With Kristin Damrow)

Questions for Choreographers: Ideas from Dayna Hanson, Heidi Henderson, and Raja Feather Kelly 

----

12 Stories: Artist Profiles in 2017 of Dancers Ages 28 to 65

Catching Up with Melecio Estrella

Catching Up with Joanna Kotze

Catching Up with Ivy Baldwin

Catching Up with Nadia Oka

Artist Profile: Nicole Vaughan-Diaz (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Jeremy jae Neal (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Christine Chen (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Carley Conder (Tempe, AZ)

Artist Profile: Paloma McGregor (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Molly Lieber (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Marc Brew (Glasgow, UK)

Artist Profile: Linda Carr (Berkeley, CA)

Artist Profile: Abby Zbikowski (Champaign, IL)

Artist Profile: Banning Bouldin (Nashville, TN)

Artist Profile: Kathleen Wessel (Atlanta, GA)

Artist Profile: Samsam Yung (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Tanya Chianese (Oakland, CA)

Artist Profile: Jess Humphrey (San Diego, CA)

Artist Profile: Adriane Fang (Silver Spring, MD)

---

Becoming an Arts Administrator: Describing Non-Profits and For-Profits in Most Basic Terms

Becoming an Arts Administrator: Julia Davidson (Minneapolis, MN)

Becoming an Arts Administrator: 5 Questions for Hillary Kooistra of A.I.M

The Arts Administrator’s Alphabet: 88 Pages, 180 Terms and Concepts

Job Survey/Self-Assessment for Modern Dancers 

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

This is one of my favorite lists to create each year and very close to my heart. These 50 posts hope to inspire and share through various artists' personal stories about their career paths. (Don't worry - they only take 3-5 minutes each to read.) These posts also aim to offer resources that young dancers can research and use right away. Assign about 4 posts a week for the semester.

I also highly encourage you to use A Life in Dance as required reading. Author Rebecca Stenn shares more about the book here. (And, I offer some ideas for reading assignments here.)

Feedback and stories are always welcome - randalldanceprojects@gmail.com.

And let me end with one of my favorite quotes from the blog. From Linda C. Smith's artist profile:

Enjoy the journey. Be patient. Decide why you love to dance and then just DO IT. Don’t question yourself every day. Just get up and work and work and work.

Dance is for everyone but life as a professional performer is not for everyone. There are so many ways to make dance part of your life. Don’t get stuck. Experience dance on many levels. Teach it, perform it, make it, fund it, watch it, write about it…love it.

Jeremy jae Neal. Photo by Benjamin Allen.

----

Musings on Wellness

----

My Dance Week: Kayla Farrish

My Dance Week: Amber Johnson

My Dance Week: Banning Bouldin

Eight Examples: "My Dance Week" in New York City

----

City Guides - students can read all of them or select a few to read (17 cities are featured)

"Go Home" by Debra Knapp

Advice on Moving to NYC: Four Perspectives

----

What I Look for in a Dancer

The Performer's Perspective: What I Feel, What I am Exploring....

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 1 Day until Let Slip the Witches with Bellwether Dance Project

----

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Five Bay Area Artists Share Perspectives

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Becca Levy, Rebecca Stenn, and Joanna Kotze

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Onye Ozuzu, Jill Patterson, and Abby Fiat

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 1)

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 2)

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 3)

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 4)

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 5)

Becoming a Teaching Artist: 5 Ideas as You Begin to Teach Preschool Age Classes

----

Building a Dance Company: The Art of Decision-Making By Sumi Clements

Building a Dance Company: Financial Advice from Six Choreographers

Studio Practice/Studio Time: Jodi Melnick

Building a Dance Company: How Much Does a Dance Project Cost? (With Kristin Damrow)

Questions for Choreographers: Ideas from Dayna Hanson, Heidi Henderson, and Raja Feather Kelly 

----

12 Stories: Artist Profiles in 2017 of Dancers Ages 28 to 65

Catching Up with Melecio Estrella

Catching Up with Joanna Kotze

Catching Up with Ivy Baldwin

Catching Up with Nadia Oka

Artist Profile: Nicole Vaughan-Diaz (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Jeremy jae Neal (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Christine Chen (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Carley Conder (Tempe, AZ)

Artist Profile: Paloma McGregor (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Molly Lieber (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Marc Brew (Glasgow, UK)

Artist Profile: Linda Carr (Berkeley, CA)

Artist Profile: Abby Zbikowski (Champaign, IL)

Artist Profile: Banning Bouldin (Nashville, TN)

Artist Profile: Kathleen Wessel (Atlanta, GA)

Artist Profile: Samsam Yung (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Tanya Chianese (Oakland, CA)

Artist Profile: Jess Humphrey (San Diego, CA)

Artist Profile: Adriane Fang (Silver Spring, MD)

---

Becoming an Arts Administrator: Describing Non-Profits and For-Profits in Most Basic Terms

Becoming an Arts Administrator: Julia Davidson (Minneapolis, MN)

Becoming an Arts Administrator: 5 Questions for Hillary Kooistra of A.I.M

The Arts Administrator’s Alphabet: 88 Pages, 180 Terms and Concepts

Job Survey/Self-Assessment for Modern Dancers 

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

This is one of my favorite lists to create each year and very close to my heart. These 50 posts hope to inspire and share through various artists' personal stories about their career paths. (Don't worry - they only take 3-5 minutes each to read.) These posts also aim to offer resources that young dancers can research and use right away. Assign about 4 posts a week for the semester.

I also highly encourage you to use A Life in Dance as required reading. Author Rebecca Stenn shares more about the book here. (And, I offer some ideas for reading assignments here.)

Feedback and stories are always welcome - randalldanceprojects@gmail.com.

And let me end with one of my favorite quotes from the blog. From Linda C. Smith's artist profile:

Enjoy the journey. Be patient. Decide why you love to dance and then just DO IT. Don’t question yourself every day. Just get up and work and work and work.

Dance is for everyone but life as a professional performer is not for everyone. There are so many ways to make dance part of your life. Don’t get stuck. Experience dance on many levels. Teach it, perform it, make it, fund it, watch it, write about it…love it.

Jeremy jae Neal. Photo by Benjamin Allen.

----

Musings on Wellness

----

My Dance Week: Kayla Farrish

My Dance Week: Amber Johnson

My Dance Week: Banning Bouldin

Eight Examples: "My Dance Week" in New York City

----

City Guides - students can read all of them or select a few to read (17 cities are featured)

"Go Home" by Debra Knapp

Advice on Moving to NYC: Four Perspectives

----

What I Look for in a Dancer

The Performer's Perspective: What I Feel, What I am Exploring....

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 1 Day until Let Slip the Witches with Bellwether Dance Project

----

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Five Bay Area Artists Share Perspectives

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Becca Levy, Rebecca Stenn, and Joanna Kotze

Speaking as a Teaching Artist: Onye Ozuzu, Jill Patterson, and Abby Fiat

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 1)

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 2)

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 3)

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 4)

For Brand New Teaching Artists (Grades PreK-12): Teaching Tips from the Book Dance Education Essentials (Post 5)

Becoming a Teaching Artist: 5 Ideas as You Begin to Teach Preschool Age Classes

----

Building a Dance Company: The Art of Decision-Making By Sumi Clements

Building a Dance Company: Financial Advice from Six Choreographers

Studio Practice/Studio Time: Jodi Melnick

Building a Dance Company: How Much Does a Dance Project Cost? (With Kristin Damrow)

Questions for Choreographers: Ideas from Dayna Hanson, Heidi Henderson, and Raja Feather Kelly 

----

12 Stories: Artist Profiles in 2017 of Dancers Ages 28 to 65

Catching Up with Melecio Estrella

Catching Up with Joanna Kotze

Catching Up with Ivy Baldwin

Catching Up with Nadia Oka

Artist Profile: Nicole Vaughan-Diaz (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Jeremy jae Neal (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Christine Chen (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Carley Conder (Tempe, AZ)

Artist Profile: Paloma McGregor (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Molly Lieber (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Marc Brew (Glasgow, UK)

Artist Profile: Linda Carr (Berkeley, CA)

Artist Profile: Abby Zbikowski (Champaign, IL)

Artist Profile: Banning Bouldin (Nashville, TN)

Artist Profile: Kathleen Wessel (Atlanta, GA)

Artist Profile: Samsam Yung (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Tanya Chianese (Oakland, CA)

Artist Profile: Jess Humphrey (San Diego, CA)

Artist Profile: Adriane Fang (Silver Spring, MD)

---

Becoming an Arts Administrator: Describing Non-Profits and For-Profits in Most Basic Terms

Becoming an Arts Administrator: Julia Davidson (Minneapolis, MN)

Becoming an Arts Administrator: 5 Questions for Hillary Kooistra of A.I.M

The Arts Administrator’s Alphabet: 88 Pages, 180 Terms and Concepts

Job Survey/Self-Assessment for Modern Dancers 

For a Graduate Level Choreography Class: A Reading List (Updated July 2019)

Nia Love. Photo by Ciceley Fullylove.

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

This reading list includes blog posts in four categories: The Choreographic Moment, Studio Practice/Studio Time, Artist Profiles, and Previews/Reviews. Please find below 35 short pieces for your students to read throughout the semester. As your group makes, tinkers, and explores over the course of several months, these essays and artist profiles will share both reflective questions to consider during the choreographic process, as well as career paths and personal stories related to being a dancemaker in the United States right now.

 

Each post takes only 3-5 minutes to read. 

---------------

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Douglas Nielsen

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Jo Kreiter

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Keith Johnson

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Stephan Koplowitz

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Jeanine Durning

---------------

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Rebecca Stenn)

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Wendy Jones and Pamela Wong-Shoebottom)

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Leah Cox)

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Nina Haft)

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Randee Paufve)

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Jodi Melnick)

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Jess Humphrey)

---------------

Colleen Thomas. Photo by Julias Discenza.

 

Artist Profile: Nia Love (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Camille Brown (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Dayna Hanson (Seattle)

 

Artist Profile: Donna Uchizono (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Colleen Thomas (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Marc Brew (San Francisco Bay Area)

 

Artist Profile: Gesel Mason (now in Texas)

 

Artist Profile: Cynthia Oliver (Urbana, IL)

 

Artist Profile: Joanna Kotze (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Rogelio Lopez (San Francisco Bay Area)

 

Artist Profile: Ivy Baldwin (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Raja Feather Kelly (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Kristin Damrow (San Francisco Bay Area)

 

Artist Profile: Susan Marshall (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Reggie Wilson (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Becca Levy (FL)

 

Artist Profile: Lauren Simpson (San Francisco)

---------------

Dance as Event: An Interview with Lauren Simpson about DANCE EXHIBIT

What Is “Social Movement?" (By Molly Rose-Williams)

Peiling Kao Dances: One Body, Five Dances, Six Perspectives

CriticalMasses: 8x8x8 (January 24, 2019)

“Lipstick Lumberjacks, Losers and Leapfrogs” offers a tantalizing foray into a queer imagination

Writing on Dance: A Response to Molly Heller’s “very vary” in Berkeley, California

 

 Lauren Simpson Dance. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

---------------

Plus, if you are seeking books for a graduate level course, I highly recommend:

• A Choreographer's Handbook - Jonathan Burrows
• The Place of Dance: A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making - Andrea Olsen
• Hiking the Horizontal - Liz Lerman
• A Choreographic Mind - Susan Rethorst

-----------------------------------------------

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

This reading list includes blog posts in four categories: The Choreographic Moment, Studio Practice/Studio Time, Artist Profiles, and Previews/Reviews. Please find below 35 short pieces for your students to read throughout the semester. As your group makes, tinkers, and explores over the course of several months, these essays and artist profiles will share both reflective questions to consider during the choreographic process, as well as career paths and personal stories related to being a dancemaker in the United States right now.

 

Each post takes only 3-5 minutes to read. 

---------------

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Douglas Nielsen

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Jo Kreiter

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Keith Johnson

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Stephan Koplowitz

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Jeanine Durning

---------------

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Rebecca Stenn)

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Wendy Jones and Pamela Wong-Shoebottom)

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Leah Cox)

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Nina Haft)

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Randee Paufve)

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Jodi Melnick)

Studio Practice/Studio Time (Jess Humphrey)

---------------

Colleen Thomas. Photo by Julias Discenza.

 

Artist Profile: Nia Love (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Camille Brown (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Dayna Hanson (Seattle)

 

Artist Profile: Donna Uchizono (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Colleen Thomas (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Marc Brew (San Francisco Bay Area)

 

Artist Profile: Gesel Mason (now in Texas)

 

Artist Profile: Cynthia Oliver (Urbana, IL)

 

Artist Profile: Joanna Kotze (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Rogelio Lopez (San Francisco Bay Area)

 

Artist Profile: Ivy Baldwin (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Raja Feather Kelly (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Kristin Damrow (San Francisco Bay Area)

 

Artist Profile: Susan Marshall (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Reggie Wilson (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Becca Levy (FL)

 

Artist Profile: Lauren Simpson (San Francisco)

---------------

Dance as Event: An Interview with Lauren Simpson about DANCE EXHIBIT

What Is “Social Movement?" (By Molly Rose-Williams)

Peiling Kao Dances: One Body, Five Dances, Six Perspectives

CriticalMasses: 8x8x8 (January 24, 2019)

“Lipstick Lumberjacks, Losers and Leapfrogs” offers a tantalizing foray into a queer imagination

Writing on Dance: A Response to Molly Heller’s “very vary” in Berkeley, California

 

 Lauren Simpson Dance. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

---------------

Plus, if you are seeking books for a graduate level course, I highly recommend:

• A Choreographer's Handbook - Jonathan Burrows
• The Place of Dance: A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making - Andrea Olsen
• Hiking the Horizontal - Liz Lerman
• A Choreographic Mind - Susan Rethorst

-----------------------------------------------

For an Undergraduate Composition Course: A Reading List (Updated July 2019)

Kate Weare Company. Photo by Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang. 

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

Looking back at the 168 artist profiles and monthly features from the past 7 years, I have selected 28 blog posts to use within a college Composition Course. The wide range of viewpoints and career paths can offer a window into working as a choreographer in the United States right now. Students can take away - and immediately experiment with - questions and suggestions from each choreographer. Use one or two blog posts a week as a discussion starter, enlivening a Composition Course with real world applications and considerations about dancemaking.

You can share the links below, or print out each post to include in a course reader. Each post takes 5 minutes to read.

Feedback and stories are always welcome - randalldanceprojects@gmail.com.

----------------------

Fifteen Questions for Choreographers and Performers

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Douglas Nielsen

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Jo Kreiter

Musings on "Unison" (With Cynthia Oliver, Lauren Simpson, Amy Chavasse, and Jo Kreiter)

Studio Time: Rebecca Stenn

Studio Time: Nina Haft

-----

My Dance Week: Daniel Charon (Artistic Director of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City, UT)

My Dance Week: Kayla Farrish (Independent artist based in New York City)

My Dance Week: Kristin Damrow (Artistic Director of Kristin Damrow & Company in the San Francisco Bay Area)

-----

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 2 Weeks until Impact, with Kristin Damrow & Company

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 5 Days Until Molly Heller's Performance of "very vary" in Berkeley

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: Four Days until BIG SALT with The Anata Project

-----

Artist Profile: Raja Feather Kelly (Brooklyn, NY)

Artist Profile: Kate Weare (Brooklyn, NY)

Artist Profile: Jeanine Durning (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Susan Marshall (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Banning Bouldin (Nashville, TN)

Artist Profile: Liz Lerman (Baltimore, MD)

Artist Profile: Reggie Wilson (Brooklyn, NY)

Artist Profile: Amy Chavasse (Ann Arbor, MI)

Artist Profile: Rogelio Lopez (Oakland, CA)

Artist Profile: Tami Stronach (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Camille A. Brown (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Donna Uchizono (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Molly Lieber (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Becca Levy (Jacksonville, FL)

Artist Profile: Dayna Hanson (Seattle, WA)

Artist Profile: Tanya Chianese (Oakland, CA)

*There are 168 artist profiles on the blog. To read more stories, click here.

----------

Related posts:

For an Undergraduate Course: 45 Questions and Prompts for Post-Performance Discussions

--------------------------------

Kate Weare Company. Photo by Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang. 

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

Looking back at the 168 artist profiles and monthly features from the past 7 years, I have selected 28 blog posts to use within a college Composition Course. The wide range of viewpoints and career paths can offer a window into working as a choreographer in the United States right now. Students can take away - and immediately experiment with - questions and suggestions from each choreographer. Use one or two blog posts a week as a discussion starter, enlivening a Composition Course with real world applications and considerations about dancemaking.

You can share the links below, or print out each post to include in a course reader. Each post takes 5 minutes to read.

Feedback and stories are always welcome - randalldanceprojects@gmail.com.

----------------------

Fifteen Questions for Choreographers and Performers

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Douglas Nielsen

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Jo Kreiter

Musings on "Unison" (With Cynthia Oliver, Lauren Simpson, Amy Chavasse, and Jo Kreiter)

Studio Time: Rebecca Stenn

Studio Time: Nina Haft

-----

My Dance Week: Daniel Charon (Artistic Director of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City, UT)

My Dance Week: Kayla Farrish (Independent artist based in New York City)

My Dance Week: Kristin Damrow (Artistic Director of Kristin Damrow & Company in the San Francisco Bay Area)

-----

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 2 Weeks until Impact, with Kristin Damrow & Company

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 5 Days Until Molly Heller's Performance of "very vary" in Berkeley

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: Four Days until BIG SALT with The Anata Project

-----

Artist Profile: Raja Feather Kelly (Brooklyn, NY)

Artist Profile: Kate Weare (Brooklyn, NY)

Artist Profile: Jeanine Durning (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Susan Marshall (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Banning Bouldin (Nashville, TN)

Artist Profile: Liz Lerman (Baltimore, MD)

Artist Profile: Reggie Wilson (Brooklyn, NY)

Artist Profile: Amy Chavasse (Ann Arbor, MI)

Artist Profile: Rogelio Lopez (Oakland, CA)

Artist Profile: Tami Stronach (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Camille A. Brown (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Donna Uchizono (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Molly Lieber (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Becca Levy (Jacksonville, FL)

Artist Profile: Dayna Hanson (Seattle, WA)

Artist Profile: Tanya Chianese (Oakland, CA)

*There are 168 artist profiles on the blog. To read more stories, click here.

----------

Related posts:

For an Undergraduate Course: 45 Questions and Prompts for Post-Performance Discussions

--------------------------------

Kate Weare Company. Photo by Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang. 

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

Looking back at the 168 artist profiles and monthly features from the past 7 years, I have selected 28 blog posts to use within a college Composition Course. The wide range of viewpoints and career paths can offer a window into working as a choreographer in the United States right now. Students can take away - and immediately experiment with - questions and suggestions from each choreographer. Use one or two blog posts a week as a discussion starter, enlivening a Composition Course with real world applications and considerations about dancemaking.

You can share the links below, or print out each post to include in a course reader. Each post takes 5 minutes to read.

Feedback and stories are always welcome - randalldanceprojects@gmail.com.

----------------------

Fifteen Questions for Choreographers and Performers

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Douglas Nielsen

The Choreographic Moment: Ideas from Jo Kreiter

Musings on "Unison" (With Cynthia Oliver, Lauren Simpson, Amy Chavasse, and Jo Kreiter)

Studio Time: Rebecca Stenn

Studio Time: Nina Haft

-----

My Dance Week: Daniel Charon (Artistic Director of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City, UT)

My Dance Week: Kayla Farrish (Independent artist based in New York City)

My Dance Week: Kristin Damrow (Artistic Director of Kristin Damrow & Company in the San Francisco Bay Area)

-----

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 2 Weeks until Impact, with Kristin Damrow & Company

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 5 Days Until Molly Heller's Performance of "very vary" in Berkeley

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: Four Days until BIG SALT with The Anata Project

-----

Artist Profile: Raja Feather Kelly (Brooklyn, NY)

Artist Profile: Kate Weare (Brooklyn, NY)

Artist Profile: Jeanine Durning (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Susan Marshall (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Banning Bouldin (Nashville, TN)

Artist Profile: Liz Lerman (Baltimore, MD)

Artist Profile: Reggie Wilson (Brooklyn, NY)

Artist Profile: Amy Chavasse (Ann Arbor, MI)

Artist Profile: Rogelio Lopez (Oakland, CA)

Artist Profile: Tami Stronach (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Camille A. Brown (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Donna Uchizono (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Molly Lieber (New York, NY)

Artist Profile: Becca Levy (Jacksonville, FL)

Artist Profile: Dayna Hanson (Seattle, WA)

Artist Profile: Tanya Chianese (Oakland, CA)

*There are 168 artist profiles on the blog. To read more stories, click here.

----------

Related posts:

For an Undergraduate Course: 45 Questions and Prompts for Post-Performance Discussions

--------------------------------

Woodland Creatures, Summer Dance

Molly Heller; photo by Marissa Mooney

Woodland Creatures, Summer Dance

By Garth Grimball

Remember when the “Song of Summer” wasn’t something to be predicted? The title wasn’t competed for, amalgamated from streaming metrics, to create a four-quadrant hit that could sustain the rapid-release-music-output era we now live in. Rather, as Summer faded into Fall, we collectively realized a certain earworm stuck with us for the preceding hottest months of the year, and we would now forever associate that song with that Summer. Think TLC’s “Waterfalls” and the summer of 1994. To my mind Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” of 2011 was our last semi-organic “Song of Summer.” (Though for me, Kelly Rowland’s “Motivation” will always be the soundtrack to hot nights in 2011.) All this is to query, could there be a dance/performance of Summer?

On Saturday, July 18, Shawl-Anderson Dance Center hosted “Heartland: Woodland Creatures,” a pop-up performance installation and dance party, created and facilitated by choreographer Molly Heller and musician Michael Wall. The duo first presented the event in their hometown, Salt Lake City, and brought the original cast--Marissa Mooney, Brian Gerke, and Nick Blaylock--with them, adding the Bay Area’s own Jenny Stulberg to this iteration.

Walking up to the venue it’s apparent the performance concerns physical space above all else. The edifice of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center is the subject with earth tone fabrics billowing out the second story windows; the top halves of dancers gesticulate and collapse within the window frames. Outside the building, on the steps, on the sidewalk, on the street, in the alley across the street, the dancers preen, prance, and prickle clad in Space Age-Victorian-Earth Goddess attire. The whole scenario is psychogeography meets Instagram filters. The choreography queers the physical space inviting viewers to reconsider how we interact with something as rudimentary as a building or a sidewalk. Prompting us to find play in the ordinary. When in reality, the moment becomes an occasion for folks to pull out their phones and capture a “moment.” The tension between affect and commenting on affect continues throughout the installation.

Once inside the building, we assemble in a downstairs studio as Stulberg dances a simple, gestural solo. With a blinkless gaze she moves closer and closer to the audience puncturing the performer-viewer divide. Proximity disabling participation via screen. Michael Wall welcomes us with an original song dedicated to Frank Shawl and Victor Anderson; a melancholy serenade composed of Wall’s baritone voice and accordion. We’re split into three groups, taking advantage of the physical space and its choreographic opportunities. My group witnesses a staircase solo by Mooney, followed by a reprise of the ode to Frank and Victor, before joining the rest of the audience upstairs.

Shuffling over and through each other to form a casual ring around the performance space we audience members mirror the set pieces in the center of the dance floor: islands of moss and flora. Stulberg, perched above us in open attic space, swathed in fabric, poses like one of Michelangelo’s Sibyls. Heller, Mooney, Gerke, and Blaylock huddle in the faux island and explode out in solos of angles and syncopation. Wall leaves the accordion for electronic beats. Pulsing rhythms expand the space. Heads and bodies bob along. The dancers strut back and forth and in circles, sometimes quickening to a trot or gallop, off-kilter enough to never be walking, jogging, or running. The movements are specific, grounded. Each body seems to quake in response to another in frivolity and frenzy. Jessi Barber’s lighting design bathes the space in varying temperatures of glow. Is there a connection to be found with the environment? Uncertain. The dancers, the lighting and the music conjures a vogue ball meets Barbarella meets Miyazaki animated plant-spirit. It is fun. Wall switches from electronic to piano. The dancers calm and meet under Stulberg’s perch to aid in her descent. Just as the melody of Wall’s playing becomes familiar, Stulberg joins in singing Cher’s “Believe.” A perfect song choice for the evening. A corny self-empowerment club banger now steeped in nostalgia, belted at karaoke bars, and so, so easy to dance to. After one verse and chorus from Wall and Stulberg, the Cher recording starts to play, the performers invite us into the space, and we are all dancers.

The installation experience is about 40 minutes in length before transitioning into full-on dance party. This brings me back to the “Song of Summer” comparison. The song of Summer is a pop song. It is a popular song. Rarely a song longer than 3 ½ minutes. It becomes embedded in your psyche. You sing along without realizing it. Does it have much depth or substance? Does it matter? “Heartland: Woodland Creatures” is fizzy and sweaty and relaxed. The performing is brief and feels like a preamble to the dance party. Like a pop song transporting you to summertime revelry, the performance is a conduit to revel. I got to sing loudly; shake, swoon, and sweat my body with dear friends; make fleeting acquaintances that exist only on the dance floor; lean out a crowded door to collectively will a breeze while drowning in the curry smell of the restaurant next door. I got a moment I’ll forever associate with Summer 2019. Molly Heller and Michael Wall have given us a Dance of Summer.

 

Garth Grimball is a writer and dance artist based in Oakland, California. He is the co-director of Wax Poet(s), company member of Dana Lawton Dances, and performs regularly with Oakland Ballet.

---------------

Decisions, Decisions in BIG SALT

Emily Hansel, Mallory Markham, Katie Meyers, and Jessie Egbert. Photo by Summer Wilson.

Decisions, Decisions in BIG SALT

By Garth Grimball

“The doing is what seems hard. The having seems marvelous. But one doesn’t have a child, one does it.” So writes Sheila Heti in her autofiction novel Motherhood, dissecting the ambivalence and paralysis of choosing between motherhood and art; between giving oneself wholly to creation in two separate, unique forms. The Anata Project’s BIG SALT is doing -- it is a verb -- full action, full body. Premiering at Joe Goode Annex over two weekends, artistic director, Claudia Anata Hubiak, describes the work as “the clash between love and ambition in motherhood.” A mother herself, Hubiak drew inspiration from her own conflicts in valuing creative determination with birthing her second son.

A sense of division permeates the space before BIG SALT begins. The audience is split into two sections facing each other across the length of the theater. The dance floor is delineated by white lines into four quadrants. Choosing a side to sit feels less like finding a pleasing vantage point than staking a claim in an unknown conflict.

Five dancers -- Kaitlyn Ebert, Jessica Egbert, Emily Hansel, Mallory Markham, and Katie Meyers -- start the dance dressed in varying silhouettes of billowy white, standing in a line, swinging their arms back and forth. The arm swinging is a recurring visual motif, and collectively performed it feels like if a shrug could imagine itself to be more active: still listless and noncommittal but only just. The dancers lunge into competitive track and field starting positions and sprint across the space crossing one another and intersecting the imagined boundaries of the stage design. As they start and stop and change direction, the sprint devolves from a race against equal competitors to a rush of checkpoints in an endless to-do list.

The dancers slow and abandon the sprinter’s lunge for crouching into the floor. Four bodies are continually pulled down with lowered gazes by single down-stretched arms. Like tree trunks burrowing into soil to spread roots, the once swinging arms are now weighted and move with measured determination. Egbert contrasts the solemn ritual with a wild, frenetic solo. She is rootless and moves like the space is happening to her body. Every change in direction is outside of her control.

BIG SALT develops with detailed craft and smart editing. Visual metaphors and relationships morph and eclipse. Dancers lean, fall, grasp, and throw each other, exploring when support is a burden and when feeling someone else’s force is the remedy for being weightless. The arm-swinging returns around the halfway point. This time the dancers line up across center stage creating a barrier between the split audience. The unison swings break down and the bodies switch facings at uneven intervals. Newton’s Cradle comes to life, the motion begets motion, and the motion is the rhythm of waffling between two impulses. Not all thematic choreographic moments read so smartly. One dancer runs into a wall, another is pulled in different directions, and each feel like an easy pun. The literal undercuts the energetic build up in the movement.

The dancers perform with masterful technique and the awareness of a true ensemble. Hubiak harnesses the collective technical training of her dancers (Gaga, ballet, release) into a physical language punctuated by leg extensions, weighted centers, and crisp gestures. There is a frenzied section of dizzying and difficult partnering that breaks the spell of dancers’ focus. Every lift and lower is executed without hesitation, but there is the sense that when BIG SALT was constructed there was “the partnering section,” and the intention in the dancing feels different than the rest of the dance. The choreography is not lacking. Perhaps more time is required to build partnering trust that translates from the studio to the stage.

BIG SALT is true to its motive from beginning to end. And what an end Hubiak delivers. She avoids the explicit for the specific. There’s no dancer pantomime of infant care or hand-wringing at the struggle to create. The dancers fly and roll through the space in fast variations to glom en masse, repeatedly. Referencing the rooting from the beginning of the dance, four dancers are planted in space, arms floating above their heads, fingers twitching in search of stillness. Katie Meyers glides softly through this forest of decisions made. Doing is freedom from indecision but not from the repercussions of past choices. Ambition like parenthood is cumulative. Successes and failures build to form never-ending opportunities to succeed and fail. The Anata Project’s BIG SALT is a success.

 

Garth Grimball is a writer and dance artist based in Oakland, California. He is the co-director of Wax Poet(s), company member of Dana Lawton Dances, and performs regularly with Oakland Ballet.

-----------

One Good Quote: BIG SALT with The Anata Project

Photo: Summer Wilson

In Fall 2017, Life as a Modern Dancer launched a new concept for post-performance discussion and writing. The goals are multi-fold:

• What are new ways to invite post-performance writing (since so few publications now print dance reviews, and there are fewer and fewer dance critics in the United States)?
• How can choreographers hear and read more from audience members about their impressions and experiences of dance events?
• Can we offer new mechanisms for choreographers to gather language about their work, to further their work and to promote their work? 

The premise is simple. If you experienced The Anata Project's production of BIG SALT at the Joe Goode Annex (May 30-31 and June 1, 7, and 8), please take a few minutes to leave a comment. Write down images, impressions, appreciations, and questions from the performance. These can be words, phrases, or a few sentences. 

We thank you for your time, support, and thoughtfulness. Here's to more dialogue, more reflection, and more writing on the dance performance experience. As choreographer Mariah Steele noted, we are "democratizing dance criticism."

------------