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FIVE COLLEGE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER 2016–2017

JIM COLEMAN

Editor: Jim Coleman (FCDD Chair) Asst. Editor: Joanna Faraby Walker (FCDD) Design: New Ground Creative STORY/TIME: NARRATION AND ABSTRACTION ill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company’s classic

STORY/TIME, choreographed in 2012 in collaboration with Janet Wong and com- pany members, was restaged on a double College PAID Hampshire U.S. Postage U.S.

Nonprofit Org Nonprofit Bcast of twenty FCDD dancers and performed on multiple campuses throughout the year. The work is an exhilarating and unusual hybrid—mixing the deeply personal, socially and politically charged dance making for which Mr. Jones is best known, with more abstract, formalist interests of his long-time mentor, Merce Cunningham. As New York Times critic Claudia La Rocco writes, “Bill T. Jones has long talked about his simultaneous attraction toward narration and abstraction, and about how his desire to lay claim to both of these artistic traditions has often left him

in conflict. How to tell a good yarn but not be yoked HABIB PHILIP to it structurally?” The cast was very fortunate to work Bill T Jones first-hand with two illustrious, long-time company members, Jennifer Nugent and Shayla-Vie Jenkins, who shared the staging. The piece was especially challenging for its puzzle-like collage of break-neck movement phrases executed in ever-changing sequence, determined—à la John Cage—by chance procedures, all within the spatial confines of a taped floor-grid of 12 “boxes”. The piece also drew on original personal stories from the dancers, spoken live by different cast members at each performance. This was augmented by a multi-layered sound score, also sequenced by chance, and performed live by electronic musician/composer Jake Meginsky. The

whole, exuberant, meticulously-calibrated cacophony unfolded each night beneath a large digital clock that

visibly ticked away time’s passing, second by second,

from 20 minutes down to the final zero. It was a wild COLEMAN JIM ride for audiences as well as performers! Shayla-Vie Jenkins leading rehearsal (413) 559-6622 893 West 893 West Street

Amherst, MA 01002 MA Amherst, “Living and dying is not the big issue. The big issue is what

www.fivecolleges.edu/dance you’re going to do with your time while you are here.” Five College Dance Department Dance College Five

Dance Building, Hampshire College Hampshire Building, Dance —Bill T. Jones n

Amherst College | Hampshire College | Mount Holyoke College | Smith College | University of Massachusetts Amherst1 FCDD ALUMNI BEBE MILLER IN RESIDENCE NEWS The FCDD welcomed celebrated choreographer Aretha Aoki (SC MFA ‘08) and performer Bebe Miller, who joined the Smith is a choreographer, per- former, and, most recently, College faculty as the 2017 William Allan Neilson Assistant Professor of Professor. Over the course of the year, she presented Dance at Bowdoin College. three public events, each with her particular point of She was a co-curator of the 2016 Movement Research view and twist on the lecture format. In Syntax and Spring Festival Hand Flow: dimensional meaning-making through the body Written Note(s). arethaaoki.wordpress.com in motion, Bebe presented a hybrid performance-

Rachel Aylward (UM ‘13) talk-conversation, and was joined by Bebe Miller most recently performed Company and FCDD faculty members Angie Hauser in Gypsy at the Maltz Jupiter (Associate Professor/Smith College) and Bronwen Theatre under the direction of Tony-nominated Marcia MacArthur (Guest Artist/UMass). Bebe used real- Milgrom Dodge. She is a time performance to help the audience see ‘how she proud new member of the Actor’s Equity Association. sees.’ In her second presentation, Performing Memory, www.rachayl.com Conjuring Body, Bebe and Angie performed a lecture- Christiana Axelsen (MHC in-performance, focusing on their seventeen-year ’03) performed in May collaboration and the exceptional autobiographical in Christopher Williams’s Il Giardino d’Amore at narrative of Bebe’s writings on dance, self, and history.

Danspace Project, Saint CERVANTES JULIETA Bebe’s final offering, Body as Archive: regarding the Mark’s, NYC. Bebe Miller and Angie Hauser persistent essential friction of gesture, attention and Pele Bausch (HC ’96) memory, fit the more expected lecture format, yet taught the workshop “Experiments in Making still had her particular performative flare. As she read from her notes, dropping pages to the floor when she was finished, the audience was trans- & Describing”, at Move- ported from dance studio, to childhood home, to summer camp in Maine, to the theater stage and back again. This fall, Bebe returns to the FCDD, ment Research in fall 2016. She also facilitated where she and Angie will offer a repertory project for a cast of eighteen students from all five campuses. Spring Fieldwork 2017, with participants meeting “We’re all made up of these flashes of memory that can come uncalled-for, have no order and are sometimes not complete . . . but somehow they are weekly to share work at all stages of development what make us up as whole human beings.” —Bebe Miller n and exchange.

Kim Brant (HC ’01) received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts 2017 Grants to Artists award and presented a new work, The Volume, at SculptureCenter, NUDGE: THE CREATIVE PROCESS WITH KINSUN CHAN as part of their In Practice exhibition, January 29– March 27 2017. www.kimbrandt.net

Karen Scanlon Brown (UM ’81) is currently teaching at several local dance studios. She is also a dance teacher at Mount Wachusett Community College, and regularly choreographs and stage manages for local com- munity theater and area high schools. She is also a first responder for the Boston Marathon.

Shirah Burgey (UM ’11) earned her doctoral degree in Physical Therapy from Northeastern University. She continues to utilize her BA in Dance as a member of Urbanity Underground, where she performs and choreo- graphs. She also works part time as a personal trainer, and participates in fitness competitions as a bikini competitor.

Laurel Anne COLEMAN JIM (Kleinschmidt) Boyd (UM ’97, SC MFA ’00) opened Ascendance Inner “Repetition is freedom . . . now, do it again” were familiar watchwords from guest World Arts, a dance and artist Kinsun Chan during the exhilarating, exhausting rehearsal process for his expressive arts studio in new work, Nudge, created with -trained FCDD dancers and premiered on Florence, MA. Along with colleagues Michelle the FCDD’s annual Faculty in March. Kinsun drew inspiration from the Marroquin (HC ‘94, SC musical compositions of Canadian cellist and composer Julia Kent to create a MFA ‘10) and Stephen Tracey-Ursrpung (SC large ensemble dance notable for its feline dynamism and striking visual de- MFA ‘12), she presented signs. Kinsun is a Canadian-American artist whose works draw from a range of performances in June. When she is not teaching artistic disciplines, which he calls Multium Design. He studied art, graphic de- and mentoring young sign, and dance and has danced with the Louisville Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Bal- students in the community, let Zurich and Ballet Basel. n

Laurel is home with her COLEMAN JIM two kids, Gabe (12) and Top: FCDD dancers in Nudge Charlotte (7). Bottom: Kinsun leading rehearsal Nichole Canuso (HC ’96) Dance Company, performed Pandaemonium FOOD for THOUGHT at Fringe Arts and New “Curiosity is a great antidote to fear.” ­­ York Live in September, —Meredith Monk and The Garden at A.R.T. in Cambridge in October. Continued on page 3

2 • FIVE COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER They performed The Garden of Forking Paths in HIP HOP TAKES OFF May at The Bok. Shih-Ming Li Chang (SC MFA ’86) and Lynn Frederiksen (SC MFA ’87) wrote a new book, Chinese Dance: In the Vast Land and Beyond, which will be published by Wesleyan University Press.

Joy Davis (SC MFA ’15) joined the Dance Division faculty at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee in 2016. She has also been a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University, and created commissioned works for Lindenwood University, Scottsdale Community College, and New Dialect Dance Company in Nashville. She taught Countertechnique and Improvisation at the American Dance Festival during summer 2017.

Barbie Diewald (SC MFA ‘16) was named a 2016 Bogliasco Fellow, and did a five-week residency in Liguria, Italy. In 2017, she received grants from the Northampton Arts Council and NEFA’s New England Dance Fund. She recently accepted a two-year Guest Artist appointment at Mount Holyoke College. Her current work Eighteen

DEREK FOWLES DEREK Refrains Re:Rhoda pre- miered this spring at the School for and Thought, with Hip hop is booming in the five colleges—classes are packed, additional performance student clubs are thriving and the FCDD has steadily dates at the APE Gallery in increased its offerings. This year featured several new courses as Northampton, New Dance Alliance’s Performance well as commissioned repertory projects with two of the country’s Mix Festival at University leading female hip hop performer/choreographers. Settlement in NYC, and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.

Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie was in residence last fall at Smith Maura Donohue (SC ‘92, to create Swept In on FCDD dancers. She is a Bessie SC MFA ‘08) is Associate award-winning performer/choreographer based in NYC, who, Professor of Dance at Hunter College and a as artistic director of Ephrat Asherie Dance, has presented Faculty Fellow at Roosevelt work at the Apollo Theater, FiraTarrega, Jacob’s Pillow Dance House Public Policy Insti- tute. Her essay “Ambivalent Festival, New York Live Arts, Summerstage, and The Yard. Her Selves: Asian Female Body first evening length work, A Single Ride, received a Bessie nomi- in American ” was published in nation in 2012 for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer. She is a

JIM COLEMAN JIM Contemporary Directions regular guest performer with Dorrance Dance and has worked in Asian American Dance and collaborated with Doug Elkins, Rennie Harris, Bill Irwin and (Wisconsin Press). She served as curator for the Gus Solomons Jr, among others. Ephrat is on faculty at Broadway La MaMa Moves 2017 & Dance Center and is a founding member of the all-female house EstroGenius 2017 Festivals, is on the board of Move- dance collective, MAWU. www.ephratasherie.com. ment Research, and the NY Dance & Performance (Bessies) Awards Commit- Jennifer Weber came to Mount Holyoke in the fall to create a hip tee. She premiered Tides hop version of Firebird on FCDD dancers. She is the artistic direc- Project in May 2017. She tor of Decadancetheatre. The company has toured across the is still raising two humans in NYC. US, UK, Japan and France in venues such as Jacob’s Pillow Dance Brendan (UM ‘09) Festival, The Apollo, The Kennedy Center, London’s Southbank presented The Big Finish Center, San Francisco Hip Hop Dance Festival, and Bumbershoot in at the 2017 La MaMa Moves Festival. In May, . Jennifer has also choreographed for the NBA’s Miami Heat, he premiered a work-in- American Express, Uber, Ulta, L’Oreal Matrix, Reebok, Bloomberg, progress at Abrons Arts Philosophy, Marc Jacobs, CK1 and the UK TV show Blue Peter. Re- Center in collaboration with composer Matthew cently she choreographed the US Premiere of Bryony Lavery’s Ricketts, and he is currently Stockholm at Stageworks/Hudson, Trouble, A New Rock Musical at an Artist-in-Residence at Brooklyn Studios the New York Musical Festival and –Get On the Good for Dance. Foot for The Apollo Theater with director Otis Sallid. Currently, Martha Eddy (HC ’74) Jennifer is the director and choreographer of The Hip Hop released her new book Nutcracker, which is in its third season of national touring. Mindful Movement, and was featured on the Politics and Somatics panel at The FCDD continues its hip hop offerings in 2017-18 with more Hampshire College in February. courses and a fall repertory project with Shakia “the Key” Johnson. Shakia is a wildly popular teacher (teaching classes Matthew Elder (SC MFA ’14) accepted a position this year at AC, MHC and SC), who is also a highly sought at Howard Community after performer and choreographer. She has performed for College in Columbia, MD,

JIM COLEMAN JIM and at Georgetown Uni- numerous hip hop events and has opened for by versity as a visiting Guest Top: FCDD dancers in Ephrat Asherie’s Swept In Fat Joe, Jadakiss, 112, Charlie Baltimore, Kima from Total and Artist. His two years in DC Middle: Shakia Johnson Omarion. Additionally, she choreographed a hip hop num- included dancing with Christopher K. Morgan Bottom: FCDD dancers in Jennifer Weber’s hip hop Firebird ber for a Boston Celtics half-time show. Shakia has toured the US and abroad dancing with Face Da Phlave Entertainment and Continued on page 4 Illstyle and Peace Productions. n

Amherst College | Hampshire College | Mount Holyoke College | Smith College | University of Massachusetts Amherst • 3 and being named one of the five “Up and Coming Dance Artists of DC” by the PEARL PRIMUS: Ngoma Reader. In NYC, Matthew now with three local companies, RACE, THE BODY AND DANCED MEMORY recently completed an apprenticeship with Kate In the late 80’s, towards the end of her illustrious artistic Weare, and continues and academic career, pioneer, Black working towards his second dance icon and renowned dance anthropologist, Dr. MA (in Social Work) at Hunter College, to Pearl Primus, joined the FCDD faculty to teach courses become a full-time art in , African American Studies and An- rehabilitation specialist. thropology. So how fortuitous it was this year to have Angelica Falcinelli (SC’12) Ninoska M’bewe Escobar, a Consortium for Faculty is a Dance/Movement Therapist living in Brooklyn, Diversity visiting scholar in the Department of Theater NY. She works as a Social and Dance at Amherst College, deliver our annual FCDD Worker/Creative Arts Therapist in a preventive lecture. M’bewe’s research focuses on the dancing services program where body, race, feminism, history and memory, and cultural she counsels families that are at risk of having their production in the contexts of social formation and children placed in care. social change, and her PhD research is more specifically Dan Farbman (AC ’01) focused on the legacy of Dr. Primus. In her lecture to began a new job as a a packed Kirby Theater at Amherst College, she exam- law professor at Boston College Law School. ined Primus’s contributions to the field, especially her emphasis on Black dance and performance as powerful Olana Flynn (HC ‘13) Ninoska M’bewe Escobar started the MFA program markers of Black experience, politicization and agency. in Experimental Chore- n ography this fall at the University of California Riverside. She received a FOOD for THOUGHT Deans Fellowship and full funding for her studies. “There is an energy within . . . pure strength . . . the energy of the person which is put in different forms, in different shapes . . . once we discover that energy, I think that such a thing as dance becomes such a delight Olivia Fauver (SC ’14) lives in Seattle, and dances because you’re moving on a stream that is you but it is even over and beyond you . . . ” with the contemporary —Katherine Dunham Butoh company The Three Yells. She also works with Faunix Dance, a multimedia dance company directed by Ashleigh Claire Miller. She was a guest artist with the physical theater company MASTER CLASSES WITH MAJOR ARTISTS DangerSwitch, and is also working with a group of Prior to the performance of the evening-length dancers on her own work, THAW, which premiered at Agua Furiosa at the UMass Fine Arts Center in Converge Dance Festival early October, company rehearsal director for in April. CONTRA-TIEMPO, Jannet Galdamez and com- Meghan Frederick (HC pany member Samad Guerra, led FCDD dancers in ’07) had residencies at Denmark Arts Center, Mary- a Guaguanco/Rumba master class that featured mount Manhattan College live drumming. and Barn Arts Collective. She presented new mate- rial in March in Boston and The internationally-renowned Sydney Dance in May in NYC, and ran Company, known for their powerhouse contempo- a week-long movement studies course at Summer rary dancing, came to the Five Colleges in February, Festival of the Arts in Bar performing new works by artistic director Rafael Harbor, ME in July. Bonachela, and offering master classes to FCDD Karen Frances Freeberg dancers. The company philosophy is founded on the (UM ’14) is an actor based in NYC. She recently universality of dance and boasts the largest public worked on television in dance program in Australia. The Cobblestone Corridor, The Haunting, Six Degrees of Murder, and Trending. This year’s season of major touring companies Karen plays Everby in the award-winning film Silence culminated in April with a performance by the Equals, and also performed legendary Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, in the New York Fringe including Ailey’s signature masterpiece, Revelations. Festival in The Co- Operatives. Her first The company offered several master classes for self-produced film, Kit, just FCDD dancers on different campuses, and our own wrapped production. Kristin Young (MHC ’97)—the company’s stage Katy Wakeman Forline (MHC ‘81), uses the manager—brought FCDD students backstage after embodied anatomy and the performances. n physiology from her dance experience at MHC to enhance her practice of massage therapy and movement education, Yoga Tune Up®, InterPlay® ECCLES ANDREW and the recent birth of her new LLC, Move2Joy. She recently returned to the MHC studios to teach a movement session at Reunion II in May.

Lily Gold (HC ’08) premiered Good Mud at Danspace Project in April.

Merli V. Guerra (MHC ‘09) continues to co-direct Luminarium Dance Company in Boston, with Kimberleigh A. Holman (MHC ‘09), now PEDRO GREIG PEDRO

in its seventh season. FLACHS CHARLES Continued on page 5 Clockwise from top: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Linda Celeste Sims and Yannick Lebrun, Jannet Galdamez leading the Contra-Tiempo master class, Sydney Dance Company

4 • FIVE COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER Merli recently completed a six-month guest cohort position with We Create— celebrating female artists in Boston—in which she created new work tackling Alzheimer’s and memory loss. She also received a grant to bring Luminarium to Fuller Craft Museum for a one-week residency, building five large-scale art installations, each with a dancer inside—continuing her breathing installation series that began in 2011.

Annie Heath (UM ’15) recently presented new works, including REV at TADA Youth Theater (NYC), Score, meet space at UMass, and The Stable Edge at Arts on Site (NYC).

Carina Ho (SC ’09) has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to promote access to dance for people with disabilities in Uruguay. Her project goal is to deepen her understanding of how artists and educa- tors in countries where integrated dance has been recently introduced are influencing the discourse surrounding inclusivity of people with disabilities in the arts.

CJ Holm’s (HC ’04) latest duet, this is an abstract dance about a dog, premiered at STUFFED

JONATHAN HSU JONATHAN at Judson Church in December. He sang in the Angie Hauser chorus for Iele Paloumpis’s new work at DraftWork at Danspace Project, and he Smith College), a recipient therapists and physical presented his one-person of Smith College’s Grant therapists, to begin the musical dramedy about FACULTY for New Directions in design of a program white fragility, Becky’s Scholarship and Teaching, integrating choreutics, Lament, at the Exponential Festival in January. UPDATES continues to explore dance/movement, Laban avenues that combine Movement Analysis and Julia Hudson (SC ’08) 2017 dance, technology and the Bartenieff Fundamentals graduated from the University of Roehampton handmade. He premiered to observe and evaluate In summer 2016, Chris in London with an MA in a new installation in the patients with Huntington’s Dance Studies with a focus Aiken and Angie Hauser spring at Amherst College. Disease and other neuro- on digital archives. Though (Associate Professors, The Silk Room is a single- degenerative conditions. her day job is in travel, Smith College) taught she trains in Horton with track video projected on The program examines the their annual Dance Impro- David Blake at London’s and through sixty feet role of the environment visation and Performance DanceWorks studio, and of hand printed organza and exercise in altering the performs with City Acad- Intensive (a week-long and choreographed on course of these disorders, emy Contemporary Dance. intensive for professional company members of and hopes to demonstrate Emma Jaster (AC ’07)

dancers and choreographers), COLEMAN JIM Pilobolus Dance Theatre. ways that dance is uniquely is working in New York at Earthdance; taught In the fall, he created Six positioned to effect physical, Rodger Blum’s The Silk Room as a choreographer and and performed at Bates Dances for Lou on a FCDD emotional, sensory and movement director. She Dance Festival where just completed work cast—set to the music of cognitive change. included taking classes dancEnlight. In prepara- the two co-directed the on Heartbeat Opera’s Lou Harrison and incorpo- and attending lectures tion for local and national adaptation of Madame evening-length Moving in Charles and Rose Flachs rating 150 bamboo poles. with the legendary ballet competitions, they Butterfly which was the Moment performance; (Professors, Mount Ramona de Saá, Director choreographed and featured and reviewed and created a new duet The Jim Coleman and Terese Holyoke College) of the Cuban National coached young dancers in the New York Times. She recently founded an Profession of Poetry for the Freedman (Professors, attended the CORPS de Ballet School. Following who went on to win international collective Different Voices concert. Mount Holyoke College) Ballet International the conference, the Flachs medals and place in of performing artist Angie continued her work presented a weeklong, Conference in Sarasota, directed the Massachusetts both the Youth American mothers creating a new with The Making Room interactive, public video Florida, following a gruel- Academy of Ballet Summer Grand Prix and the work together each Project, a process-based dance installation at A.P.E. ing 100-mile bike ride program and taught Connecticut Classic Ballet week for a year. You can follow and join in series of small artist- Gallery in Northampton. along the Erie Canal. This master classes at the Competitions. In June of their Artist Residency in convenings considering Jim performed in the conference titled, “Traditions Connecticut Concert 2017, Rose co-taught a Motherhood by checking and employing the shared annual Seattle Men in in Classical Training: Strength- Ballet, the Pennsylvania Vaganova teacher seminar, out #mamaisamaker or and divergent making Dance Festival and also ening Communities” Academy of Ballet and and Charles taught master following @notapapercrane practices of Bebe Miller created several dance on instagram. www.emmajaster.com and Susan Rethorst. In video outdoor installations August 2017, she was a at the Colleges. Jim and Jane Jerardi (HC’ 97) featured artist-faculty T will retire at the end of presented her work, again (again) at Links Hall in at the Seattle Festival 2018 and move to Seattle. Chicago in January. of Dance Improvisation. During spring 2017, Angie continues work Renata Kiburyte (SC ’04) beginning with residents has been living in Madrid on a new Bebe Miller at Western Massachusetts for over ten years and is Company currently working on her Hospital and currently to premiere at the Wexner PhD in Philosophy and serving patients at Center for the Performing Dance. She also Tewksbury Hospital, Arts in October 2017. In studies and Paul Dennis (Associate . spring 2017, Chris and Professor, UMass) worked Angie received promotion Eliza Larson (SC MFA’13) with Emma George (UM to Associate Professor with expanded her Smith ’18), Aubrey Johnson (SC graduate research on Tenure from Smith College. ’18) and Maggie Golder gender among choreogra-

TOMAS SCHWORER TOMAS phers and artistic directors Rodger Blum (Professor (MHC ’18), in collaboration into a chapter recently and Department Chair, with licensed occupational Jim Coleman performing at Seattle’s Men in Dance Festival Continued on page 6

Amherst College | Hampshire College | Mount Holyoke College | Smith College | University of Massachusetts Amherst • 5 published in the 2017 book Dance and Gender: versity Press for the as part of the HUT An Evidence-Based Ap- publication of his book series at the School for proach (University Press The Body Politic: Ballet Contemporary Dance of Florida). In January, she and Revolution in Cuba. and Thought in performed with Tahni Holt in Sensation/Disorientation, Recently, he joined the Northampton. Wendy and in March premiered Editorial Board of Dance was invited to give the her latest evening-length Research Journal. This last 2017 Jackie Pritzen work In Circadia with her year, two of Lester’s articles Lecture by Five Colleges, company Fault . Inc. She was artist-in- She got married in August. saw the light, in the maga- zine Cuba en el ballet and residence at A.P.E. Gallery Jennifer Lawson (MHC in the Oxford Dictionary in Northampton during ‘91) is a Foreign Service July 2017, where she Officer with the U.S. De- of Caribbean and Afro- partment of State. Much Latin American Biography. began work on a new of her public diplomacy series of video and Wendy Woodson work concentrates on dance installations. arts, education, and (Professor and professional exchange Department Chair, programs. She has Amherst College) wrote performed with a modern dance company in Serbia, and performed a new taught dance to second monologue, Fire Away, in graders in rural Guatemala, April for Earth, Itself, an brought aerial dancers

JIM COLEMAN JIM interdisciplinary program to Ecuador and coordi- sponsored by the Institute ALUMS! nated a performance of Leslie Frye Maietta’s Waist Deep traditional local dances for Environment and Society STAY IN for Dr. Jill Biden’s official at Brown University. This visit to Zambia. Last year, classes at the Pennsylvania The Works Studio in NYC. dance at Jacob’s Pillow program is designed to TOUCH Jennifer was on sabbatical Academy of Ballet Society. She’s hoping this will be a Dance Festival during stimulate conversations in Paris while her husband WITH US! The Flachs’ current research part of an evening-length summer 2017. They will be and collaborations across completed his tour at the Dear Alums: U.S. Embassy there. Next interests focus on the inter- piece to be presented guest artists at Colorado the natural and social stop: , DC in section of active stretching at her home this fall. At Mesa University in Grand sciences, humanities, and Please send us your fall 2017. and ballet technique. UMass in the spring, Leslie Junction during fall 2017, the arts. She performed e-mail and other Stephanie Mahler (SC directed and designed a where they will teach and her monologue about air contact information! Deborah Goffe (Assistant ’16) recently published new model for the junior set a piece for CMU’s entitled Drift (originally E-mail us at her book, Reflections: A Professor, Hampshire dance majors to present dance concert. Marilyn created for the same [email protected] Place Called Ponderosa, College) brought two their choreography. The and Sekou were honored program at Brown) on intersections between long-term creative pro- dance practice, philosophy concert, titled X-hibition, when their former student, cesses to their culminating and environmental con- was a large installation Jennifer Kyker (MHC ’02), sciousness in the context performance phases: Privy performance presented in now an assistant professor of Ponderosa, the festival and Reaction Bubble. collaboration with the Art of musicology at the in Stolzenhagen, Germany, Following a six-year that she has directed for Department and their digital University of Rochester, development process, several years. media students. gave a gift to the Mount and with support from the Kristen Mangione (SC Mass Cultural Council Artist Candice Salyers (Visiting Holyoke Fund in their ’94) is the founder and Fellowship, Privy premiered Artist, Mount Holyoke honor. Marilyn was director of ZenSpace in delighted to once again Hoboken, NJ, a dance in December 2016 as the College, SC MFA ‘03) direct Immigrant Voices, and healing arts center first in an anticipated series recently published an offering dance, yoga of performance salons article in the Journal of sponsored by the Center and meditation. In Deborah will host in her Performance and Mindful- for New Americans, and 2017, ZenSpace’s dance home. Unfolding through a ness (UK). She received an presented at the Shea Theater. company in residence was collaborative process with American Association of launched, and premiered In September 2016, Lester its first work to Robert Kelly Silliman (SC MFA University Women (AAUW) Tomé (Assistant Professor, Schumann’s Dichterliebe. ’13) as dramaturg, Privy Fellowship for 2016–2017, The company is the culmi- Smith College) joined the dives into personal narra- and will spend this year nation of over 10 years of yearlong seminar “Modes tive, grappling with ideas working on a new solo per- Kristen’s dreams of dance, and Models of Making” community, and transfor- of disclosure and conceal- formance and book project. as a fellow of the Kahn mation coming together. ment, reproduction and She has been awarded artist Liberal Arts Institute. In She teaches, choreographs, identity. Reaction Bubble residencies from Joya Art + and performs, as well as November, he presented a grew out of a four-year Ecologia (Spain) and Green leading retreats through paper about the National ZenSpace. collaboration with LoVid (a Olive Arts (Morocco) for the Ballet of Cuba’s decolonial multimedia duo comprised coming year. Michelle Marroquin (HC approach to the classics in of NYC-based Tali Hinkus ‘94, SC MFA ‘10) earned Marilyn Sylla (Five a conference of the Society her license as a Physical and Kyle Lapidus) and College Lecturer in of Dance History Scholars Therapist Assistant last Matt Tower (a Hartford- Connie, Rose and Charles Flachs with Ramona de Saa Dance) and Sekou Sylla at Pomona College. He year, and has been work- based ceramicist). The ing in a hospital rehab cen- (FCDD Musician) were started 2017 by signing a multi-media installation ter helping people recover happy to teach African contract with Oxford Uni- from traumatic injuries. premiered at Real Art Ways Recently, she has been in March 2017, with seven choreographing two very performances of the cho- different dances: Garden of reographic work before the Eve, and Love Poem for my Parents, that will premier in exhibit’s closing in June. September 2017 at Studio 4 in Northampton. Leslie Frye Maietta (Guest Artist, UMass) collaborated Christopher-Rasheem in the fall with colleagues McMillan (HC ’07) has accepted a tenure track Tom Vacanti (SC MFA ‘95) position at the Univer- and Paul Dennis on Peril sity of Iowa, one specially in Thine Eye, an immersive designed across three dance theater produc- departments to combine tion of Romeo and Juliet. his areas of expertise. He will begin fall 2017 as Leslie was able to work Assistant Professor of with some of her favorite and Practice student collaborators and Gender, Women’s to restage her work waist and Sexuality Studies and affiliate Faculty in deep for the FCDD Faculty Religious Studies. Concert at Amherst Col- lege in March. She is also Desiree Monet-Anderson (MHC ’74) oversees the developing a solo titled health and safety, general Solo not Solo that she happiness, and level of

presented in process in POGGENPOHL ERIC community inclusion for March at Jennifer Muller/ Wendy Woodson Lester Tomé 41 individuals with special needs, including her two Continued on page 7

6 • FIVE COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER children, thirty various types of poultry, and nine ENTRANCES pygmy goats. She lives on a small farm, which was her early childhood dream. to study traditional dance and music in Dakar, Senegal. Molly Leah Moriarty (UM will be teaching a range of new courses in dance education and ‘10) is currently based in community engagement. Brooklyn, working with choreographers Joya Powell and Souleymane Mount Holyoke College welcomes Barbie Diewald (SC MFA Badolo. Her work has been recently performed at ‘16) to a two-year Visiting Artist position. Barbie is a prolific Dixon Place, Arts On Site performer/choreographer whose work has been presented in and Triskelion. She was an New York City (BAM, Movement Research, The Chocolate Fac- artist in residence at the Denmark Art Center in tory, BAX, etc.), Western Massachusetts (A.P.E. Gallery, the School Maine this summer and for Contemporary Dance and Thought), and abroad at Ponderosa continues to work for ThisWorldMusic, (Germany) and the Bogliasco Foundation Center (Italy), where a Ghanaian dance and she was a 2016 Fellow. Recently, Barbie has been serving as drum intensive study abroad program. Associate Director for Programming at the School for Contempo- rary Dance and Thought (SCDT), emphasizing racial and gender Anne Morris (SC ‘03) lives in Greensboro, diversity, advocating for international artists, and support systems NC with her wife and for emerging New England choreographers. Her current work, daughters. She is currently the Co-Executive Director Eighteen Refrains re:Rhoda, uses Virginia Woolf’s fiction as both of the Dance Project, a dramaturgical touchstone and choreographic proposition, and nonprofit dance organiza- tion; she also coordinates premiered in June in Northampton. the NC Dance Festival and teaches dance to children Amherst College welcomes NYC choreographer/performer Dante and adults through the School at City Arts. Brown to a one-year position as Assistant Professor of Dance. Cathy Nicoli (MFA ’04) Dante began his dance training at Wesleyan University, and went is currently Assistant on to receive his MFA in Choreography and Performance from The Professor of Dance and Ohio State University. As a performer, Dante has worked with art- Performance Studies at Roger Williams University,

JIM DUSEN JIM ists such as Esther Baker-Tarpaga, Christal Brown, David Dorfman, where she is also very Molly Christie González Kendra Portier, and Noa Zuk, among others. As an educator, active in social justice and environmental sustain- Dante has taught a range of classes at Bates College, Dancewave, ability initiatives across Dance New Amsterdam, East Village Dance Project, Gibney Dance campus. She continues to work independently as a The FCDD welcomes a number of new faculty, guest artists and Center, Mark Morris Dance Center, Peridance Capezio Center and choreographer and dancer. staff this year. UMass is pleased to announce the appointment The Ohio State University. Among other courses, Dante is offering Gwen Niven (HC ‘07) Molly Christie Gonzalez as Assistant Professor of Dance. Molly a new technique/repertory course titled, “Ensemble Dancing in graduated this spring is a dance education specialist with a MA in Dance Education, Community”. with an MS in Occupa- tional Therapy from Tufts New York State Pre K–12 Dance Teacher Certification and edTPA University. National Certification from The College at Brockport (Brockport, The FCDD was very happy to welcome Kat Rother this past year Ailey Picasso (HC ‘14) NY), and a MFA in Performance and Choreography. She has certi- as the new Dance Production Assistant for the department. begins the MFA in Dance fication from the Institute for Dunham Technique, and has been Alongside Matthew Adelson, she did remarkable work over- program at the University of Iowa this fall. on the faculty at the Annual Dunham Technique Seminar and the seeing and streamlining concert productions across the five Certification Workshop. She co-founded Trio Dourado Brazilian campuses. Kat received her BA from Dickinson College and has Ellen Setchko Palmerlee (MHC ’16) is dancing with Dance Company in Philadelphia, was a member of Olorun Cuban been working in theatre and dance for over ten years, including the UPside Modern Dance Folklore Company, and a soloist with the Afro-Cuban theatrical as a freelance stage manager in New York City, and with The Company in Healdsburg, CA. She is also an as- production Patakin in San Francisco. She has conducted dance Public Theater, Two River Theatre Company, Noche Flamenca, sistant for a jazz/modern and music research in Havana, Cuba, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, and and Portland Stage Company. n dance class and has been creating a lot of her own Puerto Rico, and in 2000 received a Leeway Foundation grant choreography for the class. She is looking into auditions around the Bay Area—particularly for site specific projects.

MiRi Park (UM ‘00) is the Associate Choreographer for the 20th Anniversary Tour of RENT. She also teaches hip hop at UC Santa Barbara and CalState Channel Islands. She resides in Thousand Oaks, CA with her husband and two children.

Marta Renzi (HC ’75) While working on post-production on Her Magnum Opus in February, Marta had time to go through her archives and make some of that available to see. To view one of her seldom-seen b&w experimental videos MIKE ESPERANZAMIKE GONSIER DAVID JIM COLEMAN JIM featuring David Thom- Dante Brown Barbie Diewald Kat Rother son, go to: martarenzi. blogspot.com

Jen Rosenblit (HC’05) collaborated with musician Geo Wyeth in The Inflection Point, a companion to Rosenblit’s Clap Hands presented at the Invisible FOOD for THOUGHT Dog in 2016. They were exploring what they “You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, nothing to store away, describe as “the indiscern- no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls . . . ible moment of change”, at The Kitchen through nothing but the fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls.” March 4, 2017. —Merce Cunningham Continued on page 8

Amherst College | Hampshire College | Mount Holyoke College | Smith College | University of Massachusetts Amherst • 7 Laura Ann Samuelson (HC’11) performed her project, practicing, in EXITS rep with square product theatre’s production of Damaris Webb’s THE BOX MARKED BLACK: Tales from a Halfrican American Growing up Mulatto in Colorado. This fall, Laura Ann will begin the MFA in Dance program at the University of Colorado Boulder where she was granted a Center for the Humanities and The Arts’ Arts & Sciences Fellowship.

Kerry Schaefer (AC ’01) has been busy with the non-dance activities of starting a medical practice as a holistic family doctor and raising two children in Portland, Oregon. She has been keeping connected with dance through exploring aerial arts, and dancing her JIM COLEMAN JIM 11-month old to sleep. She is excited to be on the board of a local non-profit, Dance Wire (dancewirepdx. JIM COLEMAN JIM org) dedicated to helping LIEBLING JEROME enrich and support dancers Constance Valis Hill Candice Salyers and dancer health in the Portland community.

Brenda Lynn Siegel (HC ’00) is the Executive/ Artistic Director of the Southern Vermont Dance Festival.

Jenny Spicola (MHC ‘15) just completed her first of two years en route to obtaining a Master of Arts degree in Spanish at University of Wisconsin- Madison with a focus in Linguistics. Jenny taught beginner-level Spanish at UW and has recently started teaching a dance fitness class for women over 40.

Stephen Tracy-Ursprung (SC MFA ‘12) just started

as an Assistant Professor COLEMAN JIM in Dance Studies at Dean Paul Matteson Paul Arslanian College.

Mariana Valencia (HC ’06) offered a lab and per- This current era has been full of upheaval and transition for the FCDD. courses she developed over the years, including many collaborations formed at the School for Contemporary Dance and In recent years, a number of senior faculty members have decided to with colleagues from dance, film and music. Thought in Northampton move on to the next phase of their lives and make room for a new in March. generation of dance artist/educators. This year was the last for Paul Paul Arslanian, beloved accompanist, teacher, and musical Kristen Duffy Young Arslanian (UM), Constance Hill (HC/FCDD), Paul Matteson (AC/MHC), coordinator for the UMass Dance program will be remembered for (UM ‘00) is celebrating her 10th year as Director and Candice Salyers (MHC Visiting Artist). These amazing teacher/ his encyclopedic knowledge of a variety of musical traditions and of the Colleges of the artists will each be deeply missed! While this has caused much his consummate performing skills in bringing these to vibrant life in Fenway Dance Project, a performance ensemble sadness, it has also given rise to a sense of rejuvenation and excite- classrooms and on stages at UMass and the FCDD. Throughout his of more than 200 college ment for the future. There is a growing, collective feeling that the career, Paul has also been very active in the larger music and dance students in the Fenway area of Boston. In addition FCDD is poised to flourish and lead dance in higher education in new community. He is a renowned musician in the region, and most to serving as adjunct and innovative ways. fittingly, in his final year at UMass, he received the prestigious NEPR faculty for Dance at Em- Arts and Humanities Award, honoring his inspirational and tireless manuel College, she is also a faculty member of the For the past 17 years, as Five College Professor of Dance based work in developing the Northampton Jazz Workshop. Laban/Bartenieff Institute at Hampshire College, Constance Valis Hill traveled regularly of Movement Studies certification program at to teach on all five campuses, offering an astonishing variety of After five years of amazing contributions to the FCDD as teacher, Lesley University. This innovative courses in dance history, performance theory, jazz stud- choreographer and performer, Paul Matteson made the very tough summer, she performed with her company ies, choreography on camera, and feminist performance. She also decision to take a leave from academia and move back to NYC to Accumulation Dance, worked with her Hampshire colleagues to establish a Black Stud- pursue a variety of professional projects. His thoughtful, sweet- at the Southern Vermont Dance Festival. ies core curriculum at the college. She will be remembered by tempered presence; wild, viscerally-charged movement phrases; accumulationdance.org generations of students and colleagues for her prodigious intellec- astonishing virtuosity and humanity as a performer; and his many

Joanne Casey Zullig, tual energy, her probing questions and deep curiosity about the imaginative and original choreographies will be deeply missed by (UM ’83) is a dance/ predicament and power of dance in the world, as well as her infec- all, especially students and colleagues at his twin home campuses movement therapist and licensed professional tious enthusiasm and quick, contagious laughter. In the broader, of Amherst and Mount Holyoke. We look forward to seeing him in counselor in NJ. She works national and international field of dance scholarship, Constance performance again soon! with children and adult is renowned for her groundbreaking writings on Jazz and Tap victims of domestic violence. Currently, she dance. Her book Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing Whether in adjunct or full-time replacement teaching roles, for the is doing dance/move- of the Nicholas Brothers (2000) received the Deems Taylor ASCAP past two decades, Candice Salyers (SC MFA ‘03) has had a tremen- ment therapy work in the women’s prison in NJ and Award; and her most recent book, Tap Dancing America, A Cultural dous impact as a teacher, performer, and artistic mentor for students has been asked to speak History (2010), was supported by grants from the John D. Rockefeller and colleagues in the FCDD, especially at Mount Holyoke and Smith, at the National Dance Therapy Conference in San and John Simon Guggenheim foundations. Her colleague and where she frequently taught. This year, she received an American As- Antonio, fall 2017. n fellow dance historian Lester Tomé writes, “Constance situated sociation of University Women (AAUW) Fellowship, and will spend herself among a generation of scholars who, in the 1990s, this coming year working on a new solo performance and book expanded the scope of to include popular dance project. As a teacher, Candice will be remembered for her tireless, and Afrodiasporic traditions. She was part of the project of personal, and inspiring artistic mentoring relationships with each of questioning a Eurocentric dance canon.” More locally, she will her students. n be remembered for the impressive array of new, interdisciplinary

8 • FIVE COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER