To Download the Complete Conference

dance the Ph.D. in Connecting Theory with Practice

2013 World Dance Alliance - Americas Conference & Festival Evolve + Involve: Dance as a Moving Question…

July 29 – August 4, 2013

Scotiabank Dance Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada

What are your questions for dance in the 21st century?

With Evolve + Involve: Dance as a Moving Question… as the focal point of the event, WDA-A encourages broad investigations into the following questions: How is dance evolving in the 21st century? How are we as artists, educators, and researchers engaged with these emerging developments? With whom and how will we be involved as new practices emerge? How might these new engagements and involvements open further questions for dance’s future? With these questions in mind, we urge participants to propose new possibilities for the many different modes of presenting, experiencing, producing, and teaching dance. Proposals need not be limited to or by the Conference and Festival’s theme, which should be considered as a catalyst for discussion rather than a restraint.

This event is hosted by WDA-A in conjunction with the 2013 Dance Critics Association Conference with support from Texas Woman’s University Department of Dance, University of Wisconsin-Madison Dance Department, and the Scotiabank Dance Centre.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents…………………………………………………. 3

Introduction………………………………………………………… 4

General Schedule…………………………………………………. 9

Opening Ceremony & 20th Anniversary…………………………. 17

WDA-A Meetings……………………………………………...... 23

Panel Presentations………………………………………………. 25

Scholarly Research Presentations……………………………… 41

Classes…………………………………………………………….. 67

Choreographic Labs……………………………………………… 89

Performances……………………………………………………… 95

Dance Critics Association………………………………………… 113

Dear Participants,

It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the 2013 World Dance Alliance - Americas (WDA-A) Conference & Festival and General Assembly in the magnificent city of Vancouver, Canada. Summer here in Vancouver is beautiful and pleasant. With a top- notch dance culture, Vancouver has long been on the priority list for a WDA-A annual event. We are thrilled this year’s event has been realized here!

The Assembly organizers have put together a rich program of events with scholarly presentations and panels on cutting edge research, a lively range of movement classes by outstanding instructors, five evenings of performances by emerging and established dance artists, and three Choreographic Labs. These presenters represent individuals and groups from North, Central, and South Americas, as well as international visitors. We are deeply indebted to the Chair of the Conference Committee, Scott Martin, who has spent numerous hours working on the coordination of events. The wealth of options will oblige you to make tough choices during the week as to what you wish to participate in.

Based on the successful collaboration with Dance Critic Association (DCA) during the 2010 World Dance Alliance Global Event in New York, WDA-A is pleased to again work with DCA by combining our conferences. Through this continued collaboration, WDA-A hopes to engage further conversations on dancing and dance writing. As part of this year’s coordination, you will also have access to the events organized and sponsored by the Dance Critics Association later during the week.

This is a very special meeting of the World Dance Alliance - Americas, celebrating 20 years since our first Assembly was held in New York City in June 1993 under its founding president Genevieve Oswald. To mark the occasion, several of the founding members and all but one of the past presidents are present in Vancouver. You will have the opportunity to hear from founding president Gigi, the past presidents Ruth Abrahams and Grant Strate, and the current president Jin-Wen Yu. Past President Adrienne Kaeppler is unable to attend but sends her best wishes. Additionally, we are delighted to present this year’s WDA-A Genevieve Oswald Award to Grant Strate. Grant is one of the founding members of WDA-A, an original member of the National Ballet of Canada, and the founding Chair of York University's Department of Dance. We congratulate and thank Grant for his significant contributions to Canada and the dance world.

If you are new to WDA, you may not be aware of our wider links with other regions. The World Dance Alliance was originally founded in Hong Kong in 1988 as the Asia Pacific Dance Alliance. Then in 1993 it became the World Dance Alliance-Asia Pacific under its founder Carl Wolz and the Americas was founded as the second world region. Looking ahead to next summer, you will be able to connect with our third region, Europe, by attending the 2014 Global Assembly that will bring all the regions together in Angers, France.

In addition to the numerous events you can take part in throughout the week, there are several scheduled WDA-A Network Meetings for everyone who wishes to involve themselves with the ongoing growth and planning of WDA-A. We remind you that we are a member-driven organization which relies on its individual members to help carry out our mission. We encourage you to get involved, to bring your ideas forward, but most importantly help us carry through on your suggestions. In doing so, you will experience the true strength and potential of the World Dance Alliance - Americas.

While looking back last 20 years' challenging yet exciting journey, we are also looking forward to the future. We appreciate all that has been accomplished by our predecessors and invite you to join us for the next 20 years and beyond…

Enjoy the Assembly and the new friends you will meet during the week!

Best Wishes,

Jin-Wen Yu, President & Mary Jane Warner, President Elect

ANNOUNCING THE 2014 WDA GLOBAL SUMMIT

6-12 JULY IN ANGERS, FRANCE

“Contemporising the Past: Envisaging the Future”

The WDA Executive met in Paris over two days to report on 2012/2013 activities, discuss future initiatives, and importantly to progress plans for the 2014 WDA Global Summit to be held in Angers 6-12 July next year. WDA Executive Committee present comprised WDA-Asia Pacific representatives Yunyu Wang and Anis Nor, WDA- Americas representatives Jin-Wen Yu, Mary-Jane Warner and Hazel Franco; elected member Julie Dyson and myself as Secretary General (with apologies from Urmimala Sarkar).

On Monday, 3 June we were generously hosted by the CND (Centre National de la Danse) and welcomed Laurent Van Kote, Director of Dance at the Ministry of Culture who generously stayed for the morning in order for us to discuss how the initial plans for the Summit could be progressed. Zoe Simard, Events and Program Coordinator for ITI-UNESCO also joined us later in the morning for a very productive meeting, that had been preceded by discussions between myself and the Director General of ITI-UNESCO Tobias Biancone over several months. As a result of the Paris meeting we are pleased to announce that Prof Mohd Anis Nor was unanimously voted as the WDA nominated representative on the International Dance Committee of ITI-UNESCO. We also furthered our discussions for an ongoing partnership with ITI-UNESCO.

The entire day of 4 June was spent in Angers with WDA executives above and the key staff from CNDC (Centre National de la Danse Contemporaine) who will be hosting the 2014 WDA Global Summit; CNDC Deputy Director Claire Rousier; Director of Production and Communication, Arnaud Hie; and Sandra Bony, Manager of Artist Residencies. The CNDC Director Robert Swinston joined us for the first part of the meeting on Skype from Munich to particularly discuss the Choreolab which he will be directing for the Summit. The meeting was honest and fruitful, and despite some budgetary concerns, it was agreed that the proposed program was both achievable and exciting as well as very much in line with what is expected at our WDA global events.

In order to let up and maintain effective communication with CNDC for such a complex event, each of the executive committee members have been appointed to Chair and form a sub-committee comprising network chairs and other willing WDA members (tbc) as follows:

International Conference: • Chairs: Cheryl Stock in liaison with Claire Rousier, with key input from Urmimala Sarkar and Anis Nor along with Mary-Jane Warner, Linda Caldwell, and Stephanie Burridge, as well as European scholars and researchers. The conference is the largest and most time-consuming of the activities resulting in on-line proceedings and will of course require an editorial team of French and English speakers.

Choreolab: • Chairs: Jin-Wen Yu in liaison with Robert Swinston, and Nanette Hassall, Sabrina Castillo along with co- opted members.

Workshops: • Chairs: Hazel Franco in liaison with Sandra Bony, with Zihao Li, Nirmala Shesadri and co-opted members from Europe. Workshops will be in two streams: professional master classes; and youth, community, education and special interest classes.

Showcase Performances: • Chair: Yunyu Wang in liaison with Arnaud Hie, Susan Roberts and other co-opted members including from Europe. These will comprise short works from both student groups and independent / project artists.

Website & Communication: • Chairs: Julie Dyson in liaison with Arnaud Hie and Support & Development Chairs Bilqis Hijjas, Jeff Hsieh and Scott Martin.

Global Assembly and Network Meetings: • All WDA members.

The sub-committees will develop calls for submissions, short listing processes (including selection criteria relevant to each program component), handle enquiries, and liaise with CNDC and web managers re on-line applications and registrations.

Plan for your trip to Angers now! It is an enchanting mediaeval city with a spectacular fort in the middle of the town in the heart of the Loire Valley and only 90 minutes by train from Paris. The newly built theatre Le Quai Vivant is right on the river overlooking the fort and comprises four theatres from an intimate studio through to a 900 seat venue, with three studios in the complex and another three studios only a five minute walk away. The university conference venue is likewise within walking distance as are the plentiful and very reasonably priced student and delegate accommodation options. Start saving now for our first WDA Global Summit in Europe since 2002!

Coincidentally the Tanzkongress which was our final stop for WDA executive was held in Dusseldorf, at the very place of our 2002 event hosted by the first WDA-Europe President Bertram Muller, then and still, Director of Tanzhaus Dusseldorf. We had a warm reunion with Bertram who provided us with important archival documentation from the early days of WDA Europe. WDA joined with members of the International Dance Support group in a well-attended public forum on the Value of Dance co-chaired by Madeline Ritter and Julie Dyson. The Tanzkongress was attended by over 1000 with a rich program of workshops, lectures, panels and performances by some of Europe’s leading artists, scholars and producers. The expansive venue (a converted tram depot providing studios, theatres and large foyers) provided ample networking opportunities with plenty of food and drink and welcome sunshine on the lawns outside.

Exciting plans are afoot in 2014 so please, stay connected, offer your expertise and services, and together with our CNDC colleagues and host let’s make Angers a WDA event to remember!

Cheryl Stock WDA Secretary General

Judith R. Marcuse Stephen A. Studio 7 Sharon Jandali Studio Earl Kraul Studio Bruce R. Birmingham Theatre Studio Jarislowsky Studio

*Location: Level 7 *Location: Level 7 *Location: Level 4 *Location: Level 3 *Location: Level 4 *Location: Level 3 *Location: Level 1 * Superb natural light *Superb natural light *Excellent natural light, mirrors *Excellent natural light, mirrors *Excellent natural light, barres *Excellent natural light, barres *Stage size when seats in place *21 x 30 ft (630 sq ft) *Opens to the roof terrace and barres. and barres. and mirrors. and mirrors. 46ft wide x 30 ft deep/14m wide *Wooden (maple) sprung dance *25 ft x 32 ft (800 sq ft) *35 ft x 40 ft (1400 sq ft) *35 ft x 40 ft (1400 sq ft) *39 ft x 47 ft (1800 sq ft)) *39 ft x 47 ft (1800 sq ft) x 9 m deep, Grid height 23 ft 9 floor *Wooden (maple) sprung dance *Sprung dance floor with grey *Sprung dance floor with grey *Sprung dance floor with grey *Sprung dance floor with grey inches/ 7 m * Permanent stereo system. floor Harlequin ‘Studio’ surface Harlequin ‘Studio’ surface Harlequin ‘Studio’ surface Harlequin ‘Studio’ surface *Sprung dance floor with black * Floor to ceiling mirror along * Permanent stereo system. * Permanent stereo system & * Permanent stereo system & * Permanent stereo system & * Permanent stereo system & Harlequin ‘Cascade’ surface west wall. * Floor to ceiling mirror along piano piano piano piano * Glassed-in control room for * Floor to ceiling windows along east wall. * Floor to ceiling mirror along * Floor to ceiling mirror along * Floor to ceiling mirror along * Floor to ceiling mirror along sound and lighting equipment; south wall, with roll-down blinds. * Floor to ceiling windows along west wall. west wall. east wall. east wall. loading bay leads directly into * Wireless Internet south wall, with barre and roll- * Floor to ceiling windows on * Floor to ceiling windows on * Floor to ceiling windows on * Floor to ceiling windows on studio via control room. * Projector/Screen down blinds. south wall look out onto hallway, south wall look out onto hallway, south side, with roll-down blinds. south side, with roll-down blinds. * Small green room area and *Max Capacity: 30 seated * Floor to ceiling glass windows with roll-down blinds. with roll-down blinds. * Barres along north and south * Barres along north and south washroom backstage, with stairs on south side with roll-down * Barres along north and east * Barres along north and east walls. walls. linking directly to the blinds walls. walls. *Max Capacity: 30 in class *Max Capacity: 30 in class Birmingham Studio and changing *(DO NOT USE) small-scale *Max Capacity: 25 in class *Max Capacity: 25 in class, rooms/showers on Levels 3 and catering area with sinks, fridge 50 seated 4. * Wireless Internet * Lobby outside with bar area * Projector/Screen and fridge, washrooms, *Max Capacity: 50 seated payphone, elevator. *Wireless Internet *Max Capacity: 150 seats Monday - July 29, 2013

9:00 am - 3:00 pm

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

4:00 pm - 5:00 pm Registration Tech

5:00 pm - 6:00 pm

6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Opening Ceremony

Receptions 7:30 pm - 10:00 pm @ Holliday Inn Judith R. Marcuse Stephen A. Studio 7 Sharon Jandali Studio Earl Kraul Studio Bruce R. Birmingham Theatre Studio Jarislowsky Studio Tuesday - July 30, 2013

9:30 am - 10: 00 am

Choreographic Lab - 10:00 am - 10:45 am Meeting

11:00 - 11:30 am 10:45 am - 11:30 am General Tech

11:30 am - 12:15 am Panel - "WDA-A Past Class - "Transits from Tech - "Passing" Presidents: Reflecting Capoeira Kinesthetic on the Past & Looking Experience in 12:15 am - 1:00 pm to the Future" Contemporary Dance" Tech - "Core"

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Presentations - Class - "Dance and Tech - "a world where 2:00 pm - 2:45 pm Class - "The Physical Presentations - "Conveying Rhythm: What alarm clocks" and Flowing Style of "Exploring Identity" Communication in Happens Between Tech - "Wigioei Bada / 2:45 pm - 3:30 pm Paul Taylor" Communities" Musical Notes &..." Endangered Sea" Tech - "Casual 3:30 pm - 4:15 pm Panel - "Promoting Class - "Embodied Public Engagement Knowing: Dance Conversations" with Dance’s History Choreographic Lab Ethnography as Tech - "Spirit 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm and Thought" 2 Movement Practice" Transforming"

5:00 pm - 5:30 pm

5:30 pm - 6:00 pm Show - Dancer Room House Opens

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Evening Concert

Choreographic Lab Choreographic Lab 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm 1 3 Judith R. Marcuse Stephen A. Studio 7 Sharon Jandali Studio Earl Kraul Studio Bruce R. Birmingham Theatre Studio Jarislowsky Studio Wednesday - July 31, 2013

9:30 am - 10: 00 am

Class - 10:00 am - 10:45 am Network Meeting - "Temporary/Contemp Creation & orary: Dance of the 11:00 - 11:30 am 10:45 am - 11:30 am Presentation Moment" General Tech

Panel - "When Class - "Complex 11:30 am - 12:15 am Presentations - Class - "Talking Tech - "Paradox" Distinctions Collapse: Pathways, Simple "Outreach, Education, Dance: Dancing Choreography, Alignment, & Tech - "EXIT/NO EXIT 12:15 am - 1:00 pm & Knowledge" Vocalized Rhythms" Improvisation, and…" Vigorous Attention" & Passages" Brown Bag Lunch - 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Reviewer Feedback Panel - "Dancing in Class - "Mining the Tech - "Here be 2:00 pm - 2:45 pm the Digital Age: Class - "Advanced Past to Ignite the Dragons…" Approaches to Contemporary Future: Reclaiming Teaching Dance Technique Tech - "Straddling 2:45 pm - 3:30 pm Virtual Presentations the Soul of Jazz" Online" Trio"

3:30 pm - 4:15 pm Presentations - Class - "Choreography Tech - "Passage" "Connecting Inside Class - "On Breath" & Rethinking Fusion 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm and Outside" Dance"

5:00 pm - 5:30 pm

5:30 pm - 6:00 pm Show - Dancer Room House Opens

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Evening Concert

Choreographic Lab Choreographic Lab Choreographic Lab 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm 2 3 1 Judith R. Marcuse Stephen A. Studio 7 Sharon Jandali Studio Earl Kraul Studio Bruce R. Birmingham Theatre Studio Jarislowsky Studio Thursday - August 1, 2013

9:30 am - 10: 00 am

10:00 am - 10:45 am Network Meeting - Class - "Beyond the Support & Barre" 11:00 - 11:30 am 10:45 am - 11:30 am Development General Tech Class - "Impulse, Panel - "Bridging the 11:30 am - 12:15 am Presentations - Energy and Form : Tech - "Ridicule" Gap: Integrating "Involve/Evolve Integrating Urban Dance Forms Education" Movement and 12:15 am - 1:00 pm and Contemporary…" Tech - "Key Notes" Voice" Pre-meeting for Brown Bag Lunch - 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm "Underscore" Reviewer Feedback

Panel - "The Canada 2:00 pm - 2:45 pm Presentations - Class - "Four Points of Class - "Technique + Tech - "Monument" Dance Mapping "Defining the Cultural Composition in Tango Choreography - Study: An Evidence- Self" Dance" Inseparable Acts" 2:45 pm - 3:30 pm based Profile…" Tech - "Ashes"

Panel - "What can we Class - "Breath 3:30 pm - 4:15 pm Class - "Dance Fusion: Tech - "Flight Dreams learn from case Support and the When East Meets (Soaring)" and studies of emerging Bartenieff West" "Hailey’s Albedo" 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm dancer-scholars…" Fundamentals"

5:00 pm - 5:30 pm

5:30 pm - 6:00 pm Show - Dancer Room House Opens

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Evening Concert

Choreographic Lab Choreographic Lab Choreographic Labs 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm 1 2 3 Judith R. Marcuse Stephen A. Studio 7 Sharon Jandali Studio Earl Kraul Studio Bruce R. Birmingham Theatre Studio Jarislowsky Studio Friday - August 2, 2013

9:30 am - 10: 00 am

10:00 am - 10:45 am Network Meeting - DCA - "Consider Your Class - "Pilates for Research & Audience" Dancers" 11:00 - 11:30 am 10:45 am - 11:30 am Documentation General Tech

11:30 am - 12:15 am Class - "Movement Tech - "Riot of Spring" Presentations - DCA - "Who Are Class - "Cross Cultural and I: Listening to the "Agency in Training" Dance Critics Today?" Contemporary Dance" 12:15 am - 1:00 pm Body…" Tech - "Clockwork"

Brown Bag Lunch - 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Reviewer Feedback Class - "Nancy Stark Smith’s 2:00 pm - 2:45 pm Panel - "Moving Class - "Aerial and Tech - "Tarana" Public: A Model for DCA - "Spotlight on Improvisational Contemporary Dance Underscore" Expanded Creative Vancouver" Interdisciplinary Tech - "Remnant 2:45 pm - 3:30 pm Engagement" Training" Hit/fix"

3:30 pm - 4:15 pm Presentations - Tech - "Organ Stories" DCA - "The Proof is in Class - "Vogue For Class - "Moving "Exploring Creative the Process" your Life" Against Genocide..." 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm Possibilities"

5:00 pm - 5:30 pm

5:30 pm - 6:00 pm Show - Dancer Room House Opens

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Evening Concert

Choreographic Lab Choreographic Lab Choreographic Lab 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm 1 2 3 Judith R. Marcuse Stephen A. Studio 7 Sharon Jandali Studio Earl Kraul Studio Bruce R. Birmingham Theatre Studio Jarislowsky Studio Saturday - August 3, 2013

9:30 am - 10: 00 am

10:00 am - 10:45 am Presentations - Class - "New "Engaging Technology Approaches in Ballet 11:00 - 11:30 am 10:45 am - 11:30 am and Teaching" Training" DCA - "Shifting General Tech Strategies: Writing Tech - "Exit From the 11:30 am - 12:15 am for the Web vs. Print" Network Meeting - Class - "Tango Dance Blue Room" Education & Training Fusion" 12:15 am - 1:00 pm Tech - "Stand Up"

Brown Bag Lunch - 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Reviewer Feedback

Class - "Uniting the 2:00 pm - 2:45 pm Panel - "Discussing Tech - "In Waiting" DCA - "The DCA & Talents of Dancers the Prime Tenets of Higher Ed" With and Without Jazz Dance…" 2:45 pm - 3:30 pm Disabilities" Tech - "Inside In"

Class - "Extending the 3:30 pm - 4:15 pm DCA - " What's in a Presentations - Class - "Danza en Tech - "Man Alone" & Physical: Reimagining Name? 'Branding' in "Perceptions and Comunidad "South Facing Contact the Dance World" Embodiment" (Community Dance)" Window" 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm Improvisation…"

5:00 pm - 5:30 pm

5:30 pm - 6:00 pm Show - Dancer Room House Opens

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm Evening Concert

Choreographic Lab Choreographic Lab Choreographic Lab Tech - Choreographic 9:00 am - 11:00 pm 1 2 3 Labs Choreographic Labs 11:00 pm - 12:00 pm Showing Baggage Storage 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm Show - Dancer Room Closing Ceremony

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Mingle

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Reviewer Feedback Session will be held in the Board Room on Level 6 from 9:30 am - 10:30 am

Opening Ceremony

Farris Theatre, Scotiabank Dance Centre 677 Davie Street, Vancouver, BC Monday, July 29, 2013 6:00 pm

I. Welcome to the 2013 WDA-Americas Conference & Festival Jin-Wen Yu, President

II. Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of WDA-Americas Vanessa Harwood, OC, former Principle Dancer with the National Ballet of Canada, Founding Member of WDA-Americas & Ruth Abrahams, Past President, Founding Member of WDA-Americas

III. Genevieve Oswald Award presented to Grant Strate Genevieve Oswald, Founding President & Mary Jane Warner, President Elect

IV. Conference Announcements Scott Martin, Chair of the Conference Committee

V. Closing Remarks Jin-Wen Yu, President

Reception at Holliday Inn Columbia Room, 1110 Howe Street, Vancouver, BC

WDA-Americas requests the honor of your presence at a reception after the Opening Ceremony celebrating the 20th Anniversary of WDA-Americas and the opening of the 2013 Conference & Festival.! Hors d'oeuvres provided & cash bar available.

Please join us in this celebration!

Greetings!

It is such a pleasure to celebrate what’s happening in the World Dance Alliance! WDA is flourishing throughout the world. Under the past presidents Ruth Abrahams, Grant Strate, Adrienne Kaeppler, and Jin-Wen Yu, WDA-Americas has had a solid record of accomplishment in USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, Canada, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala; and continues to reach out to other North, Central, and South Americas regions.

Twenty years ago, on June 9, 1993 at the First General Assembly of the Americas in New York, I asked the question:

“Could an organization be formed as the world voice for dance as an advocate for both the creative and the cultural aspects of this great art?”

The answer has been a resounding “Yes!”

I ask you, wherever you are, to join us in our/this great adventure. You will not regret it, I promise you!

With many good wishes,

Genevieve Oswald Founding President World Dance Alliance – Americas

Founder, Curator Emerita The Jerome Robbins Dance Division The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Lincoln Center, New York

In recognition of the 20th Anniversary of the World Dance Alliance - Americas, we honor the founding members who contributed to the organization and early development of WDA-Americas. These original founding members represent dance supporters from countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama, Peru, USA, and Venezuela.

FOUNDERS COMMITTEE

Ruth K. Abrahams Curtis Carter Dawn Lille Horwitz Charles Reinhart Elizabeth Aldrich Selma Jeanne Cohen Lydia Joel Jane Benedict Roberts Saga Ambegaokar Ilona Copen Margot C. Lehman Patricia A. Rowe Barbara Barker Maureen Costonis Erna C. Lindner Nancy Lee Ruyter Judith Bennahum George Dorris Gertrude Lippincott Andrea Seidel Sallie Blumenthal Elsie Dunin Sue Lobrano Allegra Fuller Snyder Chrystelle T. Bond Thomas K. Hagood Madeleine Nichols Debra Sowell Mary Bopp Renee Renouf Hall Genevieve Oswald Emma Lewis Thomas Lynn Brooks Alice Helpern Richard Philp Leland Windreich Carl Wolz

FOUNDING MEMBERS

Reynaldo Alejandro Patricia Florencia de Marin Helena Katz Tom Scholl Alicia Alonso Jorge Dominguez Ross Kramberg Ana Amalia Sierra Teresa Alvarenga Marisol Ferrari Connie Kreemer Robert Stern Luis Eduardo Araneda Miguel Iglesias Ferrer Sali Ann Kriegsman Roslyne Paige Stern Oscar Ariaz Ilene Fox Nancy Lasalle Meg Stillman Frank Augustyn Sara Lee Gibb Richard Long Grant Strate Patricia Aulestia de Alba Gus Giordano Luz Lorca Julia Sutton Maria Susana Azzi Rhoda Grauer Cesar Delgado Martinez Paul Taylor Theodore S. Bartwink Chuck Greatsinger Gloria Martinez Melo Tomisch Art Becofsky Bill Green Ivette Martinez Adriana Urdaneta Edward Bigelow Roxana Grinstein Reny Martinez Claudia Urdaneta Katherine Bradshaw Reuben Guarderas Peter Martins Sara Vial Bonnie Brooks Ronn Guidi Clyde Morgan Yasmin S. Villavicencio Ann Kipling Brown Jane Gullong Marta Amor Munoz Edward Villella Joan Myers Brown Thamara Hannot Robert E. Pabst Carol Walker Assis Carreiro Penelope Hanstein Barbara Palfy Vincente Warren Patricia Carreras Jan Michael Hanvik Ali Pourfarroukh Elisa White Gabri Christa Camille Hardy Stella Puga William Whitener Martha Coigny Vanessa Harwood Marcos Caetano Ribas Erica Wimble Alejandro Cuadro Carmen Heredia de Guerrero Allan J. Ryan I. Peter Wolff Bevery D'Anne Doris Hering Carlota Santana Helen Wright Marilia de Andrade Adrienne Kaeppler Claire Schmais Alejandro Yori

Keynote Presentation

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 11:30 am – 12:50: Judith R. Marcuse Studio

“WDA-Americas Presidents: Reflecting on the Past and Looking to the Future”

with Genevieve Oswald, Ruth Abrahams, Grant Strate, Jin-Wen Yu, & Mary Jane Warner

The World Dance Alliance Americas was officially established in March 1993 at its inaugural Assembly in New York City. Chaired by founding president, Genevieve Oswald, founding curator of the [then] Dance Collection of the Research Division for Performing Arts at the New York Public Library, this remarkable gathering included a distinguished group of dance professionals from 14 countries of North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean. In honor of the founding of WDAA, this Past Presidents panel with Genevieve Oswald, Ruth Abrahams, Grant Strate, and Jin-Wen Yu, moderated by 2013 incoming president Mary Jane Warner, will present the origins of the organization and the principals and visions on which it was founded. Each president will remark on their leadership vision for the organization and recount highlights from each of their tenures. Following comments by several founding members on stage including Lynn Brooks (USA), Keyla Ermecheo (Venezuela) and Vanessa Harwood (Canada), final comments on the relevance of WDAA’s mission for dance in today’s global society will initiate audience questions and participation in a lively and enlightening dialogue.

WDAA Mission (1993): To serve as a primary voice and support group for dance worldwide.

WDAA Goals (1993):

1. To establish a center for information, advocacy and communication for dance organizations and individuals, a forum for the exchange of ideas, information, expertise and resources in all areas of dance with the publication and presentation of information in several languages. 2. To encourage an awareness of, access to, and understanding of dance as an art, a ritual and traditional expression, and as a leisure-time activity in diverse communities throughout the world. 3. To assist in the identification and promotion of all dance traditions, styles and approaches in recognition of their cultural, artistic, and social importance. 4. To encourage the protection of dance repertoires in all forms of dance repertoire in all forms of dance by preservation in notation, film, and media yet to be devised. 5. To coordinate, support and enhance the world of existing dance organizations. To collaborate with those organizations working in other art forms, related disciplines, education and community activity. 6. To facilitate international exchange and to encourage dialogue among all people in dance regardless of affiliation. 7. To build through dance a saner, safer world through mutual respect and global cooperation.

GENEVIEVE OSWALD is Curator Emerita of the Dance Research Collection of the New York Public Library. She brought this collection from a couple of bookshelves in the Music Division, then at the 42nd-St. branch, to an independent section of the Performing Arts Research Libraries, now located at Lincoln Center. This collection is, to quote dance historian Sandra Hammond in Ballet Basics, “the most impressive of all” the dance research centers available in the United States—one of the most impressive worldwide, a model for others to follow. Integrating written texts, visual materials, moving images, clippings, taped interviews, and artifacts from dancers and performances, this astonishing collection has also shared its wealth through exhibitions, publications, and programming. It serves as a vast and deep treasury preserving information on the art of dancing, the dancers who created that art, and works that represent it.

Executive Director of the Gomez Foundation for Mill House and the Gomez Mill House Museum and Historic Site, Dr. RUTH ABRAHAMS served as Executive Director of the Lehman College Foundation, Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Pratt Institute, Senior Editor for Professional Development at Peat Marwick Mitchell, and Alumni Director at New York University. Artistically, Dr. Abrahams sang professionally in New York from 1967-1980, recording, performing in light opera and off Broadway productions, and as a soloist and chorister in classical choral performances. She received a Masters of Humanities (Japanese Studies) and a Ph.D. in Dance History from New York University. Her dissertation, “The Life and Art of Uday Shankar,” published in the fall, 2007 edition of Dance Chronicle. She taught graduate and undergraduate dance history as adjunct associate professor at New York University Department of Dance and Dance Education from 1982-1996, and was a founding member and first President of World Dance Alliance – Americas, an international advocacy group for dance.

GRANT STRATE: C.M, L.L.D, F.R.S.C.; Choreographer; University of Alberta BA, L.L.B; Director,Centre for the Arts, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C.,called to the bar of Alberta, 1951. He joined the National Ballet of Canada in 1951 and became the resident choreographer (20 ballets) He choreographed internationally with Studio Ballet, Antwerp, Belgium: Juilliard School of Dance, N.Y., the Royal Swedish Ballet, Stockholm and several Canadian dance companies; Professor Simon Fraser University. He was the recipient of the Centennnial Medal in 1967; the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal, 1977;Ontario Dance Award 1979, Dance in Canada Award 1988; the Jean A. Chalmers Award for Creativity in Dance,1993, became a member of the Order of Canada, 1995; The Governor Generals Performing Arts Award, 1996; L.L.D Simon Fraser University 1999; Fellow, Royal Society of Canada, 2006. Now retired, he continues to be active in the dance field. He was on the Board of the Vancouver Dance Society and later joined the board of the Dance Foundation which is involved in the foundation and matters concerned with the Dance Centre, which has been a remarkable contribution to dance in all its forms, in Vancouver.

JIN-WEN YU, EdD & MFA, has created, performed, directed, and produced more than 100 works for the stage in the Americas and Asia, including 40 commissioned works for professionals and institutes. Dr. Yu has also presented, performed, and taught at dance festivals both nationally and internationally. In 1999, he founded the Madison-based Jin- Wen Yu Dance. The company has performed throughout the U.S. and internationally. Dr. Yu has received numerous grants, honors, commissions, residencies, and awards such as the NEA grant, Outstanding Dance Artist Award from Taiwan, Wisconsin Arts Board Choreographer Award, the first Madison CitiARTS, Commission Signature Grant, Chinese Information and Culture Center in New York, Dane County Arts among others. Yu was invited to perform at UNESCO in Paris for the Celebration Concert of the 2005 International Dance Day. His works and performances have been praised in The Boston Globe, LA Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Chicago Reader, Chicago Tribune, and San Francisco Chronicle. He currently serves as the President of World Dance Alliance-Americas.

MARY JANE WARNER has been a member of WDA since 2003. She organized the World Dance Alliance Global Assembly, in July 2006, at York University in Toronto, Canada, which encompassed a conference, performances, workshops and a youth program. She held many administrative positions in the Department of Dance at York University (Chair, Graduate Program Director, Associate Dean) before retiring in 2012. A specialist in Canadian dance, she has published Toronto Dance Teachers: 1825-1925 (1995) and with Selma Odom Canadian Dance: Visions and Stories (2004), and has written numerous articles on dance in Canada. In 2005 she received a major research grant from the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council to document the work of several Canadian choreographers. She then joined with Toronto Heritage Dance, as President and Co-Director of the company to present remounts of important Canadian dance works to ensure that the Canadian dance heritage is kept alive through both live performance and documentation. She developed the dance education courses for York’s Faculty of Education when dance became a teachable subject in 1992 and taught the courses for many years. Currently she is engaged in research projects funded through the Ontario Ministry of Health to deliver dance to older adults and special populations and is the Recipient of a Planning Grant from the CIHR (Canadian Institutes for Health Research) to develop programs related to Dance as a form of Health Promotion in Preventing Type 2 Diabetes.

A special feature of WDA is the networks of people with similar interests working together with the purpose of creating a better future for dance and dancers. Network meetings will be held throughout the week to discuss current and future needs of the organization and its membership. Your participation is what makes the World Dance Alliance – Americas work. Come and share your thoughts and voice your opinions!

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 10:00 am – 11:20 am: Judith R. Marcuse Studio Creation and Presentation Network includes choreographers, arrangers, performers, designers, musicians, and all others who collaborate in creating dances of all kind.

Thursday, August 1, 2013 10:00 am – 11:20 am: Judith R. Marcuse Studio

Support and Development Network focuses on creating and implementing plans of action for generating funding, new membership, and the new direction of initiatives for the World Dance Alliance within each region and globally.

Friday, August 2, 2013 10:00 am – 11:20 am: Studio 7

Research and Documentation Network dedicated to our dance heritage, encourages collecting dance records of all kinds, reconstructing past works, and identifying endangered dances and materials. Members include historians, librarians, anthropologists, annotators, and all involved in collecting materials and making visual records of dance.

Saturday, August 3, 2013 11:30 am – 12:50 pm: Studio 7 Education and Training Network brings together teachers of all kinds of dance in any tradition, technique or methodology, along with writers, publicists, dance health practitioners, lobbyists, and all others who consider education part of their mission in dance.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Judith R. Marcuse Studio

“Promoting Public Engagement with Dance’s History and Thought” with Amy Bowring, Lynn Brooks, Genevieve Oswald, & Imogen Smith

A range of resources have arisen in the dance field to collect and create access to documents of dance history, theory, and philosophy. Archives, libraries, and museums—along with publications that draw on these and other resources—preserve and disseminate information that affords the public a deeper understanding of the field—its concerns, history, and evolution, and also its connections to the world beyond dance itself. This panel includes representatives of several institutions that have grappled with these matters.

Discussion will focus on the Dance Research Collection of the New York Public Library, the Dance Heritage Coalition, Dance Collection Danse, and thINKingdance.net. Each panelist will address these questions: What is this institution’s mission? How has the public been engaged in the work of this organization? Have shifts been evident in public interest and engagement, and if so, how have these been met? What challenges does this institution face going forward? Panel attendees will be invited to share their experiences and to identify needs of the field for ongoing public engagement programming that such institutions might further address.

The New York Public Library’s Dance Division was among the first systematic collections of dance-research materials, establishing a precedent for a fully rounded embrace of dance materials in print, manuscript, images, and material objects. The collection is accessible to scholars, students, dance artists, and the public. Exhibitions have highlighted the collection’s richness, and publications brought attention to its holdings. Dance lovers have expressed their interest through membership on committees that offer tangible support to the Collection by building a network of informed and dedicated patrons.

Philadelphia’s thINKingDANCE was established in October 2011 as a diverse group of people interested in writing and thinking about dance. Selected through a competitive admission process, members include experienced scholars and editors as well as relative novices with a commitment to the dance field. ThINKingDANCE provides much-needed journalistic coverage for experimental dance work, alternative voices in covering high-profile groups, public comment pages, and workshops with widely acclaimed dance writers/thinkers.

Toronto’s Dance Collection Danse employs institutional partnerships, print publishing, and virtual outlets to facilitate public access to its collection. DCD partners with other institutions, such as Theatre Museum Canada, to mount exhibitions and launch outreach programming. Through its remote research program, research packages of duplicated archival materials are sent to researchers across and beyond Canada. Virtual exhibitions and monthly online series, such as “Artifact of the Month” and “Enter, Dancing: Narratives of Migration,” provide further public access.

The Dance Heritage Coalition is adapting its programs and projects to implement digital tools and online resources, making its publications and initiatives available worldwide. For example, items from the traveling exhibit (2004–09), “America’s Irreplaceable Dance Treasures,” have been digitized for online access and expanded to include additional images and resources for further research. A second example, “dance history detectives,” is an effort to identify images from dance history by applying the new approach of “crowd-sourcing”—drawing on the collective intelligence of a large group of people, in this case by means of social media and electronic communications.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

AMY BOWRING (B.A. Fine Arts Studies, York University; M.A. Journalism, University of Western Ontario) is a dance writer and historian, founder of the Society for Canadian Dance Studies, and Director of Collections and Research at Dance Collection Danse where her mentors were Lawrence and Miriam Adams. She has written historical essays and articles for a number of publications and she is the copy editor of The Dance Current. She chronicled Peggy Baker’s Choreographer’s Trust project and curated virtual exhibitions on Nancy Lima Dent and Alison Sutcliffe, as well as the live exhibit Dancing Through Time: Toronto’s Dance History 1900-1980. Amy lectures widely and is a sessional instructor at Ryerson University. She was a board member for Dance Media Group, helped found the Canadian Dance Assembly, and has served as a member of the Discipline Advisory Committee for Dance at the Canada Council for the Arts.

LYNN MATLUCK BROOKS, the Arthur and Katherine Shadek Humanities Professor at Franklin & Marshall College, founded the college’s Dance Program in 1984. She holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of Wisconsin and Temple University. A Certified Movement Analyst and dance historian, she has held grants from the Fulbright/Hayes Commission, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Brooks has been a performance reviewer for Dance Magazine, editor of Dance Research Journal, and Dance Chronicle, and is the author of many articles and books. A choreographer, researcher, and teacher, her interests include modern dance, historical dance, and social history of dance. In 2007, Brooks received the Bradley R. Dewey Award for Outstanding Scholarship at Franklin & Marshall College. Currently, she is also a writer and editor for the Philadelphia- based project, thINKingdance.net.

IMOGEN SMITH, a specialist in dance archives, has served as the Dance Heritage Coalition’s Project Manager since 2011. She has directed a wide variety of projects, including the creation of the online exhibition “America’s Irreplaceable Dance Treasures,” and work with choreographers and dance companies to assess, organize, and preserve legacy materials. Smith has also worked for the Dance Division of the New York Public Library during much of the past decade, directing oral history projects and cataloging archival video and audio materials. In addition, she is a freelance film scholar and the author of two books, Buster Keaton: The Persistence of Comedy and In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

11:30 am – 1:50 pm Judith R. Marcuse Studio

“When Distinctions Collapse: Choreography, Improvisation, and Performance in Academia.” with Sarah Gamblin, Nina Martin, & Andrew Wass

What if, in the future, choreography and improvisation are not separate practices but are considered together as alternative methods of dancemaking? What if, instead of consisting of steps and movements, dances are considered to be containers for performance, wherein steps and movement emerge? How does the concept of choreography as container affect the way one teaches, coaches and directs a dance wherein the performer generates improvised movement material within a choreographic structure? How would collapsing the distinctions between performance, improvisation and choreography change curriculum for dance education? How might a technique class be taught differently? What do dancers need to know and be able to do in a dance world where the performance of spontaneously generated movement constitutes a dance? What are potential new theoretical perspectives on the nature of dancemaking when conventional distinctions between choreography, performance and improvisation are disrupted?

Drawing from panel members’ creative practices regarding the nature of compositional creative process in performance, this panel will explore the above questions in relationship to teaching and coaching performers in the context of improvised dancemaking.

SARAH GAMBLIN, Associate Professor, was a member of Bebe Miller Company from 1993-2000 and Bill Young and Dancers from 1996-99 with whom she toured various cities in South Africa, Portugal, Poland, St. Petersburg, Russia, Estonia, Peru and Venezuela as well as numerous cities in the US. In 2000 Sarah moved to Seattle to earn her MFA in Dance from the University of Washington. There she performed with the Chamber Dance Company, Rob Kitsos, Lingo dancetheater and Amii Le Gendre. Gamblin joined the dance faculty at Texas Woman’s University in 2002 where she teaches ballet and modern technique, composition, choreography, improvisation experiential anatomy and in 2006 founded Dance Lab, a student performing group devoted to improvisation in the dance making process and performance. Her choreography has been produced in Texas at the Fort Worth Dance Festival, the Out of the Loop Festival, Texas Woman’s University, Seattle Festival of Dance and Improvisation, Bates Dance Festival, the Greater Denton Arts Council, Dan’s Silver Leaf and Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio. Sarah’s work has also been produced in Washington at the University of Washington, The Northwest New Works Festival at On the Boards and in New York City at Hundred Grand and Dia Center for the Arts.

NINA MARTIN¹s choreographic works and master teaching has been presented in New York City; the US; and abroad; including Russia, Austria, Ireland, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Venezuela, Mexico, and Japan. Performance credits include David Gordon Pick-Up Company, Mary Overlie, Deborah Hay, Martha Clarke, and Simone Forti, among others. Martin has received funding for her work from the National Endowment for the Arts through six choreography fellowships, New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Joyce-Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Meet the Composer/ Choreographer Grant, Texas Commission on the Arts, and others. Martin continues to teach and tour with Lower Left internationally, cultivate a dance community interested in collaborative inquiry, and as of Fall 2008, she joins the dance faculty at Texas Christian University as Assistant Professor.

After graduating from University of California, San Diego with a degree in Biochemistry in 1997, ANDREW WASS replaced the chem lab with the dance studio. His performances have been shown in San Diego, LA, San Francisco, Marfa, Tijuana, and New York. Vital to his development have been his work with Lower Left, the phrase The content lies in the structure (Impro:110), and combining the methods learned in the lab with performative practices. Living in Berlin since 2009, he has been curating the On The Wall dance film festival at ada Studio & Bühne. Recently he completed his MA in Solo/Dance/Authorship at the Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum für Tanz in Berlin. www.wasswasswass.com, www.nonfictionperformance.org, & www.lowerleft.org

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Judith R. Marcuse Studio

“Dancing in the Digital Age: Approaches to Teaching Dance Online” with Yoav Kaddar, Kelly Ferris Lester, Beth Megill, & Pegge Vissicaro

Teaching courses in an online environment may seem like an oxymoron when it comes to teaching dance. Many of our goals as dance educators are grounded in the kinesthetic experience of dance. Although teaching and experiencing dance online creates challenges for both educators and students, it can inspire new forms of creativity and serve as an additional instructional tool. Online courses in higher education are rapidly increasing in popularity. In attempts to reach the new online student and diverse populations on our campuses, dance educators need to adapt and be prepared to teach online courses.

The ability to use the Internet to expose dance students to dance in all its multitude of artistic and cultural facets is one that dance educators in the 21st century should embrace and use to fullest potential of the medium. As dance advocates we need to also take advantage of this opportunity and bring dance to as large and diverse population of students as we can. Online education has the potential to expand our face-to-face student teaching in the studio and conventional lecture halls, as well as, to expand our audiences in and out of the concert halls.

“Approaches to Teaching Dance Online” brings together four professionals from higher education in the USA who have embarked on journeys to teach dance in an online environment. Teaching a wide range of courses, including non-major and major courses, the panel will offer individual approaches to online courses as a means to brainstorm the possibilities within this format. Focusing on online learning the panel will present a selection of modules to teaching dance online and will engage the audience in a conversation on the benefits, challenges and possibilities that are associated with teaching online dance courses.

DR. YOAV KADDAR is the Director of the Dance Program at West Virginia University. He has been engaged in dance education for 25 years. Kaddar brings to the educational facet of his career the vast national and international experience he has as a performer and choreographer. A graduate of the Juilliard School, he has danced with the Jose Limon, Paul Taylor and Pilobolus dance companies to name a few. He has choreographed over 60 works both in dance and theatre. As an educator he has taught and given presentations at colleges, universities, dance festivals and conferences in the US and abroad. Dr. Kaddar recently led to the development of the first Dance major for the state of West Virginia. He also launched WVU’s first online dance course. He has presented research based on this course at the NDEO annual conference in 2012 and at the 2013 conference in October.

KELLY FERRIS LESTER is an Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM). Lester serves on the Board of Directors for the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) and the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA), and is a founding company member of Hub Dance Collective. Lester has been teaching online since 2010 and has presented research based on this course both solo and with panel Kaddar, Megill, and Vissicao at the NDEO annual conferences in 2011, 2012, and 2013. At USM, Lester’s workshop “Thinking Outside of the Box in Online Education” is offered to university faculty through the Learning Enhancement Center and a featured presentation at the LEC CONNECTS annual conferences in 2012 and 2013.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

BETH MEGILL (MFA) is beginning her seventh year teaching at Moorpark College in Southern California, where she enjoys a full time teaching load in a variety of dance styles, and has the freedom to continually develop and refine her teaching methodology and pedagogy. Beth’s primary interests lie in the role of dance literacy in Higher Education and the presence of dance notation and theory to support dance as an area of research in addition to performance at colleges and universities. She has most recently teamed with Dave Massey from MiraCosta College in the publication of an online dance appreciation course and is finishing her Stage 3 Language of Dance certification for her work on utilizing LOD in the teaching of dance appreciation online as a general education requirement.

Since 1983, Dr. PEGGY VISSICARO has been contributing to Arizona State University’s School of Dance as a movement artist, dance maker, curriculum developer, educator, researcher, and community leader. She facilitates courses for undergraduate and graduate students in movement, creative, and ethnographic practices. Vissicaro is a Fulbright Scholar and Specialist, directs her company terradance®, and is president of Cross-Cultural Dance Resources. Publications include her widely distributed text, Studying Dance Cultures around the World, a chapter in 2013 book, Age and Dancing, articles in the peer-reviewed journals Ethnic Studies Review, Australia New Zealand Dance Research Society, Multimedia Tools and Applications, and The Review of Human Factor Studies as well as numerous contributions to the Foundation for Community Dance magazine, Animated. Vissicaro has presented papers and lectures, taught master classes and conducted residencies in Ireland, Korea, Scotland, Portugal, France, Brazil, Canada, and throughout the United States.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

11:30 am – 12:50 pm Studio 7

“Bridging the Gap: Integrating Urban Dance Forms and Contemporary Somatic Approaches to Dance” by Becky Dyer, In Kyung Lee, & Edson Magana

Despite the current 21st century emphasis on diversity, a clear hierarchy persists amongst dance forms in North America. The inequitable valuing of dance forms within American culture continues to fuel the long-held division between academic, somatics-oriented contemporary dance, and street dance (also referred to as urban dance). The academic dance environment has not responded to the growing urban dance movement and its sociocultural significance in today’s society, nor has it fully benefitted from the building body of knowledge and embodied experience growing within the urban dance field. In addition to the prominent locational separation of urban dance communities from academic contemporary dance/somatics settings, dancers from each of these distinct communities seemingly perceive their identity and practices to be autonomous and disconnected from other dance cultures.

In an attempt to investigate and perhaps remedy the line that divides urban dance from academic perspectives, the co- facilitators of this panel discussion will guide conversations in exploring ways to connect street dance vocabulary and knowledge to common vocabulary and understandings prevalent in higher education contemporary dance and somatics practices. The discussion will compare and integrate principles of the Barteneiff Fundamentals and Laban Movement Analysis with those of urban movement, with the goal of discovering how each framework might inform and invigorate the other. Facilitators will lead participants in viewing urban movement styles and theories through the lens of the Laban/Bartenieff Framework and other somatics paradigms. Similarly, contemporary dance aesthetics and Laban/Bartenieff theories will be approached from the language and paradigmatic viewpoints of urban dance forms.

Although the themes of the Barteneiff Fundamentals/Laban Movement Analysis framework and urban movement practices appear to be grounded in similar and related principles, the extreme differentiation of language in each masks their proximate relationship. It is our perspective that these respective embodied practices can complement and support each other. We believe revealing the overlapping concepts and viewpoints associated with each of these distinct practices, through experiential processes of comparison, contrast, and an integration of the language used by both, will help university contemporary dancers to more readily understand and learn urban dance forms, and will ultimately enrich the movement practices and capacities of contemporary dancers. Such a mediation of forms also has the potential to aid urban dancers in better understanding and critically analyzing their movement, which we assert will further the pedagogical understandings and practices in the urban dance field.

Some of the guiding questions will include: How might urban movement be successfully incorporated into an academic setting? How might sociocultural and embodied understandings of urban dance forms broaden university dance students’ understandings of their own movement practices and potential? How might embracing urban movement forms in academic settings draw more urban dancers into higher education settings, and how might this impact the future development of urban dance and culture both positively and negatively?

Thursday, August 1, 2013

BECKY DYER (PhD, MFA, MS) is an associate dance professor at Arizona State University where she teaches Laban/Bartenieff Praxis and Somatic Studies, dance pedagogy, and contemporary postmodern dance technique. Becky is a certified Laban-Bartenieff Movement Analyst (CLMA), ISMETA registered somatic movement therapist (RSMT), somatic movement educator (RSME), and holds a secondary dance education certification. Her research focuses on dance pedagogy, somatic epistemology, transformative learning perspectives, and somatic approaches to learning. She has published articles in Research in Dance Education, Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, Journal of Aesthetic Education, Somatics Magazine/Journal, and Current Selected Research in Dance, Volume 7.

IN KYUNG LEE, a MFA candidate at Arizona State University (ASU), is a dance and video artist whose recent works have been selected to be presented at Dance Film Series hosted by Dance New Amsterdam in NYC and American College Dance Festival Association Regional in Scottsdale Community College. She currently assists ASU dance faculty, Eileen Standley, whose research investigates movement and film, and co-instructs Contact Improvisation class at ASU. She worked with various international choreographers such as Tony Thatcher, Idan Cohen, and Thomas Lehmen. She is interested in experimentation and improvisation, as well as connecting isolated communities with the society through art. She has volunteered as teacher in Nepal, Cambodia, Korea, and Taiwan, and produced a dance film with live performance to address human rights issues pertaining to North Korea.

EDSON MAGANA (MFA) is an urban artist who has travelled internationally to dance, teach, and organize events. He is the founder of Cyphers, the Center for Urban Arts, which was selected by Phoenix New Times as the 2012 Winner for the “Best Place to Learn about Hiphop Culture.” He is one of the founding members of Furious Styles Crew (1993 – present), which has three chapters in USA, Spain, and Denmark. The crew represented USA in events such as Red Bull Beat Battle in London and Germany Championships, and won numerous battles worldwide. Among diverse categories in urban art, Edson specializes in break dance and graffiti. As an artist and educator, he is devoted to bring urban art to underprivileged children and wishes to continue his research in realizing ways to bridge the gap between urban art in academic settings and the streets.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Judith R. Marcuse Studio

“The Canada Dance Mapping Study: An Evidence-based Profile of the Breadth and Depth of Dance Activity in Canada” with Doug Durand, Tara Lapointe, Caroline Lussier, Geraldine Manossa, & Claire McCaughey (Canada Council for the Arts)

The Canada Dance Mapping Study is working towards a better understanding of the discipline’s infrastructure and its impact on society. For the first time in Canada, a public arts funder mandated to support professionals is undertaking a comprehensive view of the whole national dance ecosystem. In doing so we are like old-time explorers trying to fill in the blank sections of a map. The most obvious blanks are activities beyond the professionally-funded dance sector: commercial, amateur, competitive, participatory, dance in sport, and crossover points between dance and other sectors, such as health care. We are approaching all of dance as equally valid: there are no hierarchies or silos. As such the study reaches across all genres and practices to promote inclusiveness, encourage partnerships and collaborations, and enable all practitioners to see themselves connected together as members of the Canadian dance field. To tackle the multitude of knowledge gaps we have scoped out a series of research projects, several of which have been completed. Research to date includes reviews of existing literature, Internet-based inquiries and online surveys. To lead this initiative, the Canada Council has teamed up with the Ontario Arts Council and brought together a Steering Committee from across the country, representing leaders in the dance field and arts funders from national, provincial and municipal levels. We will present the results of the study to the public beginning this fall through a Web-based interactive and ever-evolving map of dance in Canada.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

DOUGLAS DURAND‘s arts administration career spans three decades in various capacities and art disciplines, but with a particular emphasis on dance. In 2000, he moved to London to work as a dance officer with Arts Council England. Upon returning to Canada in 2003, he was commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts to research and write Dancing Our Stories, a collection of first-person narratives documenting dance animation practice in Canada. Doug joined the City of Vancouver’s Cultural Services as a cultural planner in 2005, delivering a program of grants and awards in support of the city’s non-profit arts organizations.

TARA LAPOINTE is a dynamic marketing and communications strategist with more than 15 years’ experience in the arts and entertainment industries. She is currently the Head of Marketing Communications at the Canada Council for the Arts, Canada’s national arts funder, where she introduced and began implementation of the first ever organization- wide strategic communications plan, a redesigned website, and the use of social media communications tools. She is also the VP, Marketing of IABC Ottawa. Previously, Tara was the Associate Director of Marketing at the National Arts Centre from 2004 to 2009. Before joining the NAC, Tara held marketing and communications positions at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting and Harbourfront Centre.

Trained in a diversity of dance forms in North America and Europe, CAROLINE LUSSIER worked for various arts organizations for 25 years before being appointed Head of the Canada Council’s Dance Section in 2011. She started her career as Artistic Director of an international folk dance festival, later moving to more administrative functions. Over the years, she has acquired extensive experience working with independent artists, dance companies, presenters, and festivals in both the dance and theatre worlds in Montreal and in regional Quebec. Caroline was Program Officer for the arts council of the Province of Quebec and a member of the Board of Directors of many dance companies, her community’s local theatre, and Quebec’s national dance association. She holds a Master’s degree in Slavic languages and literature.

GERALDINE MANOSSA is a member of the Bigstone Cree Nation in Northern Alberta. She completed a Master of Arts degree from the University of Lethbridge, with a specialization in Cree Indigenous knowledge and performance. She has been writing about Indigenous performance processes and showcasing her work at various festivals across Canada including, Shared Habitat Festival (Toronto), Stream of New Dance Festival (Saskatchewan), Talking Stick Festival (Vancouver) and Dance Explosions (Calgary). Her performance methodologies have been highlighted in a video documentary titled Living Bodies created by University of Lethbridge professor, Lisa Doolittle. Her most recent publications are found in the Aboriginal Drama and Theatre Volume One – Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English, and “Uncovering Spirit,” based on a site specific performance, with choreographer Bill Coleman and playwright, Floyd Favel (Great Plains Research Centre Press). Geraldine currently works as a program officer for the Canada Council for the Arts.

CLAIRE McCAUGHEY is Head of Research and Evaluation at the Canada Council for the Arts. She has been engaged in arts and culture research for more than 25 years. From 2002 to 2005 she served as Chair of the National Advisory Committee on Culture Statistics at Statistics Canada. From 2008 to 2012 she managed the CADAC Secretariat hosted at the Canada Council for the Arts. CADAC (Canadian Arts Data / Données sur les Arts au Canada) is a national arts data system used by arts funders and arts organizations in Canada. Her research interests include cultural indicators and statistical frameworks, financing of arts and culture, measuring the economic and social impact of the arts, and profiling the artistic labour force. She has a B. Soc. Sc. (Hon. Econ.) from the University of Ottawa and an M.A. in Economics from Queen’s University.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Judith R. Marcuse Studio

“What can we learn from case studies of emerging dancer-scholars about effectively assisting them in developing their voice for writing academic papers?” with Cheryl LaFrance, Linda Caldwell, & Ruth Naomi Levin

This panel brings together three perspectives on recurring questions in graduate level Dance programs: How can we create an effective writing program, especially for professional dancers transitioning to academe? What are the gaps in their shift from researching to writing and how might we address these by comparing the writing process to a choreographic one? How can we hook into their previous experiences of wrestling with choreographic decisions, in order to strengthen their understanding of, and confidence in, their writing process?

Linda Caldwell, Coordinator of Doctoral Studies, at Texas Woman’s University will discuss her work with dance doctoral students as they shift from creating meaning in the studio to creating meaning in text. She will introduce the issues discovered in this process and her decision to work with doctoral candidate Cheryl LaFrance from York University who is focused on the transition from “studio to page” for emerging dancer-scholars.

Cheryl LaFrance, PhD Candidate at York University, will introduce her research exploring the role of metacognition in the academic writing process. She begins with the question: How might metacognition of one’s preferred processing style as well as one’s creative process facilitate scholarly writing? Field research with PhD and MFA Dance students has led her to theorize that three processing styles (“popcorn”, “graphic” and “linear”) seem to be operating when students research, wrestle with, and compose academic papers and dances. Awareness of these processes supports scholarly writing, especially the intermediary process of struggling, or playing, with the research through dialoguing and creating “graphic” representations.

Ruth Levin, first year Dance MFA student, is involved in Cheryl LaFrance’s research. Her main desire in becoming a participant was to engage in a reflective process about her writing. Though it has never been a major stumbling block, she reports struggling at times to connect diverging ideas around a theme and realized that outside ideas, feedback and dialogue in the research process would be valuable. The metacognitive awareness gained through this research process has spilled over into a deeper understanding of her creative process in all areas, particularly in her choreography. For example, she has discovered her need to first explore the “sparks” of interest through the development of material (movement and/or text) and that the through-line tends to reveal itself once the material is adequately explored, e.g., by visual, big-picture, symbolic representations. If however, structure is applied pre-maturely, the “spark” of interest is lost and the writing becomes rote and uninteresting.

The panelists will briefly present their insights to date, from their perspectives on the case studies, and then dialogue about issues and strategies before inviting the audience to join the discussion.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

CHERYL LAFRANCE, PhD Candidate at York University (Toronto) combines her passions for the creative processes of dance-making, academic writing, and teaching in her research. Using practice-led research and research-led practice, she addresses the question of how dancer-scholars might access their metacognitive understanding of their creative dancemaking processes, and, in so doing, support their academic writing processes. Her research participants are students in the York Dance MFA, and Texas Woman’s University Dance PhD programs. She is the 2012 recipient of the CORD Outstanding Graduate Student Research Award for her paper “Theorizing hybridity and identity: the ‘edge-effect’ and ‘dynamic nucleus’ in bharatanatyam-inspired dances of two choreographers.” In 2011, Dance Chronicle published her paper “Choreographer’s Archives: Three Case Studies in Legacy Preservation” (34:1).

LINDA CALDWELL, Ph.D. and Certified Movement Analyst in Laban Movement Studies, is professor and coordinator of the low-residential doctoral program in dance at Texas Woman’s University. She serves as the co-chair for Research and Documentation for the World Dance Alliance-Americas and co-edits, along with Dr. Urmimala Sarkar of WDA-AP, the WDA publication of the Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship (JEDS). Her current interests include discovering new research methodologies specific to the needs of dance practice/theory and how to bring the dancer’s voice and body into scholarly writing. Her dissertation and past publications concern a 15-year exchange with Poland\’s contemporary dance company, The Silesian Dance Theatre. Dr. Caldwell\’s choreography has been performed in dance festivals in Lyons, France and Krakow, Poland, as well as chosen twice for the National College Dance Festivals in Washington, D.C. and Tempe, Arizona.

A current MFA student at York University and graduate of the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, RUTH LEVIN‘s central passion is the study of the human experience. She has had the great pleasure of exploring this both within the context of the dancing and performing body as well as through several years of meditative practice. Her choreographic work intertwines these two perspectives to bring greater depth and wisdom to the studio and stage through the integration of meditative techniques and practices. She has had the tremendous privilege of working with world class artists and teachers in both fields of interest, including in the field of dance, Peggy Baker, Jolene Bailie, Margie Gillis, Danny Grossman, James Kudelka and Maya Lewandowsky as well as the faculty at York University and the School of TDT. Her guides in the direct study of mind are Achariya Doug Duncan, Catherine Pawasarat and the enlivened community of the Clear Sky Sangha.

Friday, August 2, 2013

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Studio 7

“Moving Public: A Model for Expanded Creative Engagement” with Marc Berezowski, Julie Cruse, & Pegge Vissicaro

Three artist entrepreneurs bring diverse perspectives forward to envision and pilot a model for igniting creative impact by connecting artistic and public spaces. The model migrates transdisciplinary dance practices into public space and public activity into dance contexts, which socially transforms and frees creative engagement for participants across both domains. This panel, an experimental presentation, extends historical dance precedents exemplified by Anna Halprin, Judson Dance Theatre, and Alwin Nikolais who decentralized such binary conventions as performer/audience, expert/novice, and body/world. Today, digital cultures move beyond the influence of these and other revolutionaries by inhabiting open online spaces of invention and spontaneity embodied by popular and social media. Comparably, dance enacts somatic choice, physicalizing social and civic agency and empowering the whole person. An imagined future unites the liberating energy of dance with the dynamic space of public platforms to catalyze a paradigm of emergent creating, questioning, and interacting. Such expanded creativity collaboratively sustains, involves, and evolves the contemporary world.

MARC BEREZOWSKI’s passion with dance and with all the arts, in addition to his interest in education, has been a constant for 30 years, having been a dancer in several companies and a partner in outreach activities with, among others, Liz Lerman, Simon Fraser University, Arizona State University and the Arizona Commission for the Arts. He received his BFA from Simon Fraser University and his MFA from Arizona State University, which led to a three-year visiting assistant professor position in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance Department at Arizona State University West. Lately, his interest in dance and education has led him to be enrolled in the Arts Education PhD program at Simon Fraser University. Education at this advanced level has given Berezowski additional dance performance theory knowledge as it applies in context to Dance Education and Dance in Education. His research orbits around the culture of teaching dance and dance subjects from a post-formal lens. He has enjoyed teaching the EDUC 330 pedagogy class the last six years at Simon Fraser University, which was specifically developed to nurture and give confidence and competence to teachers and teachers in training when they teach the dance stream curriculum in the Public school system.

JULIE CRUSE designs and engages across media, arts, body, and learning. She is now Director and Designer of Digital Arts Co-Curricula at Oberlin College. Prior design work includes blended curricula for Arizona colleges, outreach campaigns for numerous entities, and embodied learning games at SMALLab (covered by The New York Times, CNN, etc.). She holds an M.A. in Media Arts and Sciences from Arizona State University and an M.F.A. in Dance-Technology from The Ohio State University. Frequently she presents at top-tier conferences, most recently CORD, Games+Learning+Society, and Emerge: Artists+Scientists Redesign the Future (reported in WIRED, Slate, and The New York Times). Latest credits include dancer for Liz Lerman, Susan Kozel, and Suguru Goto, and interactive musician for Merce Cunningham and Perry Cook. Distinctions span 20+ grants and honours for original art, academic merit, and entrepreneurship (NSF, OhioDance, etc). Her ventures have attracted partners from NYU, Sarah Lawrence College, and Columbia College.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Studio 7

“Discussing the Prime Tenets of Jazz Dance in Relationship to Current Practices” with Vicki Adams-Willis, Michele Dunleavy, Erinn Liebhard, Jeffrey Peterson, Elizabeth Rhodes, Laura Smyth, & Vicki St. Denys

This panel of seven jazz-focused industry professionals will dialogue as a method for developing a shared understanding of how jazz dance is practiced in the 21st century. As jazz dance continues to rapidly evolve on stage, in television, film, written research and the classroom, the spectrum of sub-genres rooted in the form continues to expand. In order to establish a foundational understanding within this range, it is crucial to analyze and discuss the ways in which jazz dance is practiced and defined. The definition of jazz dance is perennially contested and often contingent on the style being practiced by the individual. Despite individual definitions, jazz dance styles do have a set of underlying foundations; this panel will work to define these similarities.

The panel will dissect the prime tenets of jazz dance, unpack the rationale behind and practice of the categorization of styles, and discuss how this information may be implemented in choreographic, scholarly and educational practices. Further, the panel will examine how jazz’s foundational concepts contribute to the continued mainstream appeal of its movement aesthetic and its position as a conduit of cultural knowledge. Panelists were carefully selected to represent consummate professional knowledge within a wide variety of approaches to jazz dance, and questions they will address include;

• What do you perceive to be the prime tenets that define a dance practice as ‘jazz?’ • How do these prime tenets translate within sub-categories of jazz dance? • How does your approach to jazz dance support practices used in other sub-categories? • How do the prime tenets of jazz motivate your creative, written and/or educational research? • How/ why do the foundational tenets of jazz provide for mainstream appeal and/ or cultural knowledge? • How can we encourage a positive approach to this dialogue among working dance professionals?

Having recognized the need to address this important topic, a handful of recent conferences (including NDEO) have presented panel discussions surrounding the current state of jazz dance. It is the goal of this panel to serve as a focused continuation of this important dialogue. It is crucial for the continued health of jazz dance that differences in definition and opinion are countered with efforts to promote shared foundational understanding. This discussion will encourage the continued health and growth of jazz dance, and deepen our scholarly and practical understanding of the form.

VICKI ADAMS WILLIS carries on a family tradition that began when her mother opened one of the first dance schools in Calgary in the 1920’s. Besides teaching and choreographing for countless local and international organizations, including The School at Jacob’s Pillow, Vicki founded the Jazz Division in the Faculty of Fine Arts’ Program of Dance at the University of Calgary in 1978, and co-founded Decidedly Jazz Danceworks in 1984. where she continued her role as Artistic Director for 29 years. As DJD begins its 30th Anniversary celebrations, Vicki enthusiastically embraces her new role in the organization, Founder in Residence. Some of her numerous honours include the University of Calgary’s Superior Teacher Award, Global Television’s Women of Vision Award, The City of Calgary’s Community Achievement Award for the Arts, and an Alberta Centennial Medal. Vicki was also named one of the University of Calgary’s Top 40 Alumni, received the Established Artist Award at the 2009 Mayor’s Evening for Business and the Arts and was invited to write the 2013 National Dance Week message for the Canadian Dance Assembly.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

MICHALE DUNLEAVY’s work has been presented by numerous arts organizations including The Physical Theatre Project, Women’s Work Performing Arts Festival, Labco Dance, H20 Contemporary Dance, The Pittsburgh Dance Connection, and the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and HATCH. Michele has danced with the Pittsburgh Opera, Junction Dance Theatre, Physical Theatre Project, DANA Movement Ensemble, ETCH Dance Co., and NYC based B3W. Michele is an Associate Professor of Dance at Penn State where she choreographs musicals and teaches Tap, Jazz, Improvisation, and Dance Appreciation. Recent projects include Cross Rhythms – an evening of interdisciplinary tap performance. Michele has served of the faculty at Point Park University, George Mason University, and the Catholic University of America. She is a member of SDC, the International Tap Association, and is the Northeast Regional Director of the American College Dance Festival Association.

ERINN LIEBHARD is a choreographer, performer, project coordinator, scholar and teacher passionate about jazz and American vernacular dance forms. She holds a B.F.A. in Dance from the University of Minnesota and is currently an M.F.A. Candidate in Dance at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Liebhard is the Artistic Director of Rhythmically Speaking, an organization supporting and presenting jazz and rhythm-driven dance in the Twin Cities, MN. She has presented choreography throughout the U.S. and Canada, and has trained and performed with Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, the Eclectic Edge Ensemble, Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, Karla Grotting, Rennie Harris and Gesel Mason Performance Projects, Zoe Sealy of the former Minnesota Jazz Dance Company, and numerous other notable artists. She is currently a technique and academic course instructor at CU-Boulder.

JEFFREY PETERSON is Assistant Professor of Dance at Muhlenberg College where he teaches jazz, modern, and partnering. He holds an MFA in dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a BFA in dance from the University of Minnesota. Mr. Peterson began his professional career in national tours with JAZZDANCE by Danny Buraczeski from 2000-2003. Since then, he has worked with Clare Byrne, Edisa Weeks, Stephan Koplowitz, and the The Minnesota Opera, among others. His choreographic work for Jeffrey Peterson Dance (JPD) blends jazz, modern, colorguard, and theater, often to arrive at social comment. JPD has been commissioned by Dance New Amsterdam’s In the Company of Men, Movement Research at Judson Church, and Rhythmically Speaking. His work has also appeared in the DanceNOW/NYC festival at Joe’s Pub and Joyce SOHO, The Minnesota Fringe Festival, Kinetic Kitchen, Intermedia Arts and the Bryant Lake Bowl, and Dixon Place.

ELIZABETH RHODES is Co-director of Dance at Austin State University. Libby has performed on Broadway and in international tours. She is a three-time Fulbright award recipient to Panama, Bolivia, and France, where she taught jazz and musical theatre dance to conservatory students. She has served on the Dance peer review committee for the Council on International Exchange of Scholars and has presented papers at conferences hosted by the Congress on Research in Dance; the National Dance Education Association; and the American Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD). Recognitions include being named the 2000 College/University Dance Educator of the Year by Southern District/AAHPERD and a 2004 Honor Award recipient by the Texas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. Ms. Rhodes holds an MFA from Mills College and a BA in Theatre Arts/Dance Emphasis from Sonoma State University.

LAURA ANN SMYTH is a Lecturer in Dance at Loyola Marymount University. She performs and trains in dance genres ranging from American modern to the African Diaspora. Her training has taken her across Canada, the United States ,and most recently to Port of Spain, Trinidad. Smyth received a BA from the University of Calgary in 2004, a Journalism Certificate from Mount Royal University in 2008, and completed her MFA in Dance at UC Irvine this past June 2012 where the focus of her thesis research was Jazz Dance of the African-American vernacular tradition. Smyth presented in Los Angeles at the NDEO Conference in 2012 on jazz dance and Language of Dance, and sat on a panel in Washington, DC at the IABD Conference in 2013 that discussed the state of concert dance today. Currently, Smyth is working with JazzAntiqua Dance and Music Ensemble of Los Angeles. This spring, Smyth will be working as a guest choreographer at Santa Monica College.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

VICKI ST. DENYS is Co-Director of Dance at Ryerson University, Toronto. Vicki teaches jazz, musical theatre, and choreographs annually for Ryerson Dances at Ryerson University. Her research, choreography, and teaching are centered on the evolution of jazz dance, its roots and influences, and its relationship to jazz music. She has toured internationally as a performer, teacher, and choreographer, and has been fortunate enough to choreograph for television, film, video, theatre, and opera. Recently, she choreographed and worked as dance consultant for the creation of a dance app for iPad. From 2000-2007 she taught jazz and choreographed for the prestigious dance program at The Banff Centre for the Arts, followed by 2 years as choreographer for the Opera as Theatre Program. In addition, Vicki has served as an assessor for the Canada Council for the Arts and holds an MA in Dance from York University.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

2:00 pm - 3:20 pm "Exploring Identity" Studio 7 Series

"Dancing Between and Beyond Identity: a Global Performance" with Elena Quah Choreographing in Chinese diasporas outside of China forges reinvented and uniquely negotiated identity in light of sociocultural deployment, emotional refuge, and connection. The artistic progress and outcome perpetuate hybrid dance expressions of geopolitical and temporal-spatial significances specific to the Eastern or Western diasporic terrains. In employing selected choreographies of Lin Huai-Min (founder-artistic director, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, Taiwan) and Wen Wei Wang (founder-artistic director, Wen Wei Dance Society, Vancouver, Canada) as case studies, the presentation offers a glimpse of re-imagined, dual, or multiple identity continually constructed between the ancestral past and the diasporic present – the intrinsic cause that conjures the artists’ signature dance concepts and movements. Central to the study are identity and aesthetical transformations that inspire the presenter’s notion of “new authenticity” in Lin’s local Taiwanese creations, and that of “re-exoticism” and its strategic potency in Wang’s globally receptive repertoires. Apart from engaging the artists’ choreographies to illustrate the research topics, the adoption of cultural theories including Stuart Hall’s concept of “identity” that is “always in progress” (Hall, 1996), and Paul Gilroy’s version of identity as “the changing same” in “coming to terms with the routes” (Gilroy, 1994) provides further methodological channels to substantiate the choreographic choices and actions in discourse. The conclusion posits both artists’ works as “glocalized” products (Robertson, 1997), where the Roland Robertson defined “interpenetrating global political-economic flows and local cultural experiences” are observed as instrumental constitutors of Chinese diaspora identity in 21st century dance.

ELENA QUAH is a PhD student in Dance Studies: Ethnography with York University. She holds an MA degree in Dance, and a BFA degree in Visual Arts from the same University. Simultaneously working towards a Graduate Diploma in Asian studies through the York Asian Research Centre, Quah's dissertation focuses on comparative case studies of Chinese dance diasporas in Canadian and East Asian soil. Her research examines “creation” and “training-education” in light of cultural influences, socio-political shifts, and changing Chinese identities. Geographies specific to the research potentially span the cosmopolitan fields of Toronto-Vancouver and Hong Kong-Taiwan. Quah is a Toronto-based Chinese dancer- choreographer, and has worked as dance producer, coordinator and publicist in her dance productions and collaborations with dancers and musicians of diverse cultural backgrounds.

"Continuous R/Evolution of Indian Dance: Retaining and Defining Identity" with Emma Draves This research looks at how the transcultural relocation of Indian dance – a form deeply entwined with its cultural and religious pedigree – influences its evolving identity. In particular, I examine the work of artists creating innovative work informed by classical techniques and speaking to contemporary, hybrid experiences. in many cases, lack of knowledge about the forms contributes to the perception of Indian dance as a sort of museum piece of historical representation/recreation sharply contrasted by its Bollywood counterpart. Audiences do not know how to read performances, and critics do not know how to write about them. Indian dance's "Otherness" continues to be at the forefront of its perceived identity. To this end, I ask: What more is needed to integrate this work into the arts community of the United States? How can this work retain its identity whilst avoiding being Orientalized, eroticized, or appropriated?

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

EMMA DRAVES is a dance artist and scholar pursuing research of the r/evolving identity of Indian dance in the United States. She also explores the creation of hybrid choreography: integrating the movement and philosophies of modern and bharatanatyam. The work has been supported by Chicago Dancemakers Forum, Chicago Cultural Center, and Links Hall. This year, she will curate the Braiding Rivers Festival of Contemporary Indian Dance as Artistic Associate of Links Hall. Long a Chicago performer, she has worked with Lookingglass Theatre, Yo-Yo Ma/The Silk Road Project, and Mordine & Co before founding her own Kalpana/Draves Dance. Emma continues to train in bharatanatyam under Guru Hema Rajagopalan and perform with Natya Dance Theater. Emma is on faculty at Columbia College Chicago and Carthage College, and has presented workshops at several Midwest universities, the ACDFA, and through residences with the Chicago Public Schools. Emma is an MFA graduate of UW-Milwaukee. www.DravesDance.org

"Pulsating Value: Examining the Development of Dismissive Attitudes Towards Concert Jazz Dance in 1960s America" with Erinn Liebhard “Jazz dance has always reflected the temper of the times” (Rag to Rock to Disco, 1979). This statement by seminal American choreographer Gus Giordano captures with clarity the importance of jazz dance to American culture. While this idea is embraced by practitioners of the form, some scholars view concert jazz dance as an increasingly irrelevant art in today’s society. This presentation is focused upon the jazz movement aesthetic in 1960s America, exploring via a historical survey of dance scholarship examined through a sociopolitical lens. Defining the jazz movement aesthetic and identifying its uses in social and presentational dances, the research analyzes the strong presence of the aesthetic in social dance as a linkage to its denigration within presentational concert dance. The analysis posits that formation of increasingly separatist approaches to concert jazz dance during the era as either basely social (i.e. popular) or artistically presentational (i.e. ballet and modern) has had a critical effect upon the development of a dismissive attitude toward the art form. By encouraging better knowledge of the past, this research contributes to efforts toward a shared understanding of what jazz dance is today, and what it will be in the future.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

2:00 pm - 3:20 pm "Conveying Communication in Communities" Judith R. Marcuse Studio Series

"Art for Social Change: a short presentation and dialogue" with Judith Marcuse As communities face complex and sometimes overwhelming local and global issues, we need fresh, out-of-the-box approaches to problem solving, with strategies that awaken the senses and engage the head, hands and heart. In Canada and around the world, specialized arts initiatives (for example, in dance, creative writing, storytelling, music, theatre, social circus, visual, media and urban arts) are effective and innovative forms of social inquiry and action that are inclusive of and responsive to community concerns. Arts for Social Change (ASC) approaches can address social, economic and environmental issues. In one form of ASC, the artist acts as a catalyst and facilitator to create dialogue, ideas and actions with members of communities who may not usually define themselves as artists. These processes are designed to create insight and new connections between individuals, whole communities and diverse groups as they exchange stories, perspectives, knowledge and understanding through the creation of art. ASC nurtures collective exchange and engagement, and offers experiences that integrate and celebrate imaginative thinking and action. Judith Marcuse will speak about recent developments in the field of ASC in Canada and abroad, including the launch of a large-scale, five-year, national ASC research project that involves artists, researchers, six universities, and community-based NGO’s from across the country.

JUDITH MARCUSE’s career spans over 40 years of professional work as a dancer, choreographer, director, producer, teacher, writer, consultant, and lecturer in Canada and abroad, most recently in Ecuador. She has created over 100 original works for live performance by dance, theatre, and opera companies as well as for film and television, and has produced seven large-scale, international arts festivals. Her repertory contemporary dance company toured extensively in Canada and abroad for 15 years, while also producing community residencies and youth programs. Among many initiatives her youth- focused, five-year, issue-based ICE, FIRE and EARTH projects involved thousands of youth in workshops, national touring, television production, and community collaborations. Founder and Co-Director of the International Centre of Art for Social Change (www.icasc.ca), she is a Senior Fellow of Ashoka International. Among many honours, she has received the Lee and Chalmers Canadian choreographic awards and an honorary doctorate.

"Dancing the Voyage Through Time, Place, and Culture" with Marc Kotz Artist-Educator Marc Kotz presents excerpts from his recently released video of a one-man, three-part production entitled "Dancing le Voyage: A King, a Priest, and a Fur-Trader". This work engages audiences through the means of first-person interpretation coupled with historical dance and visual depiction, bringing new dimension to the concept of "edu-tainment". King Louis the 14th, Father Jacques Marquette, and Fur Trader/Métis Charles de Langlade each tell their stories and dance their dances as a way of discovering / exploring the French and Native American encounter/ integration that occurred on the North American continent during the 17th and 18th centuries. Emphasis is placed on how dance can be used to convey attitude, perspective and the embodiment of historical personages, who are often "taught about", but need to be "brought to life” in an immediate and personal way in order to succeed in the conveyance of “cultural legacy”.

MARC KOTZ is a life-long performing artist and teacher who delights in venturing to other cultures and times through the means of dance, theatre, movement, and educational exploration. His career has taken him around the world performing with companies such as the Hartford Ballet and Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. He has choreographed over 50 dances, collaborated on 2 dozen musicals/plays/ operas, and has directed/choreographed ten concert-length productions, half of which have original scripts written by him. Marc received a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Iowa as an Iowa Arts Fellow, has taught all ages from pre-school to the aged (including 12 years at the university level), and directs his own arts-integration company Born 2 Move Movement Adventures. LLC. www.Born2Move.org

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

11:30 am - 12:50 pm "Outreach, Education, and Knowledge" Studio 7 Series

"Break dancing is so sick…not: Identity and b-boys/b-girls in a Toronto High School" with Catherine Limbertie When posing questions about the future of dance, thorough consideration must be given to attitudes of youth aged 14 to 18 as this age group is of vital importance when endeavoring to understand their anticipations for the path ahead. In this paper, an Ontario-based dance researcher examines the perceptions of secondary school students at a Toronto high school towards urban or ‘break’ dance and questions generally held views on the importance of dance in general and break dancing in particular as a social instrument for youth outreach in schools. Based on interviews, surveys and observation; the paper argues that dance as social outreach is not universally embraced by the student body and raises questions concerning the role of dance as embodied memory in secondary schools.

CATHERINE LIMBERTIE is an educator, dancer, arts administrator and emerging scholar whose interests lie in investigating the role of dance in Canadian history with a particular emphasis on how dance has formed Ontario society. A member of the Folklore Studies Association of Canada, she has presented her work at the FSAC annual conference, as well as at conferences of the Canadian Society for Dance Studies, the World Dance Assembly and Dance and the Child International. She has published articles on Canadian folklore in specialist journals and a version of her MRP on dance in a Filipino community in Toronto is forthcoming in the proceedings of the 2012 WDA/daCi conference.

"And I Found My Self Here: Dance Knowledge in the 21st Century" with Duncan Holt "I am interested in…how much dancers know and how little the rest of the world knows that we know it…" -Lerman, L., 2011; Hiking the Horizontal, Wesleyan University Press As a Choreologist I view this knowledge as being of evermore importance. In my current Choreographic project – And I Found My Self Here I am in the midst of all the inclusions of performers, movement, sound and space that I was forty years ago. I am now also surrounded by a phalanx of digital video cameras large, small and moving projectors all for a complex of live’ness in performance. When Cunningham’s four big ideas arrived in the dance world we were bound to re-examine what we did in the studio, on the stage and on the screen. The questions about the emergence of a democratic space and cast together with screen realities and his aleatoric relationship with sound created a range of new conundrums. This paper presentation suggests a point of view in which 21C realities might play out in our new and old dance practices. The intention of this presentation is to address the manner in which the particularities of dancers’ knowledge, as noted by Lerman, will jive with the live’ness of the screen, the presence of the technology, the interaction with the interface and with subject content of a world that is strapped for cash but overflowing with gadgets. Where in this, is the ethical compass pointing?

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

DUNCAN HOLT, MA, DC FMCA is a lecturer and researcher in Dance at the University of Hull UK and a Fellow of the McTimoney Chiropractic Association. He trained and studied at the School of the Toronto Dance Theatre, the London Contemporary Dance School, the McTimoney Chiropractic College and Trinity/Laban for postgraduate study in Dance. He performed with Cycles Dance Company in the UK and Halcyon Dance Company in Canada, and was for nine years, Community Dance Artist in Residence at Theatr Clwyd in North Wales. He currently teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students in Dance, Theatre and Performance specializing in choreology and choreographic practices. Research interests include Choreographic practices and practitioner training informed by chiropractic and somatic practices in the context of mediating technology in live performance. Current postgraduate students research includes projects in site-specific choreography and the development of 21st Century Thai Khon dance.

"Considering Technology Integrated Dance Curriculum in Post-Secondary Dance Education" with Rachel Holdt In this research, I evaluate integrated technology as a fundamental part of curriculum in post-secondary dance education. Integrated technological curriculum considers the use of technology in the classroom, studio and stage as a tool for instruction of the whole dancer, and is essential in preparing the dancer for professional life after graduation. By providing powerful enrichment to students’ training through practical opportunities to enhance learning and development, integrating technology into dance curriculum is a vital part of being responsive to the needs of current and future students. Using specific case studies to support integration into the classroom, I assess the current and foreseeable role of technology in higher education. Also, incorporating evidence-based research from current and former educators in the field, I propose technology-integrated curriculum as a viable and fundable way to realign and renew the focus of post-secondary dance education. This research will articulate the role of integrated technology in post-secondary dance education, and proposes technology-integrated curriculum as a practical, yet necessary way to revitalize dance in the university. Moreover, I will also discuss integrated technology’s significance to viability, outcomes, and economics within post-secondary education.

RACHEL HOLDT is an emerging dance artist, choreographer, filmmaker, budding dance scholar and performance artist making work in academic and professional settings for the past six years. In the past few years, her practice has evolved to include technology for dance performance incorporating dance for film, gaming devices, projection, and software. She recently completed coursework at Mills College for her MFA in Dance Choreography and continues to create, perform, and research performance technologies. Her research investigates the role of integrated technology for dance education at the university level. Future research will be directed towards required, integrated technology pedagogy for post- secondary education. She is excited to be creating and presenting performance works and critical theory focused on the intersection of dance and technology, and will continue to develop work that includes and investigates this developing field.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

2:00 pm – 4:15 pm Virtual Presentations Studio 7 Series

"Dance and Cognition: Interdisciplinary Researches Leading to New Insights for Dance" with Fatima Wachowicz The purpose of this present work is to introduce and discuss the interdisciplinary field that involves Dance Studies and brain studies, such as Cognitive Psychology and Neuroscience. Interdisciplinary research can be useful for observing the need to extend the base of the Dance Studies through cognitive processes. We suggest thinking beyond traditional boundaries between academic disciplines, allowing something new to emerge in Dance in the 21st century. The question posed is how does knowledge from Cognitive Science provide new insights on ways of knowing and perceiving dance? The advanced tools of learning cerebral activities are shifting the brain and body understanding. For instance, the mirror neurons functions as empathy, motor learning, imitation, and the ability to understand the actions and intentions of others (Calvo-Merino et al. 2005, 2006; Haagendoorn, 2006; Rizzolatti et al 2001); the neural processes implicated in the execution, expression and observation of dance (Bläsing et al 2011). The approach builds on notions of cognition discussed by Matlin (2002), Calvo- Merino et al. (2006), Haagendoorn (2006), Stevens (2005), and the interdisciplinary works in Dance and Cognition suggested by Kirsh et al (2009) Cross & Ticini (2011) Ivar Hagendoorn & William Forsythe (2004), Scott DeLahunta & Wayne McGregor (2004), Unspoken Knowledge Project developed in Australia since 1999, for a collaborative research team (Grove, Stevens, McKechnie, 2005), and the performance Sintonia, presented in Brazil by Wachowicz (2011). Dance appears as the focus of several studies of cognitive sciences, and at the same time, artists gradually start to develop dance works involving brain studies.

FATIMA WACHOWICZ is a Brazilian artist. She is a PhD graduate (2009) from Federal University of Bahia/Brazil. During her doctoral studies she spent 12 months in Australia on a CAPES fellowship at the University of Western Sydney – MARCS Auditory Laboratories. She has been using experimental methods, viewpoints principles and contact improvisation to investigate cognitive processes in creating and performing dance. Over the last years, she participated in the WDA– Asian Pacific/2008/AU; WDA - Americas/2009/US; 2nd Annual International Conference on Visual and Performing Arts, Greece/2011; Performática: Foro Internacional de Danza Contemporánea y Artes de Movimiento, Mexico/2011; Performed in Mexico, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro/1st. Arte ao Vivo Rio ao Vivo/2011. Published on Dance Research, Dance and Neuroscience/2011 (Wachowicz, Stevens & Byron); and on The Visual and Performing Arts: An International Anthology: Volume II/2012 (Wachowicz & Stevens). Currently, she is serving as Professor at Federal University of Bahia, in Brazil.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

"Authenticity and Innovation: Nihon Buyo, Yosakoi Soran, and Taiko in Brazil" with Elizabeth Stela According to the 2010 census, Brazil is home to approximately 2.8 million individuals of Japanese descent, and has a rich culture of Japanese music and dance that dates back to the early days of immigration at the turn of the 20th Century. In the past ten years, the number of taiko, or Japanese drumming ensembles, has significantly increased throughout Brazil, including in Brazil’s North and Northeastern regions where very few Japanese descendants live. In addition, many young Brazilians now practice Yosakoi Soran, a dance originating in Hokkaido that mixes several genres including hip hop and folk dance. In Sao Paulo, children of Japanese immigrants practice Nihon Buyo, or Japanese Classical Dance. Using life history interviews with both Japanese and non-Japanese dancers and drummers, this presentation aims to show Japanese dance and music have grown in Brazil in the past ten years, and to document how “Japanese-ness” is performed, reproduced, and interpreted in Brazil at the beginning of the twenty first century. Larger themes, such the adoption of immigrant cultural expression by non-immigrants, dancers’ concern with presenting immigrant culture “correctly” and “authentically”, and the innovation of culturally specific dance will also be discussed.

ELIZABETH STELA holds an M.A. in Oral History from Columbia University, where she conducted a thesis project based on interviews with American taiko players and dancers from the Martha Graham Dance Company. In 2011, she conducted ethnographic research on Japanese music and dance in São Paulo through a grant from the Fulbright US Student Program. She has worked at the Brooklyn Arts Council on the project Folk Feet: Traditional Dance in Brooklyn, was a member of the Martha Graham Ensemble from 2005 to 2007, and is a Pilates instructor. She currently lives in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil where she works as a volunteer at Chagdud Gonpa – Brazil.

"Liberation from the State through Bodily Acts: The Dance of a Tibetan Lama in Exile" with Shan Chuah This presentation focuses on the solo performance of ‘Cham by the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa, a highly revered reincarnate lama of seventeen times, who currently resides in India as a refugee. His seemingly ironic act of dancing despite the wave of self-immolations sweeping across Tibetans upholds the Buddhist teachings of non-violence and lends weight to the significance of dance in the Tibetan ritual. ‘Cham, dictates a transcendental experience where both the act of dancing and observing is elevated beyond the senses to the point it liberates the mind. The notion of liberation, however has come to haunt Tibetans not only religiously but also politically as they struggle to define for themselves what it means to be liberated as a Buddhist and a Tibetan. They look up to their spiritual leaders as living Buddhas and in the case of the Karmapa, the emanation of the great bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara. Every action of the Karmapa thus speaks volume to the Tibetan communities living inside and outside of Tibet. The significance of his performance extends beyond the mere act of appearing on stage; it carves a milestone in the history of the Kagyu lineage in Tibetan Buddhism as well as a political landmark for the Tibetan refugees living outside of Tibet. If people’s bodies are the finest scale of political space, it is the more important to address the primacy of the Tibetan bodies and what they are engaged in amidst their plight. By taking ‘Cham as the vantage point of a deeper inquiry into the Tibetan situation that continues to erupt beneath public attention, I hope to be reveal new insights into the relationship between body and the state through performance in a religious context.

SHANNY RANN attended the dance programs at Simon Fraser University School of Contemporary Arts in Canada and National Academy of Arts, Heritage and Culture in Malaysia. She danced with Balletbase, Noise Performance House, and Limitless Productions. Shanny is completing her MA in Dance Studies at York University for her research on Tibetan sacred dances. Her findings on dance are collected at www.dpdance.com.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

3:30 pm - 4:50 pm "Connecting Inside and Outside" Judith R Marcuse Studio Series

"The Red Shoes Project: The Art of Empowerment through Ballet in the 21st Century" with Joan Van Dyke & Carole (Tina) J. Lewis "The Red Shoes Project" uses the collaborative process of choreography, poetry, film, and literature to inspire the audience while focusing on the empowerment of the cast members. This approach to choreography serves as a means of embodying timeless gender and societal issues while providing contemporary and alternative solutions using dance as a venue to alert and connect the cast and audience to the current developmental traps in today’s society. Topics addressed include addiction, finding one’s voice, conformity, creativity, self-confidence and motivation. Two original ballets, “The Red Shoes” and “Sealskin/Soulskin,” were performed in 2010-2011. The ballets were inspired by stories from “Women Who Run with the Wolves” written by Jungian psychologist Clarissa Pinkola Estés. The on-going project is steeped in the historically rich collaborative nature of ballet while adding a contemporary spin to the inspiration/motivation for the performance. Prior to setting the choreography for each scene, the cast was given an opportunity to respond to the issues presented through surveys, drawings, and discussion. The choreography was then set on the dancers, allowing them to embody the characters and issues addressed in a safe and controlled setting under the direction of the choreographer and psychologist. Through this process the cast members took on the problem of the character through movement, and safely assimilated and performed the solution. The final performance illustrated these issues and included audience participation to arrive at new and hopeful resolutions to the ever-present problems in today’s society.

Ms. VAN DYKE is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theater and Dance, at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), resident choreographer for IUP Dance Theater. She served as Vice President of Dance for the Pennsylvania State Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (PSAHPERD) and is a member of the International Dance Association. Ms. Van Dyke was awarded Outstanding Professional of the Year in 2006 & 2009 and University Dance Teacher of the Year award for the Eastern District for PSAHPERD. She was appointed ballet master to Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts (PGSA). Van Dyke was the invited guest choreographer for “Darsa/Farsa” which premiered at the opening of the 59th anniversary of the prestigious Dubrovnik International Festival, Croatia. Van Dyke was an invited presenter for the 6th International Theater of Change, summer festival in Athens, Greece. She holds the title for the Distinguished Faculty award in the Creative Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

CAROLE J. LEWIS (TINA) is a licensed Psychologist in private practice since 1991. The "Red Shoes Project" is the first of several planned in collaboration with Joan VanDyke. Their intent is to enhance the psychological depth of an artistic production and enroll the ballet dancers in a deeper understanding of and personal involvement in a performance. In "The Red Shoes Project", dancers could explore meaning and participate in changing or extending interpretations through an active collaborative process between themselves, the choreographer, and the psychologist.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

"Somatic Memory, Audience Engagement, and the Potential for New Ways of Viewing Dance" with Rebecca Weber Though memory may be primarily thought of as a cognitive action, recent studies assert the importance of body memory. The phenomenology of implicit body memory influences our everyday existence; our somatic memory is enacted in our activities and informs our experiences without our conscious awareness. Other research suggests that audiences are engaged primarily through kinaesthetic empathy, suggesting that their own bodily memories are at play in art appreciation. What does this mean for dance audiences? With the rising popularity of Somatics in dance, more importance is placed on the movers’ subjective experiences and individual, authentic physical investigation over an external aesthetic. Can this experience be harnessed to facilitate more meaningful audience engagement in a concert dance setting? Creating works which engage dancers’ live investigation of their own somatic histories allows for authentic performances. Their lived experience and engagement with their own somatic memories may, in turn, spark audiences’ own memories, which--although unique and individual--can be relational. Audiences may resonate with these performances on a deeper level than that of the aesthetic values represented in more codified choreography. This personal engagement leads to a plurality in perception of the event, both in what is being experienced simultaneously by performers and audience members as the art event unfolds. Plurality of experience may facilitate audience autonomy, opening the door to a more somatic, nonjudgmental and pluralistic mode of engaging with concert dance, offering options which veer away from the role of a traditional, judgmental critic and more toward kinaesthetically present witness.

REBECCA WEBER is always asking questions and investigating where the body meets the brain—where dance and Somatics intersect. She is an Adjunct Professor in Dance at Temple University, where she recently earned an MFA in Dance and a Teaching in Higher Education Certification. Rebecca holds a Master’s degree with distinction in Dance & Somatic Well-Being from the University of Central Lancashire, in Preston, England, where she served as an Associate Lecturer. As director of Somanaut Dance, her choreography has been presented at various venues in Philadelphia, New York, Georgia, Delaware, and the UK. She is a contributing artist with Movement Brigade and performs for many independent choreographers in Philadelphia. Her research has been published in the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices. Becca is a Co-Editor for the forthcoming book, Dance, Somatics and Spiritualities: Contemporary Sacred Narratives and an Associate Editor for the journal Dance, Movement and Spiritualities. She is also a contributing writer and dance critic at ThINKingDANCE.net. In short, she loves to play with people, space, ideas, and words.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

"Corporeality and Code: Intersections of Dancing Performance and Sensing Technology” with Sybil Huskey The impact of digital technology on dance choreography and performance will continue to evolve with the increasing sophistication and proliferation of devices and software. The ways in which dance can be transformed within the computerized paradigm requires ongoing examination and discussion since it affects the creation, performance and dissemination of the art form. In the paper, philosophic and aesthetic concerns about how the technology alters the creation and perception of the dance will be viewed in historic and contemporary contexts. Are these technology-enhanced choreographic works simply breaking boundaries as modern dance as been doing since its inception? Does the infusion of technology detract from the corporeality of the dancer and the dance? Does the addition of technology perhaps create a new genre of dance that must be viewed through a different lens? Focusing on three dance pieces choreographed as part of the Dance.Draw project, funded by a National Science Foundation/CreativeIT grant, the presentation will trace the research questions, creative methodologies, collaborative challenges, and production outcomes during the duration of the project. Video excerpts of the selected works will demonstrate the use of real-time sensing technology to connect the dancers’ movements to the kinetics of the projected visualizations while offering insights into the creative/performative/viewing experiences of the choreographer, dancers, technologists and viewers.

SYBIL HUSKEY, Professor at the University of North Carolina/Charlotte, has recently been a co-principal investigator on National Science Foundation/CreativeIT grant exploring dance and technology. Her choreographed works have explored real time interactivity between dancers and visualizations. She is one of the inventors of the “Choreographer’s Notebook,” a specialized software for video collaboration, which is under patent review. Sybil was a Visiting Professor at Kingston University in London (2004-05) and the recipient of Fulbright Senior Scholar Awards in New Zealand (2002) and Finland (1983-84). She has held positions at Cornell University, Arizona State University, Winthrop University and served as President of the American College Dance Festival Association. She has performed throughout the USA and as guest of the US government at the Cervantino Festival in Mexico. Her choreographic work has been commissioned by the Universities of Wisconsin/Madison, Illinois, and Utah and funded by the NEA, corporate, state and local agencies.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

11:30 am - 1:00 pm "Involve/Evolve Education" Judith R Marcuse Studio Series

"Revolving Questions on Dance Development in Brazilian Reality" with Alba Vieira & Lucia Matos (virtual presentation) The Brazilian culture is well known, nationally and abroad, for the integration of dance in many of its traditions and customs besides its contemporary production. Despite this fact, only in 1996 the Brazil’s Ministry of Education – through its National Parameters in Arts – indicated that dance as curricular content has an important role to play in the holistic education of K-12 students. Furthermore, in the last two decades, many Dance Undergraduate majors have been created in Brazilian universities, including a dance teaching preparation program and baccalaureate in Dance at Federal University of Vicosa/UFV (2001), and the first Master in Dance program at the Federal University of Bahia/UFBA (2006). Yet, for many years, dance in our country has faced many challenges, particularly related to popular misconceptions still exist regarding Dance as a field of knowledge. All these facts have oriented the evolving process of dance education, artistic proposals and research in many ways. Through our collaborative research, we establish a dialogue from our own experience and respective studies as dance professors and researchers (from UFBA and UFV, both Brazilian public universities), and also in dialogue with others’ Brazilian researchers who have published, in the last years, on the following topics: intersections of cultural and educational dance policies, the approaches of dance from the curricula of universities and schools, body and dance´s statements present in dance education at schools. Our aim it to create zones of uncertainty (Santos, 2008) and potential questions that allow us to analyze micro and macro aspects of these realities.

ALBA VIEIRA, PhD, is Associate Dance Professor at Federal University of Vicosa, Brazil, author of book chapters and papers in Brazil and abroad, the organizer of the digital book “Education for the Arts” (2010), and the co-writer of the Dance Report and Recommendations by the “Experts on Art Education in Latin America and the Caribbean – Unesco”. Her work has been presented in several venues including NDEO, WDA/DaCi, and CORD conferences, and has been published in several journals including Dance Therapy, Dance Current Selected Research, Possible Dialogues, and Scene. She teaches undergraduate courses on dance composition, dance history and somatics, and a graduate course on dance and education. Since 2012, she has served as a National Representative for DaCi and a member elected to the Director Board of the National Associations of Dance Researchers (ANDA). She has been coordinating several community and research projects looking at embodied dance education.

LUCIA MATOS, PhD, is coordinator of the Masters in Dance and professor at the Federal University of Bahia/UFBA. She is co-leader of the dance research group Corporeographic and Educational Processes in Dance. Her research focus is dance education; public policy for dance; and culture, body, and difference. She was a representative at the Sectoral Dance Council of the Federal Ministry of Culture (2006-2012) and worked as a Dance Director of the Cultural Foundation of the State of Bahia (2007-January 2009). She has taught dance in the Bahia Public School System and private studios, and chaired the 2003 9th DaCi Conference. She was at the Manager Group of Red Sudamericana de Danza (2010-2012), is a member of the WDA-Americas, and collaborates with the Network on Education and Training. She published the chapter “Writing in the Flesh: Body, Identity, Disability and Difference” in Shapiro book´s Dance in a world of change (2008) and the book “Dance and difference: mapping multiple bodies dancing” (2012). She is editor of Dance Journal (PPGDança/UFBA, 2012). She has published a number of articles in journals and conference proceedings in Brazil and abroad.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

"Crafting Instruction in an Entholinguistically Diverse Dance Technique Classroom" with Jamie Johnson There is a growing trend of globalization in higher education. International students and their dependents contributed $21.8 billion to the American economy in tuition and living expenses last year. Classrooms are becoming more diverse as greater numbers of international students and English language learners are being admitted into universities every year. As the global economy of business filters into schools, classrooms cannot be homogenized into one-size-fits-all classifications. Dance educators of the 21st century perform a unique role in acclimatizing foreign students to the university setting. This presentation will explore how globalization comes into play in the dance technique classroom and will propose recommendations for crafting learning in dance studio environments when language and cultural barriers exist. While many resources discuss the concerns of teachers who are integrating native and non-native speakers in their classrooms, most information addresses lecture-style settings. Adapting these recommendations into the dance studio can be a challenging endeavor. Using my classroom as a laboratory and by applying information gathered in investigative interviews with students, I have experimented with strategies to address the most pressing challenges I face with my highly diverse students. Dance educators will come away from this presentation with effective methods to instruct students with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds as a means to ensure student engagement and learning in the dance technique classroom.

JAMIE JOHNSON is currently pursuing her MFA at the University of Washington in Dance. She has had the opportunity to teach Introduction to Dance, Ballet, and assist with Teaching Methods at the university level. A seasoned performer, Johnson toured internationally with MOMIX in addition to serving as dance captain and teaching company class. Previously, she was a principal dancer with Boulder Ballet, Ohio Dance Theatre and Ballet Pacifica, and also danced with Sacramento Ballet. Graduating cum laude, Ms. Johnson holds a BFA with a major in Ballet and a BA with a major in English from the University of Utah. She has been on faculty and taught master classes throughout the United States–– notably at Interlochen Arts Camp, the University of Wyoming, and Sacramento Ballet's Summer Intensive. Her choreography has been performed by Boulder Ballet II, Interlochen Dance Ensemble and West Texas A&M University Dance Ensemble. www.jamieajohnson.com

Thursday, August 1, 2013

"Theorizing the Physical: Realizing the Jump from Private Sector to Higher Education" with Katie Chilton & Pegge Vissicaro Undergraduate dance study involves more than just training the body. It also explores how, why, where, when, and by whom dance styles have evolved. This critical information deepens understanding about various movement forms as well as connects dance with broader socio-cultural, geo-political, and historical contexts. Kinesiological, anatomical, and somatic awareness provides yet another layer of dance knowledge. Value placed on theorizing and contextualizing the physical dance experience is evident by degree requirements across post-secondary institutions, while the opposite seems to be true in the private sector. The question of whether exposure to theory and context improves students’ transition into tertiary level dance programs warrants investigation. Creation of a research study to explore this topic stems from one researcher’s personal struggles entering a university setting and feeling disadvantaged because her work in private studios only focused on movement training. Now as a MFA candidate and graduate teaching assistant, Katie recognizes the responsibility and challenge to prepare students to realize the jump from private sector to higher education. That recognition motivates development of a collaborative pilot-project that queries private sector dance professionals from a specific United States region in which one researcher has had extensive direct experience. The research design includes semi-structured interviews with numerous studio owners, teachers and coaches that address perceptions about the importance of including socio-cultural and geopolitical knowledge as well as history and science to teach movement classes. Besides data analysis, this scholarly presentation offers insights gained to benefit dance education in the 21st century.

KATIE CHILTON, originally from San Diego, CA, is an MFA candidate at Arizona State University. She has received her BA in Dance Performance and Choreography from California State University Fullerton. Throughout San Diego, Katie has performed as an apprentice with The PGK Project Dance Company, along with performing in San Francisco with Michael Mayes Dance Company. Currently, she is co-creating a community dance piece for Mesa, AZ. Spark! Festival of Creativity, and choreographing for the premier of the play Soot and Spit.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

2:00 pm - 3:20 pm "Defining the Cultural Self" Studio 7 Series

"Contemporary Dance "In" and "Of" Africa: Shaping New Terrains of Dance in the 21st Century" with Joan D. Frosch Contemporary visual and performing arts have surged alongside Africa’s economic expansion in the last decade. Not unlike their contemporaries in commerce, innovative African choreographers live and work in the paradox of the present. Marshaling forces reminiscent of the “world music” explosion, in the late 1990’s, intrepid choreographers penetrated the international arts market to speak their truth and claim mobility in the global currents of ideas. However, the works of some artists were criticized as not “African enough,” revealing outsiders’ ignorance of today’s Africa rather than artists’ failure to explore their contemporary lives. Riveted by the first-voice accounts of choreographers’ “dances” with the demands of the global arts market in a series of three artistic projects, I have examined the transformative potential of selected artists’ work from their points of view and also their views on the specters that threaten their work. Persistent western native perceptions position the west as the center and definer of progress and foster a premodern construct of a monolithic and timeless “Africa.” While historically deployed to justify the slave trade, the 21st century version of this construct can make an oxymoron of “African experimentalist” or allow for the facile dismissal of African choreographic innovation as mere simulacra. Choreographers’ responses to these market conditions—often theorized in both dialogue and choreography—not only formulate a broad-based and urgent counter-discourse on contemporary African life but shape new terrains of dance in the 21st century.

Dr. JOAN FROSCH, professor, School of Theatre and Dance, University of Florida and director of the Center for World Arts (1996-present) is a 2012-2015 University of Florida Research Foundation Professor. In 2011, Dr. Frosch received the INPUT Producer’s Fellowship for her production of NORA (2008), commissioned by EMPAC DANCE MOViES (RPI). Directed by Alla Kovgan and David Hinton, NORA is broadcast by PBS (USA) and ARTE (FR). Dr. Frosch directed and produced Movement (R)Evolution Africa: a story of an art form in four acts (2009) a documentary feature broadcast by ZDF (DE) and distributed in English by Documentary Educational Resources (der.org) and in French, along with NORA, by Doc.Net. Dr. Frosch analyzed the Africa Contemporary Arts Consortium (TACAC) model for global arts exchange in her recent publication Building Enduring Partnerships (2011). She is at work on the production of a 3D cinematic portrait of American dance icon, Merce Cunningham.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

"Dancing our Politics: Contemporary Issues in Northwest Coast First Nations Dance" with Mique’l Dangeli As a life-long dancer and teacher of Tsimshian First Nation dance, I feel strongly that the dance practices of Northwest Coast First Nations people are overlooked by dance studies scholars, and those in related fields, due to a commonly held assertion that our work is not critically engaged with current issues. This misconception continues to marginalize Northwest Coast First Nations choreographers by privileging Aboriginal dance forms that are considered to be “more” contemporary. Through my research with Northwest Coast First Nations dance groups in Vancouver BC, I will demonstrate that these complex and diverse practices disrupts this depoliticized caricature. At the center of my research are “protocols,” an umbrella term for the laws of Indigenous Nations on the Northwest Coast. Dance groups maintain hereditary rights to perform in ways that assert histories, ceremonial privileges, and territorial rights that are specific to their Nations, communities, and families. They have a responsibility to a very particular type of representation guided by their adherence to protocols regardless of the context or audience. Expressing sovereignty through the assertion of protocol is not moored to Western legal definitions rather it is self-defined and articulated through indigenous Nationhood and the values, principles, customs, and epistemologies thereof. In this paper, I will explore some of the complex negotiations and assertions of protocol that are integral to the creation of new songs and dances performed by dance groups and their engagement with pressing political issues.

MIQUE'L DANGELI was born and raised on the only Indian Reserve in the state of Alaska. She is of the Tsimshian Nation of Metlakatla Indian Community. Mique’l is currently a PhD Candidate in the department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at UBC. She specializes in Northwest Coast First Nations Art History. Mique’l served her community for eight years as their Museum Director. She is a curator, author, dancer, choreographer, and co-leader of the Git Hayetsk Dancers. She has choreographed a large body of dances for newly composed songs among her nation as well as created new dances for ancient songs whose dance has been lost during their cultural oppression.

Friday, August 2, 2013

11:30 am - 12:50 pm "Agency in Training" Studio 7 Series

"Agency, Health, and Transformation: Contemporary Feminist Approaches for Female Dancers in Training and Performance" with Lisa Sandlos What can contemporary feminist approaches offer to the objective of enhancing female dancers’ agency and health in the twenty-first century? My presentation explores the potential for feminism to be utilized as a conceptual tool in the training and performance practices of female dancers. Although we have seen more women become directors and choreographers in recent decades, the reality in ballet and contemporary dance is that gender imbalance persists (Gibney 2010; Stinson 2005). In these and in many other dance genres, the majority of dancers are female while a disproportionate amount of creative and decision-making power is assumed by the minority of males (Dacko 2004; Gunther Pugh 2011; Looseleaf 2011). This raises questions about female agency, self-determination, and self-esteem in dance. My presentation is theoretically informed by issues and debates in the fields of Gender and Women’s Studies as they intersect with the material realities of female dancers. I assert that contemporary feminism is situated to aid female dancers in re-evaluating potentially unhealthy choices they may make about their appearance, about diet or other measures taken to maintain low body weight, about how they interpret movement, about injuries, about accepting sexually objectifying roles, or about doing what they are told without questioning the risk. Insights from feminism about such issues as bodies, identities, gendered norms, and sexualities can empower dancers, individually and collectively, to carve new paths for themselves that allow for greater well-being, self-confidence, creativity, and leadership.

LISA SANDLOS has been a faculty member of York University’s Department of Dance for over thirteen years. She is currently pursuing her PhD in the School of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at York. Sandlos holds an M.A. in Dance and certificates in Laban Movement Analysis from the Laban Institute of Movement Studies and Université du Québec à Montréal. She has taught modern dance and creative movement to all ages and levels for over two decades, working extensively in public schools through the Ontario Arts Council’s Artists in Education program, the National Ballet of Canada’s Creating Dances program, the Toronto District School Board’s Drama/Dance Project and the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Learning through the Arts. Sandlos’ current research focuses on hypersexualization of young female dancers, and the impacts of this trend on dance education, on public perceptions of dance, and on girls’ psychological and social development.

Friday, August 2, 2013

"Facilitating Technical Skill Development for Dancers with Physical Disabilities: Evolving Pedagogic Practice in Physically Integrated Dance Training" with Mark Tomsaic & Mary Verdi-Fletcher Physically integrated dance training (dance training for people with and without physical disabilities) has traditionally centered on creative movement, improvisation, and contact improvisation. But what of the dancer with a disability who wishes to pursue technical skill development in modern dance, tap, ballet, hip-hop, or any other dance form? An increased number of dance studios and educational institutions have been made architecturally accessible; however, access to applied dance training practices for people with disabilities remains critically lacking. This presentation examines how research combining the physiological parameters of wheelchair users, the artistic process of movement, spatial and temporal translation, in-depth interviews of current and former professional dancers from a leading physically integrated dance company and consultation with a physical therapist facilitate the development of dance training practices which enhance technical skill development in the physically integrated dance setting while providing curricular guidance for teachers of students with disabilities.

MARK TOMASIC, MFA, has worked extensively in the field of physically integrated dance as an educator, choreographer and dancer with the Dancing Wheels Company & School. He currently serves as Artistic Advisor to the Company and travels nationally and internationally to teach physically integrated dance to students and professionals alike. Mark is the author of Physically Integrated Dance: The Dancing Wheels Comprehensive Guide for Teachers, Choreographers and Students of Mixed Abilities (2012), a pioneering training manual that bridges artistic and scientific disciplines in the creation of an inclusive modern dance curriculum for students with and without disabilities. Mark holds an MFA in Dance from the University of California, Irvine and a BFA in Ballet from the University of Cincinnati. He is currently a full-time faculty member of the Dance Department at Santa Monica College. www.marktomasic.com

MARY VERDI-FLETCHER is President/Founding Artistic Director and principal dancer of The Dancing Wheels Company & School (Cleveland, OH). Born with spina bifida, Mary founded the Company in 1980 as a means for people with disabilities to have full and equal access to the world of dance. As the first professional wheelchair dancer in the United States, Ms. Verdi-Fletcher has danced many lead roles and has had the distinct honor to work with numerous distinguished choreographers. Mary was a featured performer on the ABC television special, Christopher Reeve: A Celebration of Hope. In 2001, The Ford Foundation named Mary one of 20 semifinalists from over 3000 international nominees for the “Leadership for a Changing World Award.” Mary was the recipient of a 2007 Emmy Award for hosting WNEO/WEAO PBS Television "Shortcuts to Happiness “and a 2010 Athena Award Finalist. www.dancingwheels.org

Friday, August 2, 2013

3:30 pm - 4:50 pm "Exploring Creative Possibilities" Studio 7 Series

"What is dance?: The body as an object of self-reflection in ‘beautiful thing 2’" with Arushi Singh ‘beautiful thing 2’ positions the body almost as an architectural object in an empty space… The physicality of the body becomes abstracted over time, till the spaces it holds and moves become more present. The performance remains constantly on the edge of ‘performing’ and not. In moments playing with the body’s potential to grow in space, at others for it to dissolve into space. It meticulously deconstructs and presents the study of movement mechanics until we are forced to ask the question ‘what is dance?” The above text is from the introductory note of a dance piece called ‘beautiful thing 2’, choreographed by dancer Padmini Chettur from Chennai, India. A critical analysis of the piece will illustrate how dancers are questioning the Indian movement systems/aesthetics they are trained in to create their own contemporary explorations, which experiment with concepts of space and time in order to imagine dance making that attempts to problematize the post-colonial, nationalist aesthetic of classical dances in India. Chettur presents a displacement, disorientation and dissolution of the body in space. Moving slowly in time is a skill that foregrounds the labor of the body. Slowing down time acts as a disruption in the event of performance and positions the act of viewing to be as arduous as the process of choreography. In order to create a new aesthetic, which is more self-reflexive, she fosters a reordering of space and time that redefines the dynamics of dance.

ARUSHI SINGH is presently enrolled as an M. Phil Candidate at the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. At the Department, her research includes mapping the different spaces in which dance exists in the city of New Delhi to decipher what forms of dance are visible at the level of practice and performance (i.e. what ways is dance part of the everyday lives of citizens? What is the new emerging discourse of dance that shapes the aesthetics of a form, its reception, patronage and placement in a particular space?) Additionally, she works with The Gati Dance Forum, an independent arts organization that works in the field of contemporary dance in India. She is the program researcher on one of its ongoing projects called Working in Research, Advocacy, and Policy (W.R.A.P) that is working on revitalization of performance infrastructure in the city of New Delhi.

"The Rite of Spring, the Theremin, and 21st Century Dance: Questioning and Challenging Dance" with Lisa A. Fusillo During this 100th anniversary year of “The Rite of Spring”, it has never been more evident that the processes of creative invention challenge artists to find points of departure and/or points of reference from previous ideas, inventions, and expressions. Additionally, rapidly changing technologies and reconsiderations of accepted traditions radically impact the now seemingly limitless realm of creative possibilities, providing springboards for the new century of dance. This paper will examine “The Rite of Spring” and the Theremin as two historical creations which still provide new engagements and involvements that “open questions for dance’s future” and challenge 21st century dance artists.

Friday, August 2, 2013

A century after its creation, “The Rite of Spring” continues to influence and engage artists in dance, music, and interactive/multi-media performances which use technology developed by Leon Theremin, inventor of the first electronic instrument the “Theremin," and creator of the first electronic-based performance art. Analyzing archival literature, materials, and current performances, this presentation will explore how “The Rite of Spring” collaboration and the Theremin changed the world of creative invention and performance art; how both impacted dance into the 21st century; and how these works are catalysts for new engagements, spawning questions that redefine dance and directions for dance in the future. These two points of departure - the collaborative work that changed the art world, and the beginning of electronic interactive media – can be used as teaching tools and will provide an historical base for discussions of dance as a moving question in the 21st century context.

LISA FUSILLO began her professional ballet training at the Washington School of Ballet in Washington, D.C. and later trained in New York, London, Russia and Denmark. She holds the Professional Teaching Diploma from the Royal Ballet School in London and certifications from American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum and the New York City Ballet Education Department. Her choreography has been presented in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Amsterdam, Paris, Thailand, Taiwan, and at the International Ballet Competition in Jackson, MS. Her affiliation with WDA began when she was teaching has at the National Institute of the Arts in Taiwan (now Taipei National University of the Arts). Fusillo is a Fulbright Scholar, has published articles in dance history, and was awarded four NEA grants for reconstruction of masterworks in American dance. Currently, she is Professor of Dance and serves as head of the Department of Dance at the University of Georgia. "Playing the Blues: Resonance and Connection through Critical Dance Pedagogy" with Seonagh Odhiambo What is valued in a global modern dance aesthetics? At the center of debates in dance is culture, but in what ways are significant cultural influences identified and defined in contemporary modern dance? The creative process and performance discussed here, arrived at through an artistic collaboration between dancers and musicians, draws attention to these questions. Movement was created through guided improvisations. Valuing dancers as collaborators, the choreographer used Boalian theatre techniques to engage their “thinking bodies.” Dancers were asked to evoke imagery related to their political and intellectual perceptions of questions related to civil rights issues. The choreographer worked alongside composer and multi-woodwind instrumentalist Bennie Maupin, whose history traces back to jazz era New York and Detroit. His distinct sound is heard on albums with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, among others, and his history as a composer and band leader is also rich. In autumn 2012, while Bennie was composing original scores inspired by dancers’ movement, the choreography process provoked a dialogue about jazz and civil rights histories in the United States. To further explore this topic, the choreographer showed dancers and musicians historical photographs, footage of the Savoy Ballroom, led meaningful conversations, and explored energy, flow and reflection around topics of oppression and transformation. In this way, dancers reconstructed their relationships to the subject, considering how a beauty of jazz evolved out of painful circumstances. Photographs of the movement express painful and joyful realities, universal and specific experiences. Dancers’ and musicians’ perspectives are quoted in slides and video.

SEONAGH ODHIAMBO defines dance as a point of contact through which ideas, inspiration, movement, and meaning travel. Interested in collaborations with live music, Odhiambo founded Asava Dance, based in Los Angeles. With her partners in music and dance she approaches a choreography process that is collaborative and activist. In this way, she lays the foundation for a somatically-oriented critical pedagogy and dance theory. Her scholarly research stems from descriptions of dancers’ experiential learning in the creative process and offers a perspective on the body as a zone of critical praxis. Odhiambo’s theoretical reflections in the area of liberatory pedagogy radically expand the areas of dance theory and dance education. A Fisher Center Fellow, Odhiambo received a PhD in Dance from Temple University. She is now an Assistant Professor of Dance at CSULA where she teaches advanced theory in dance, choreography and world performance as Director of the Graduate Program.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

10:00 am - 11:20 am "Engaging Technology and Teaching" Studio 7 Series

"DIGI-SITE: Creating Spaces of Engagement through Dance and Technology" with Scott Martin The purpose of this presentation is to identify and discuss the opportunities that virtual and responsive spaces offer to dance in developing engagements with perceptual awareness, embodiment, and interactivity. In this project, the eleven collaborators and I investigated different methods of integrating digital image projection and responsive computer systems into dance spaces and explored how these environments allowed us to develop techniques of engaging, creating, experiencing, and communicating movement and idea. For the purposes of this paper, I will refer to these contexts as “digi- sites.” These explorations were part of a series of summer workshops which culminated in an evening length dance concert. The works presented created new contexts for both performers and audience members to experience dance by integrating technologies that were responsive to improvisational scores collaboratively created with the dancers.

SCOTT MARTIN is an inter-disciplinary artist, educator, and administrator whose research and creative practice explores how new potentials for movement, space, time, and relationships are experienced when engaged via technology by both expanding boundaries and providing alternate perspectives for how the ideas and meanings within works are inter- related. Scott has performed across the country for over 20 years as a dancer, singer, actor, and interdisciplinary artist with companies such as Anna Meyers & Dancers, Seattle Contemporary Ballet, Village Theater, Daniel McCusker Dancers, Seattle Opera, and Satellite Dance. He received his MFA in Dance from Texas Woman’s University and currently works as an Independent Artist, Arts Consultant, Co-Chair of the Support and Development Network at the World Dance Alliance, Academic Affairs Specialist at TWU, and member of Satellite Dance based in Denton, TX. www.scottmartindesign.com

Saturday, August 3, 2013

"Dance Education in the 21st Century: Going Gangnam Style?" with Zihao Li In this paper, Dr. Li explores the impact that technology has made on different models/trends of teaching dance in the 21st century. It is evident that with the advancement of technology, dance education has entered into a new era. A wide range of possibilities and potentials could be reached when dance teaching methodologies and curriculum development adapt to new challenges and opportunities. Yet, as dance educators, how do we use technology effectively in dance education and to what extent should we rely on technology? Do we use it as a platform to convey what we know and what we favor or do we simply use it as a free multimedia library? Is dance being used to promote technology such as the advertisements of Apple products or create superstars such as the You Tube’ sensation – PSY’s Gangnam style? Or are they promoting dance? Li considers technology as a tool that can never replace the intrinsic and extrinsic value derived from the embodiment experience when individuals actively participate in dancing, teaching dance, and making dance. Li talks about different teaching models and looks at current research to generate discussions about the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of using technology in teaching, sharing, and promoting dance. Through a multimedia presentation platform (Prezi), Li shares his views, beliefs, and philosophies in teaching dance in the new millennium.

Dr. ZIHAO LI is a dancer, educator, and researcher based in Toronto, Canada. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts ‘Honours’ in Hong Kong, a Bachelor of Education, and a Masters of Arts from York University. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. As a dancer, he has performed with several world renowned dance companies including the German Hamburg Ballet. As an educator, he has taught at different institutions and professional dance companies including Beijing Dance Academy, Liaoning Ballet, Tokyo Arts Center, York University, University of Toronto, and University of Wisconsin – Madison. As a scholar, he frequently presents at a variety of conferences, contributes to different publications and belongs to interdisciplinary research groups in Canada and worldwide. As a writer, his book: Endangered Species: High School Males in Dance is currently under review by the University of Toronto Press.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

3:30 pm - 4:50 pm "Perceptions and Embodiment" Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio Series

"How/Can Dance Participate in the Production of Virtual Space?" with Elise Knudson Dance scholars from Randy Martin to Danielle Goldman make strong arguments for dance as a practice that enables new readings on political, social, and philosophical phenomenon. Dance's unique perspective emanates from its materiality as an embodied art-form that embraces both the ephemerality of performance and the blood and sweat of concrete being. Because of this ability to dwell in a place that bridges the ephemeral and the concrete, dance holds a special kind of insight into the fluid ways in which practices create structures and structures house practices. These insights can be useful in understanding how embodied social structures emerge and shift. In the 21st century, the Internet and the devices that provide access to it are rapidly restructuring how we create and navigate our social identities. The seemingly unrestricted ability of the Internet to store and distribute information quickly and cheaply has the apparent effect of dissolving distances, borders, and time, creating a new kind of space-time with potential for participation irrespective of location, class, race, sexuality gender, or ability. The proliferation of online dance video including bedroom booty dances, studio improvisations, competitions, and professionally produced music video demonstrate the power of online dance to attract a level of participation that concert dance might envy. What cyberspace means for embodied forms of communication is still up for debate. Informed by Barbara Browning’s "I’m Trying to Reach You", Katherine Hale’s "How We Became Post-Human", Henri Lefebvre’s "The Production of Social Space" and my own empirical research, this paper explores if/how dance can participate in such a space without compromising its ontology. In other words, it attempts to address the question; what can a virtual body do?

ELISE KNUDSON is a dance artist living and working in New York City. Originally inspired by Nikolais technique, her training and interests have shifted towards improvisation in performance. She is a cofounder of Antititled Dialogues, a collective platform for monthly improvisational performance. Prior to her resurgence of interest in improvisation, Elise created over thirty long and short works which have been presented nationally and internationally. She recently earned an MFA in dance through the Hollins University ADF/MFA low residency program. Elise has danced with Risa Jaroslow, Jody Oberfelder, Noemie LaFrance, Koosil-ja/DanceKumiko, and most recently Tiffany Mills Dance Company.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

"Exploring the Politics of Affect in a Traditional Fijian Dance" with Evadne Kelly In her chapter “Being a Body in a Cultural Way” Sally Ness examines how culturally focused dance research is currently engaging with a new trajectory of embodied research that moves beyond perception to explore non-present realities of the body including past histories and memories, imaginings and future potentials (Thomas and Ahmed, Eds. 2004). These insights reverberate in this paper as I explore the political implications of affect (not simply individually felt categorical emotions such as happiness or sadness but relational feelings/sensations of intensity) in meke, a “traditional” Fijian song- dance. Specifically, I focus on affects of kindness, generosity and love in a meke performance in which I participated while conducting fieldwork in Fiji in 2012. I argue that these particular feelings emerged as a way of dealing with anxieties and expectations involving religion, nationalism and tourism in Fiji. Mekhe Ni Loloma or “song-dance of kindly love” touches histories of missionary influence, colonial rule and the embodied and imagined memories of the participants. I focus on this meke experience as a way to critically analyze agency in the body by exploring how movement-based affects generate political potentialities by un-fixing what has been taken for granted conceptually. In line with Ness’ insights about current trends in dance research, this paper seeks to illuminate new points from which to consider the non-present realities of embodiment in dance research.

EVADNE KELLY is a PhD candidate in Dance Studies at York University. The focus of her research is on the sensory and affective dimensions of identity negotiation in the performances of traditional Fijian dance. She received her Master’s Degree from the department of anthropology at McMaster University and her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Toronto where she double majored in Anthropology and Equity Studies, and minored in Women Studies. She has written, presented, and published on topics relevant to the fields of anthropology and dance studies with a particular focus on topics of time, memory, and affective experience. Evadne worked with Dancetheatre David Earle as a core dancer for 14 years. She has performed works by renowned Canadian choreographers and directors including D.A. Hoskins, Patricia Beatty, Julia Sasso, and Ross Manson. In the winter of 2011, Evadne taught fourth year modern dance technique as part- time faculty at York University.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

"The Spine of Mother Earth: Dance Collaboration Utilizing Technology Photo by Jeanette Kotowich & Traditional Teachings - Peru & Canada" with Starr Muranko Choreographer Starr Muranko shares her inter-disciplinary research project exploring the relationship between the geography of the Andes mountain range and traditional and contemporary Indigenous dance movement in the Americas. This metaphor of the “Spine of Mother Earth” is a name given by the Indigenous Elders in South America to the Mountain ranges that span from the base in Argentina, through the Americas and ending at the tip of Alaska. Through the use of an online broadcasting channel during a simultaneous rehearsal in Canada and Peru, the artists have the ability to transcend the limitations of time, space, and geographical location and establish a rich methodology for collaboration in this new form that inter-weaves traditional cultural teachings. The ‘Spine of the Earth’ accurately describes this research process where a signal is sent through the spine to a second location and a response is sent back, much like the human nervous system. This correlates to the teachings of the Elders in the Andes and the connection between the people of the North and the South (Eagle and Condor) that have traveled and communicated along this mountain range for thousands of years. Starr will share innovative ways of sourcing material, choreographing and collaborating with artists working thousands of miles away from each other. The process requires a deep sense of listening, following of impulse and cross- cultural relationship building. This project demonstrates how through embracing technology to support inter-cultural collaboration we are offered unlimited possibilities as dance artists and scholars in the 21st century.

STARR MURANKO is a professional dancer/choreographer/educator and an Artistic Associate with Raven Spirit Dance in Vancouver. Her work has been presented at the Scotiabank Dance Centre, Dancing on the Edge, the Talking Stick Festival and the Vancouver International Dance Festival (SFU Grad series). She is a proud member of the Dancers of Damelahamid (Gitxsan) and has toured regionally and internationally with this company to New Zealand and Peru to co- present a research paper at the World Indigenous Peoples Conference in Education (WIPCE). She has been the recipient of several grant awards through the Canada Council for the Arts and the BC Arts Council and was an artist-in-residence during the 2011-2012 season at the Scotiabank Dance Centre. Starr is committed to supporting Indigenous peoples and the living expression of their cultures through dance and honours her mixed heritage of Métis, Cree and German in all of her work. www.spineofthemother.com & www.ravenspiritdance.com

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

11:30 am – 12:50 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Transits from Capoeira Kinesthetic Experience in Contemporary Dance” with Odilon José Roble, Karen Adrie de Lima, Káthia Áurea da Silva, & Jéssica Bonvino e Silva

Capoeira is a Brazilian art form expressed through games, fights, and dance. In the Faculty of Physical Education at UNICAMP, we are developing research that shows Capoeira can provide support and new possibilities to other dance forms and research. Besides the physical aspects that are being explored and experienced, there are forms of aesthetic expression corresponding to Capoeira’s identity as an art form being investigated. The intent of this class is to provide a bridge between Capoeira and other dance forms. Therefore, this will not be a traditional Capoeira class, but rather an exploration of possible relationships between Capoeira and the dance field. We believe that this integration and exploration can help decentralize some of the static experiences in traditional dance practices by providing a new possible sources of movement experience. The class is open to any participant and does not required prior knowledge of Capoeira, though some dance experience is helpful.

Dr. ODILON JOSE ROBLE is a graduate in Philosophy and Physical Education and holds a PhD in Education. He is Professor of Physical Education and Humanities Department at the University of Campinas (Unicamp). Odilon teaches the in the disciplines of rhythm and bodily expression, and dance and philosophical aspects of human movement. His research explores themes of dance, capoeira, kinesthesia, and philosophy. He is the artistic director and choreographer of a dance group at Unicamp where he recently produced “Homeostase” (2011) and “Jeux” (2012). His research publications (2012) include “The body and movement as arrays of creation and knowledge: parallels between the Greek poiesis and the Schopenhauer’s vitalism,” “Kinesthesia and empathy as support methodology for research in dance,” and “Physical education in mental health: constructing development from an interdisciplinary perspective.”

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“The Physical and Flowing Style of Paul Taylor: A Taste of Repertory Elements from the Taylor Canon” with Yoav Kaddar

Considered to be one of the pillar modern dance styles, the Paul Taylor technique continues to serve as a corner stone for emerging dance styles of the 21st Century and is used as a foundation technique for training new generations of dancers. Taylor’s physical and flowing style will be at the foundation of this technique class that will take students from warm-up through a full combination merging this style of movement through a variety of repertory elements from the Taylor canon. For Intermediate/Advanced levels.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Dr. YOAV KADDAR is the Director of the Dance Program at West Virginia University. He has been engaged in dance education for 25 years. Kaddar brings to the educational facet of his career the vast national and international experience he has as a performer and choreographer. A graduate of the Juilliard School, he has danced with the Jose Limon, Paul Taylor and Pilobolus dance companies to name a few. He has choreographed over 60 works both in dance and theatre. As an educator he has taught and given presentations at colleges, universities, dance festivals and conferences in the US and abroad. Dr. Kaddar recently led to the development of the first Dance major for the state of West Virginia. He also launched WVU’s first online dance course. He has presented research based on this course at the NDEO annual conference in 2012 and at the 2013 conference in October.

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Dance and Rhythm: What Happens Between Musical Notes and Our Bodies” with Miranda Wickett

In today’s world of dance education, there is a gap in knowledge between the music we dance to and how dancers understand it. Many dancers are not trained as highly in music theory (if at all) as they are in their physical practice. Because of this imbalance in training, many dancers have a terrific sense of intrinsic timing, but are unable to express themselves musically. This class is a small step into music education for dancers, focusing on rhythmic acquisition exercises of dividing beats. Layering of this exercise can also be used as a skeleton of rhythmic based choreography. Closing the gap between the music/brain/body relationship and promoting a balance of kinesthetic and mental acuity, this class will have dancers and educators rethinking their relationship with music and rhythm in the classroom, in rehearsal and on stage. A discussion on engaging a highly-skilled generation of dancers who have increasing technical prowess but lack the building blocks of rhythm will be pursued if there is sufficient time.

When you meet MIRANDA WICKETT, you notice two things right away: enthusiasm and kindness. Her energy is contagious and she uses it to motivate others around her. Miranda’s ongoing passion is to create valuable learning experiences for students. Her diverse background provides her with a unique and innovative approach to dance education. She owned and operated a performing arts academy for close to a decade in London, Ontario, has worked in the education system (K-12) and now teaches at Western University, working extensively with the UW Opera and The Canadian Operatic Arts Academy. Her love for languages led her to train throughout Europe, the United States and Canada where she is active in many Associations. She holds two bachelor degrees and is completing her masters of dance education at University of North Carolina Greensboro. Equally at home discussing pedagogy, politics, performance and playtime, Miranda is a remarkable and unique educator.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“Embodied Knowing: Dance Ethnography as Movement Practice” with Pegge Vissicaro

Participants in this class will research their own movement practices through an ethnographic lens using methods and tools similar to that which an anthropologist may employ to study human cultures. Self-ethnography allows each individual to take an in-depth look to understand his or her dance behaviors and movement intentions as well as how one’s personal knowledge system informs preferences and biases. The dance of ethnography may be described as a lifelong comparative or cross-cultural process, which evolves and involves syntheses of opposites. People ‘know’ by relating new and unfamiliar information to what is already known. This concept, similar to the Eastern and indigenous philosophy of dualities, provides a foundation for the ethnographic movement experience and serves as a thread of connection to examine continuities and change. The class begins by creating a holistic, somatic-based framework to organize data documentation within emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual realms of knowing. Referencing those four categories of orientation, participant- ethnographers will explore interdisciplinary strategies using movement, drawing, field note taking, and interviewing to heighten awareness of one’s past information repertoire, present sensing experiences, and future creative encounters. The class concludes with dancing one’s data as a form of embodied qualitative analysis.

Since 1983, DR. PEGGY VISSICARO has been contributing to Arizona State University’s School of Dance as a movement artist, dance maker, curriculum developer, educator, researcher, and community leader. She facilitates courses for undergraduate and graduate students in movement, creative, and ethnographic practices. Vissicaro is a Fulbright Scholar and Specialist, directs her company terradance®, and is president of Cross-Cultural Dance Resources. Publications include her widely distributed text, Studying Dance Cultures around the World, a chapter in 2013 book, Age and Dancing, articles in the peer-reviewed journals Ethnic Studies Review, Australia New Zealand Dance Research Society, Multimedia Tools and Applications, and The Review of Human Factor Studies as well as numerous contributions to the Foundation for Community Dance magazine, Animated. Vissicaro has presented papers and lectures, taught master classes and conducted residencies in Ireland, Korea, Scotland, Portugal, France, Brazil, Canada, and throughout the United States.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

10:00 am – 11:20 am Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Temporary/Contemporary: Dance of the Moment” with Robin Conrad

This is an intermediate level contemporary modern technique class that will bring participants to the present moment of being in their bodies as well as the present moment of dance in our current world. Many influences that have brought us both individually and collectively to the emergence of the contemporary form will be explored. Instructor Robin Conrad, inspired by a variety of dance forms ranging from West African to Argentine Tango, as well as somatic practices like Pilates, gyrokinesis, and yoga, weaves together combinations that are both lively and safe. Designed to give conference-goers a chance to get out of their heads and into their bodies, the class will also encourage participants to reengage with the aspects of dance that speak to them most deeply.

ROBIN CONRAD is a Los Angeles-based choreographer and an Associate Professor at Fullerton College. Recent choreography projects include: multiple episodes of the hit ABC comedy Suburgatory, several dance sequences featuring Kristen Chenowith on ABC’s CGB; Sofia Coppola’s award-winning film Somewhere; numerous commercials and music videos for the bands White Stripes and Scissor Sisters. Robin has been mentioned in British Vogue, Interview and the New York Times Magazine for her work. Last year as the artist-in-residence at The Skirball Cultural Center, she created a performance based on the exhibit “Women Hold Up Half The Sky,” featuring members of her dance company, as well as girls from an underserved high school and women from a local homeless shelter. As a result of this project, Robin was an invited speaker at the American Association of Museums Conference. Robin’s concert choreography has been performed at numerous venues and festivals in Los Angeles and New York. For more on Robin’s credits and certifications, visit www.robinconrad.com.

11:30 am – 12:50 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“Complex Pathways, Simple Alignment, and Vigorous Attention” with Carrie Hanson

Contemporary technique classes with Carrie Hanson emphasize using the body’s weight to achieve momentum and distilling form through spatial clarity and activation. From the starting point of our personal interior space, we cultivate an enhanced awareness and play in three-dimensional space. We are attentive to space in both its function as a supportive container and a topography that the body rides. Shifting direction, plane, and level, the movement material alternately generates and disrupts flow. The material is athletic and plays with inversion, moving often into and away from the floor. The class information is grounded in and described in clear anatomical principles; an elevated awareness of individual anatomy and spatial geography are goals for each class. Carrie’s influences include Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals, yoga, release-based techniques, and her own early training as an athlete. The class is appropriate for intermediate-advanced dancers.

Photo by Kristie Kahns

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

CARRIE HANSON is a dance artist and educator. Named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 To Watch” in 2012, she has led The Seldoms for over a decade. Time Out Chicago calls her “a virtuoso of meticulous composition” who makes “clear- edged, challenging dances”. Under the direction of Ms. Hanson, The Seldoms has gained a reputation for bold performance in unusual spaces such as cargo containers and truck depots and intelligent, meticulously researched issue- based works. Hanson was a Chicago Dancemaker’s Forum Lab Artist, has twice been awarded an Illinois Arts Council Choreographic Fellowship, and received a Ruth Page Award for Performance. Ms. Hanson has been commissioned by the National Theater of Mannheim, Germany, Chicago dance companies Same Planet Different World and LIVE ANIMALS, and has taken The Seldoms to Russia and Taiwan. She is faculty at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, holds an MA in Dance Studies from Laban London and a BFA from Texas Christian University.

11:30 am – 12:50 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Talking Dance: Dancing Vocalized Rhythms” with Bageshree Vaze

Kathak dance originated in the royal court (darbar) era of India during the 17th century, but continues to be an evolving art. Dancers compose rhythmic syllabic language and interpret this language through dynamic movements, sparkling pirouettes, and intricate footwork. Much like other dance styles, movements and repertoire in the Kathak style became codified in the 20th century, but what makes Kathak unique is that each dancer creates in the moment through his or her unique spirit, adding a bit of their personality and experience through rhythmic and movement language and interpretation. In many ways, there are no boundaries to movement, and the style continues to evolve with non- conventional leaps, and more floorwork than is normally associated with the tradition.This class will introduce the non-Kathak student to the unique recited rhythmic language of Kathak, and allow those already versed in this dance style to discover new movement possibilities through this language. The class will cover the mechanics of footwork, movements and pirouettes, and participants will be given a rhythmic phrase to interpret individually, drawing from their own particular movement background.

Raised in St. John’s, NL, but currently based in Toronto, Canada, BAGESHREE VAZE has trained with some of India’s foremost masters of dance and music such as the late T. K. Mahalingam Pillai (Bharatha Natyam), Pt. Birju Maharaj and Jaikishan Maharaj (Kathak dance) and Veena Sahasrabuddhe (Hindustani vocal). Bageshree has choreographed and performed numerous dance works and has three CDs to her credit including Tarana, an album of music for Indian dance that was released in India by Times Music under the name Khanak. Bageshree holds an M.A. in Dance from York University. In 2010, she was awarded the K.M. Hunter Award in Dance. Bageshree has performed in major festivals in Canada and abroad such as the CanAsian International Dance Festival and the ‘Vasantotsav’ festival in New Delhi. In 2012, Bageshree launched her ‘Spectrum’ series of multi-disciplinary art programming at the Harbourfront Centre through her organization Pratibha Arts and premiered her Kathak dance piece ‘Twilight’ at Dusk Dances in Toronto. www.bageshree.com

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“Mining the Past to Ignite the Future: Reclaiming the Soul of Jazz” with Joanne Baker & Vicki Adams Willis

For the past 29 years the artists of Decidedly Jazz Danceworks have been mining the rich and soulful history and traditions of jazz for its lost and dormant fundamental elements that we then weave into a contemporary context. We believe that in order to revitalize the art of jazz and propel it into the future with integrity, the intrinsic spirit of the form must be reclaimed. The core of our work is African-rooted, swing-based, rhythmically-focused, musically-propelled, and contemporary in nature. Class participants will be introduced to the heart and driving tenets of our mandate while experiencing the soul- feeding, rhythmic, and celebratory essence of the form. Class Level: Open

JOANNE BAKER, School of Decidedly Jazz Danceworks Principal and Arts in Education Coordinator, danced and toured nationally and internationally with Calgary’s Decidedly Jazz Danceworks from 1993 to 1999. Since 2001, Joanne has been the Dance School Principal for The School of Decidedly Jazz and in 2004, also became the organization’s Arts in Education Coordinator. Teaching has been her passion since 1993 and inspired by her DJD mentors, it has taken her across Canada conducting workshops and intensives at Halifax Dance (Halifax), Ryerson University and Metro Movement (Toronto), Harbour Dance Centre (Vancouver), Dance Manitoba (Winnipeg), and at home with DJD’s Jazz Immersions, June Jazz Intensives, and Professional Training Program. Joanne is currently a sessional instructor for the University of Calgary’s Dance Department, and teaches children, teens, and adults at the School of Decidedly Jazz as well as dance schools throughout Calgary.

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Advanced Contemporary Technique” with Christina Gonzalez-Gillett

This advanced contemporary technique class uses Bartinieff Fundamentals as a starting point to build and prepare the body for standing work. Dynamics are explored through traditional exercises and phrasework emphasizing Rudolf Laban’s concepts of flow, weight, space, and time.

CHRISTINA GONZALEZ-GILLETT is the Assistant Director of The Seldoms, a Chicago-based contemporary dance company. As Assistant Director, Christina teaches professional company class and also performs. She also teaches at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago. Christina holds a BFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign and a MA in Dance Studies from Trinity Laban in London, formerly the Laban Centre. She lived and worked in London before relocating to Chicago where she began working with The Seldoms. Christina holds a Graduate Certificate in Laban Movement Analysis and is a certified Pilates instructor.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“Choreography and Rethinking Fusion Dance” with Min Kim

In this choreography class, participants will discuss the idea of fusion in contemporary dance and experiment with various choreographic ideas to share their views on fusion. The idea of “intercultural fusion” in contemporary dance has been explored by many choreographers since the late 20th century. This trend has not only generated contemporary choreographers’ interest in world dance, but has also broadened the boundaries for traditional dance choreographers from non-Western cultures to be involved in contemporary dance. As globalization continues to affect the creativity of choreographers, more changes will occur in dance. How will we define contemporary dance in the future when thinking about fusion? Some questions to be explored in this class include: Where do we draw a line between traditional/ethnic dance and contemporary dance, and when does it become fusion dance? What makes dance fusion? Does movement, or music, or ethnicity of performers matter when defining fusion in dance? What is the meaning of creativity in fusion dance? Through several movement combinations and various genres of music, participants will explore their ideas on fusion.

MIN KIM is a performer, choreographer, and filmmaker based in Edinburg, Texas. Working in a variety of dance forms and interdisciplinary performance, she has presented her work in various venues in Brazil, Spain, Korea, and throughout the United States. She has been a guest teacher at numerous institutions in the U.S., at the Beijing Dance Festival in China, and the Samsung Culture Center in Korea. Her research interests include interdisciplinary performance and the history and cultural politics of East Asian dance. Kim is currently an assistant professor of dance at the University of Texas-Pan American.

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“On Breath” with Kate Corby

On Breath is a conceptual and anatomical body practice class focused on the thorax and breathing using imagery, partner work, and phrase material. The class is appropriate for any level of dancer and encourages mindful connections between the breath, dynamic alignment, and movement. The class will culminate in full-bodied phrase work.

KATE CORBY has shown her choreography extensively in the US and in Mexico, Brazil, Taiwan, and Hungary, where she traveled as a Fulbright fellow. Kate is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she teaches contemporary technique, somatics, composition, and improvisation. Her choreography has been called “ingenious” by the Chicago Reader and is consistently a Critics’ Pick in Time Out Chicago. Kate was also featured in Dance Magazine’s April 2011 issue as one of six choreographers “on the cusp of making waves in the larger dance world.” She completed her MFA at the University of Illinois at Urbana in 2007 and has served on the faculties of Beloit College, Columbia College Chicago and the Pedagogy Department of the Hungarian Dance Academy. katecorby.com

Thursday, August 1, 2013

10:00 am – 11:20 am Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Beyond the Barre” with Oniel Pryce

Jamaican dance educator Oniel Pryce presents Beyond the Barre, a contemporary fusion class exploring the barre’s possibilities (as prop/partner) in physically exhilarating and dynamic ways. This class takes a rambunctious approach to barre-work, moving from the traditional uses of the ballet barre as a lightly held aid for vertical balance, stability and alignment to more vigorous use of the barre as support for inversions and gravity-play. Participants will be guided in an evenly-paced series of carefully crafted warm-up exercises, paying specific attention to spinal mobility, detailed articulation of feet and arms, lengthening and strengthening of leg and core muscles, and the use of the breath for movement support. The class continues into more adventurous explorations which challenge participants to change levels through space Photo by 360ARTISTS while re-imagining their relationship to/ dependence on the barre. Throughout the class participants will be encouraged to safely investigate the central principle of Beyond the Barre, developing upper body and core strength while challenging gravity and shifting spatial perspectives. This emerging system of training grew from Pryce’s choreographic reconsideration of the barre as more than ‘light support’ in his very athletic and ambitious work, “Barre Talk” (National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica– 2006 and 2011). This work led to his investigation of a barre-based methodology for training 21st century dancers in the -taking risk and athleticism needed for contemporary performance.

ONIEL PRYCE holds a Diploma in Dance Education from The Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from the State University of New York – College at Brockport, and a Masters of Arts in Choreography from Trinity Laban. While living in the UK, Pryce taught dance in several primary and high schools and was faculty member at Irie Dance Theatre where he lectured in Caribbean Dance Studies and Performance. He is currently a full time lecturer at the Edna Manley College School of Dance in Jamaica and is Artistic Director of ‘Propel Dance Collective’, a graduate company of the College. Former company member with the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica (NDTC) and freelance dancer with several project based companies across the UK, Oniel’s career both as dancer and choreographer has been one guided by self-discovery and exhausting possibilities in movement.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

11:30 am – 12:50 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Impulse, Energy and Form: Integrating Movement and Voice” with Maxine Heppner

Maxine Heppner’s integrated movement & voice technique is a development from contemporary dance and Linklater voice trainings for dance and physical practitioners who communicate first through physical expression, then by vocalizing. It is an effective alternate approach to training separately in dance and voice, allowing powerful muscular work needed for vigorous physical performance while opening internal pathways of ease for sound to resonates freely through the body. Dance in our time now encompasses many forms of physically-based communication and this technique is particularly relevant for new modes of performance. The class starts with the premise that movement and voicing are indivisible and physical. We begin with impulse. Impulse sets energy in motion. Motion takes shape, direction, and space. Structures develop. Then it’s a matter of paying attention with open mind and senses so creation/interpretation begins, inside to outside, and between each one of us. Paricipants will explore exercises to awaken awareness, circulation, isolation and coordination of the moving body and the sounding body. Concepts of internal and external forms of impulse, energy and articulation are explored through guided individual practice, then applied to combinations (both movement and voice), followed by independent explorations and with witnesses, so participants can begin to make the work personally relevant.

MAXINE HEPPNER is a master teacher, mentor, and guest artist of contemporary dance and interdisciplinary performance in Canada and internationally and is known as a performer and creator of large-scale performance works (“audacious”) and intimate chamber pieces (“reaching a new state of mind”). Her company, Across Oceans, is dedicated to approaching art as a collaborative activity whose fundamental experience is a physical one. She teaches dance, integrated movement-voice technique, creative process, and choreography. Her personal practice, evolving since the 1970’s, has developed from training in classical, modern and contemporary dance, theatre, Linklater vocal technique, contemporary and traditional arts of Southeast Asia, Action Theatre of Ruth Zaporah, and research into neurological patternings and modes of experience with neurologist Tim Kennedy (Montreal Neurological Institute). This wide range of experiences has led to an approach that does not presume aesthetic preferences, but examines impulse, energy, and the expressive natures of their many forms.

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Studio 7

“Nancy Stark Smith’s Improvisational Underscore” with Elise Knudson

Required pre-meeting for the class. See class description for details on page 83.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“Technique + Choreography – Inseparable Acts” with Amy Chavasse

The question of technique: I was sitting with a colleague observing a guest teacher giving a technique class to our students. The teacher was an accomplished professional with a solid reputation in the “downtown” dance scene in New York. My colleague said, dismissively, “this is not technique, it’s choreography”, as he watched. I have turned this comment over in my head since then, and have become fixated on determining the difference, if indeed there is one, between “technique” and “choreography”.

How can we animate our choices? How do we cultivate specificity and attention to detail with humor and imagination? These are questions that can motivate our actions in technique class and in the creative process. Challenging assumptions about sequencing and habitual pathways offer inventive, vivid, and unexpected movement qualities, loosening our attachment to familiar or recognizable results. These are qualities of value in both technique and choreography. Why should these practices be separate? This class will explore building extended phrases of idiosyncratic movement with both set and improvised material, offering a physical experience that is rhythmically, intellectually and creatively rich choices.

AMY CHAVASSE, Associate Professor of Dance, choreographer, performer, educator, improviser, storyteller and Artistic Director of Chavasse Dance & Performance joined the faculty at University of Michigan in 2006. She has been a guest artist / faculty member at numerous institutions, including Middlebury College, Arizona State, Virginia Commonwealth, and University of NC School of the Arts. She has taught at Florence Summer Dance since 2007, and will teach an improvisation/ composition intensive with Peter Schmitz at ProDanza Italia, July 8-13, 2013 in Castiglioncello, Italy. She has taught internationally at Duncan 3.0 (Rome), the Beijing Dance Festival and the American Dance Festival/Henan (summer 2012. As Artistic Director of ChavasseDance&Performance, her work has been presented throughout the U.S. including Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, in Cuba, Lithuania, Italy, Vienna, and Cali, Colombia. She’s danced in many companies and independent projects in NC, DC and NYC, and with Bill Young/ Colleen Thomas Dancers and Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians. She received her BFA from the University of NC School of the Arts and her MFA from the University of Washington. chavassedanceandperformance.com

Thursday, August 1, 2013

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Four Points of Composition in Tango Dance” with Maria Elena Anllo, Maria Florencia Ciliberto, Alejandra Garavito, & Graciela Miquelez

This class will explore the relationships between the basics of traditional Tango dance technique, contemporary dance technique, stylization, and bodily expression by examining how commonalities and divergent elements of speed, dynamics, rhythm, energy, trajectory, design, and space can brought together into new cohesive forms. This class will also explore how cultural manifestations can enrich and reaffirm the dance community by investigating how movement within both performance and social activity is fundamental to the experience of space. To explore these concepts, the class will be an experiment of choreographic composition in four parts: the individual, couple, group, and community. The class is open to all levels and background.

MARIA ELENA ANLLO is a Professor of Tango Technique for the degree in Choreographic Composition at the Universidad Nacional Del Arte, IUNA, Buenos Aires, Argentina; where she also received her BA degree in Choreographic Composition. She is also a Professor of Classical Dance Technique at Escuela De Danzas A. V Mastrazzi for the Buenos Aires Government in Argentina. She is currently studying for a specialization in dance from the Universidad Nacional De La Plata Unlap, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Maria has enjoyed acting as an interpreter in international festivals in Tokyo, Nagasaki, Japan, Seul, South Korea, France, Hannover Germany, and Brazil and was awarded the Friendship Award from the students of ONU, Seul, Korea. In 2011, she participated in the World Dance Alliance-Americas Conference & Festival in Antigua Guatemala at the Centro de Cooperación Española and Universidad Rafael Landívar, Guatemala.

MARIA FLORENCIA CILIBERTO holds a BA in Choreographic Composition with a focus in Body Expression from the I.U.N.A Departamento de Artes del Movimiento, CABA, Argentina. Post Graduate work includes programs in the Diversity Art at the Instituto Superior de Enseñanza Artística, CABA, Argentina (2012); Education Certification for Professionals and Technical Institutions from the Instituto de Enseñanza Superior “Juan B. Justo,” CABA, Argentina (2012-present); and Dance Specialization-Training in Choreographic Production Analysis at UNLP, La Plata, Argentina. She has been an invited instructor of Cátedra Recursos Sonoro del Lic, Darío Valle, (IUNA), CABA, Argentina; had a paper published in the Jornada de Study of de la Performance; and exhibited at the Congreso Argentino Musicoterapia, ASAM, CABA, Argentina.

ALEJANDRA GARAVITO is a dancer and emerging choreographer from Guatemala. She graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Danza in Guatemala City as a contemporary dancer. She also has a Diploma in Performing Arts from the Universidad San Carlos de Guatemala. Alejandra has studied different dance techniques in Guatemala, England and Argentina. Currently she is getting her BA in Clinical Psychology and works at the Center for Dance and Movement Research as assistant director and co-coordinator for the Community Dance Project.

GRAQCIELA MIQUELEZ has been studying and teaching the Native and Folkloric dances of her region since 1968. She was on staff at the National Dance School of Argentina from 1979 to 2099 and also taught Choreographic Expression and Popular Music in the Corporeal Expression degree program at IUNA from 1996 to 2009. She has participated and presented at various international folkloric festivals in the USA, China, Mexico, and South Korea. Currently she is studying Dance and Analysis in Choreographic Production at the Universidad de La Plata.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“Dance Fusion: When East Meets West” with Zihao Li

This dance class blends Western contemporary dance technique with Eastern Arts – Qi Gong and meditative breathing exercise that is derived from Tai Qi. The fusion of these two distinctive practices aims to help students personalize their movement and find their own artistic voice. “Qi” stands for air and breath in Chinese and “Gong” relates to practice, or gaining skill through practice. The class begins with a meditative circle in which participants explore the origins of movement with a focus on non-traditional dance vocabulary, words, and sound. Then, the class proceeds to a series of both calm and vigorous center and across the floor exercises before moving to the culminating activity, which is based on the material they have learned in class. At this point, choreographic strategies will be given by the instructor. This workshop offers an opportunity for participants to rediscover dance while challenging them to think beyond conventional realms of dance, choreography, and imagination.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Breath Support and the Bartenieff Fundamentals” with Sabrina Castillo Gallusser

“Movement rides on the flow of the breath” -Imgard Bartenieff

Breath support is one of the concepts that underlies the Bartenieff Fundamentals. Under this framework, participants will learn an embodied approach of the anatomy of breath and the pre-concepts of hollowing and navel yielding. In a somatic atmosphere, this class will help participants understand about the ways in which they breathe. It will also aid in the process of discovering possibilities for its transformation. Breath, the most fundamental movement and a ground for any other movement is sometimes overlooked in dance. Somatic practices have discussed and experienced the importance of breath for a healthy body/mind practice, Photo by Eliseo Molina something essential for dancers who are usually immersed in an environment of repetition and physical demand. In the spirit of this conference we can be reminded that a basic bodily process such as breath is the ground for engaging and expanding thus involving and evolving.

SABRINA CASTILLO GALLUSSER is founder and director of the Center for Dance and Movement Research, Universidad Rafael Landívar, in Guatemala City. Castillo Gallusser studied a BS from Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, an MSc from Rutgers with additional graduate studies at UC Berkeley with a Rotary International Scholarship, and a PhD in Phenomenology from Universidad Rafael Landívar. She is a certified movement analyst from the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies and an ISMETA registered somatic movement educator. She is director and choreographer of Momentum, a contemporary dance company based in Guatemala City. Her work has been presented in the United States, France, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, England and Mexico. In 2009 she was a awarded a Fulbright grant to continue her research in somatics and phenomenology hosted by the Department of Philosophy at SUNY Stony Brook. In 2009, she received the National Order of Dance of Guatemala.

Friday, August 2, 2013

10:00 am – 11:20 am Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Pilates for Dancers” with Erin Scheiwe Rockwell

An open level conditioning class for dancers based in the Pilates method and designed to provide participants with a relaxing yet intense full-body workout. Various exercises based on classical and dance specific Pilates repertoire will be presented as well as some facilitated partner work designed to aid in stretching and strengthening. Explanation through verbal, visual, and tactile imagery will enable the participant to achieve beneficial skeletal placement and efficient muscle engagement in order to support the physical demands on a dancer’s body. (Note: Participants may bring a mat, towel, or blanket to provide cushion during exercises if desired for personal comfort.)

ERIN SCHEIWE ROCKWELL, a Specialty Instructor of dance at Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi, holds a BA in dance from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN and a MFA from California State University, Long Beach. She is certified in Pilates with Body Arts and Science International, training under master Pilates instructor and dance scientist, Karen Clippinger, who developed a dance specific repertoire based on classical Pilates technique. With a background in both Pilates and dance, Rockwell enjoys working with diverse populations, tailoring programs in order to help individuals achieve their specific conditioning goals. Artistically, Rockwell concentrates on creating and performing dance works for both stage and screen. Her choreography has been presented around her home state of Colorado and across the Unites States from Los Angeles to New York City. She is co-founder and co-director of Front Porch Dance (www.frontporchdance.com), a contemporary dance collective established in 2008.

11:30 am – 12:50 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“Movement and I: Listening to the Body of Individuals and Groups” with Maria Florencia Ciliberto

This class will begin by exploring the basic movements inherent in locomotion while observing individual body alignments. Movement exploration will progress through various spatial levels in both small and large spaces; spatial designs of linear, circular, and zig-zag paths; and how the center of gravity can generate impulses to move, turn, jump, fall, and stop. Listening techniques will be explored by the individual, couples, and in groups; culminating in an improvisational synthesis of the elements explored to create a short choreography. The class is open to all levels and background.

Friday, August 2, 2013

11:30 am – 12:50 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Cross Cultural Contemporary Dance” with Petagay Letren

This class embodies contemporary dance of the 21st century by integrating a broad range of movement styles and techniques including modern, ballet, dancehall, and traditional Caribbean and West African folkloric dance. Participants will be encouraged to explore the processes of embracing momentum, gyration of the pelvis, angulation of the spine, and movement in polyrhythm. Throughout the exploration of these processes, dancers will be guided in freeing as much tension as possible from the muscles and joints while working with contemporary Caribbean music. Participants will explore use of breath and momentum, working with and against gravity, performance of social Caribbean dance styles such as dancehall, and other more traditional cultural vocabulary from the Caribbean and West Africa. Class begins with breathing and articulation of the spine exercises. This is followed by a series of plié, tendu, and degage combinations which will require participants to move through a fluid alignment, direction change, and play with the rhythm. From here the class progresses to engage gravity with the participants laying on the floor and transitioning to an upright standing position, all while infusing cultural dance vocabulary. Finally, dancers will gyrate the pelvis, embrace and challenge gravity, and transition from contemporary to traditional modern to dancehall and West African movement vocabulary within a phrase and movement combination.

PETAGAY LETREN holds an MFA in choreography from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she also received the Kristina Larson Scholarship for choreography research. She completed the Jant-Bi training course in African Contemporary dance and continues her investigations into African contemporary dance and the influences of folkloric forms on contemporary dance in the 21st century. Past teaching credentials include Florida International University, University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, and Miami Dade College. She currently is a visiting artist at University of Trinidad and Toabgo. Additionally Petagay is the director of Harambee Inc., a non-profit organizations based in South Florida which provides an array of programs and services for the advancement of the arts and sciences including classes in traditional West African dance and drumming. Harambee Inc. has also facilitated numerous programs, cultural events, and workshops including The South Florida African Dance Collective, Let’s Dance Together, Dance Extravaganza, and Dance et tom-tom.

Friday, August 2, 2013

1:00 pm – 3:20 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Nancy Stark Smith’s Improvisational Underscore” with Elise Knudson

Participants who wish to attend this class need to attend the Pre-Meeting held Thursday, August 1 @ 1:00 pm -2:00pm in Studio 7.

Underscore is a framework for practicing and researching dance improvisation that Nancy Stark Smith has been developing since the 1990′s. Nancy Stark Smith first trained as an athlete and gymnast, leading her to study and perform modern and postmodern dance in the early 1970s, greatly influenced by the dance/theater improvisation group the Grand Union and the Judson Dance Theater breakthroughs of the 1960s in New York City. She danced in the first performances of Contact Improvisation in NYC and has since been central to its development as a dancer, teacher, performer, organizer, and writer/publisher, working extensively over the years with Steve Paxton and others. Rather than a traditional class or meditation, Underscore is a format that guides dancers through a series of “changing states,” from solo deepening/releasing to gravity, through group interaction, Contact Improvisation engagements, opening out into full group improvisation with compositional awareness, and back to rest and reflection. Underscore participants are required to attend a “talk-through” prior to their first Underscore during which the format is explained. The Underscore can be seen as a vehicle for incorporating Contact Improvisation into a broader arena of improvisational practice. Because of its open structure, it is also a vehicle for cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural exchange, with the 12th annual Global Underscore drawing participants from four continents for a simultaneous webcasted practice on June 23rd, 2013.

Friday, August 2, 2013

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“Aerial and Contemporary Dance Interdisciplinary Training” by Bala Sarasvati

This class and presentation will provide information and movement experiences regarding aerial and contemporary dance integration. Floor work, level change, across- the-floor and partnering exercises will encompass concepts and processes originating from applied theory and practice of Laban and Bartenieff theories, supplemental training strategies and performance enhancement principles. Through contemporary and aerial dance fusion, several somatic interrelationships (such as subtle physical processes, motional properties, space projection and dynamic shaping) are supported, which can further inform and empower young dance artists in this process. A short film will show several aerial applications and how this fusion can create unique motion, momentum and expression. Prior to the class, participants may wish to view Baladance Channel on You Tube.

Photo by CORE Concert Dance Co.

BALA SARASVATI (AKA Shelley Shepherd), Jane Willson Professor in the Arts at The University of Georgia is Artistic Director of CORE Concert Contemporary and Aerial Dance Company. She is a Certified Movement Analyst (CMA) specializing in the application of movement theory to aerial and dance. She holds BFA degree from the University of Utah, MA and MFA from Ohio State University. She has served on the faculty for the Jose Limon Dance Institute, Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, Seattle Dance Centre and Universidad Nacional Graduate Program in Dance, Heredia, Costa Rica (2007-2011). She has taught and presented dance throughout the US and China, and in Australia, France, UK, Brazil and Taiwan. Her choreography has been shown at many NYC and Atlanta venues; the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; Centro Choreographfico, Rio de Janeiro; for the Robert Osborne Classic Film Festival; and at ACDFA, CORD, NDEO, LIMS and WDA events.

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“Moving Against Genocide: Dance Composition and Genocidal Studies Unite” by Melissa Rolnick

Moving Against Genocide was initially created in 2009 and later performed at the Deitrich Bonhoeffer International Conference on Human Rights in the Twin Cities in 2010. The project began as the collaboration between the Center for Holocaust and Genocidal Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and the Department of Theatre and Dance at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN. A social justice focus was infused into the study of “group forms” for an intermediate level composition class. Holocaust and genocide survivors shared their personal stories with the students. Survivor narratives and archival literature became the source material from which the students generated movement. The workshop will address the teaching method that was used to support the students in their task of creating a group dance generated from survivor stories/literature. A balance was sought between teaching the necessary curriculum to support students in their choreographic investigation and infusing the curriculum with specific content about genocide. A breakdown of that methodology will be examined experientially by having participants work collaboratively in small groups to enable the condensed methodology to unfold.

Friday, August 2, 2013

MELISSA C. ROLNICK has a BFA from Purchase College, SUNY and a MFA from Mills College. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, MN. She has performed with many notable choreographers including Cliff Keuter, Elina Mooney, Ruth Davidson-Hahn, Joe Goode, Mel Wong and Margaret Jenkins. She has been on the faculty at Western Washington University, Fresno State, and Arizona State where she received the Distinguished Teaching Award. Her choreography has been produced at Dancers’ Group in San Francisco., Sonoma State, CSU Fresno, Cornish College, Kaleidoscope Dance, and On the Boards: 12 Minutes Max in Seattle, ASU, U of T Pan American, and Gustavus Adolphus College. She has presented at many conferences including NDEO, CORD and WDA. She is a life-long dancer who has also studied extensively in Yoga and Authentic Movement. Recent studies in Gaga have been transformative.

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Vogue For Your Life” by Damon Green

Vogueing was a dance style born in the nightlife of New York City’s black and Latino queer community. This dance style emulates and mimics a variety of gestures and poses to embody opulence and femininity with punctuation’s of fluid movement vocabulary. In this class, students with explore the different styles and technique that live within the movement of Vogue and channel a different “Fierce” experience. Students will exercise strength, stamina and precision of a Voguer, while maintaining a graceful and eloquent dance battle with other peers to experience this truly urban form of dance.

DAMON D. GREEN was born in Champaign, Illinois, where his dance education and training began at The Christine Rich Studio in classical ballet and jazz. and with the Champaign Park District under Kimberly Burson. Green furthered his education at Columbia College Chicago, where he was introduced to Modern/Contemporary, African, and Vogue dance. Vogueing is currently Damon’s specialty and he continues to explore and perform in this form and its fusion with contemporary vocabulary with choreographer and Associate Professor of Dance Darrell Jones. Damon maintains his presence in the contemporary dance world with The Seldoms, led by Artistic Director Carrie Hanson. Additionally, Damon has worked with choreographer and dance educator Paige Cunningham, fusing Contemporary Ballet and Vogueing. Green has traveled abroad, performing in Siberia and Taiwan, and introduced Vogueing to Russian students as a master teacher at the Isadora International Festival of Contemporary Dance. Timeout Chicago rated him one of the “Top 10 Men of Dance 2010”.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

10:00 am – 11:20 am Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“New Approaches in Ballet Training: Challenging Form and Structure, Achieving Technique” by Lisa A. Fusillo

This ballet class challenges the form and structure of a strictly traditional ballet class by adding cross-training and strengthening exercises, by allowing dancers to have interaction through discussion of technique issues within the class, and by incorporating principles of Gaga. This class will provide dancers with an introduction to new tools and possibilities for training which will assist them in recognizing and understanding what is important in personal ballet technique development to achieve the best results. This class is particularly relevant for ballet dancers in the 21st century to expand their technical understanding of ballet and approaches to technique training in order to be prepared for the new demands of 21st century professional ballet careers. This class has been developed after rigorous and thorough practical experience and scholarly study of ballet pedagogy, including many years of embodied practice and teaching, with a focus on recent research of current ballet practices in Russia, England, and France; and incorporating practical and scholarly experience in Gaga as taught by Ohad Naharin and Israeli Bat-sheva instructors.

11:30 am – 12:50 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“Tango Dance Fusion” by Maria Elena Anllo

In the class we will explore the basic technique, forms, music, improvisational modes, and the basic choreographic processes of Tango dance to experience how the richness of its movement can be fused with other contemporary dance techniques. Participants will also be introduced to the “Milonga,” a derivation of the Tango form which permits more relaxation of the body in its musicality and the cadence of the movement. This class is open to professionals from different dance backgrounds.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“Uniting the Talents of Dancers With and Without Disabilities: Evolving practices in Physically Integrated Dance Training” with Mark Tomsaic & Mary Verdi-Fletcher

Photo by Doug Dong

Participants in this class will experience the latest training methods in the physically integrated dance field (dance uniting the talents of people with and without physical disabilities). These training methods emphasize the inclusionary practice of translation, a pedagogic tool in which the elements of movement, space, and time are manipulated in order to focus on the anatomical purpose of a movement with the goal of providing equal movement awareness to all participants, disabled or non-disabled. The practice of translation encourages dancers to identify the goal of a movement and work toward achieving that goal through appropriate physical engagement, individual exploration and community building activities. Participants will experience translation that combines the latest scientific research regarding the physiological parameters of dancers who use wheelchairs with existing artistic process. Fusing scientific and artistic disciplines in this manner is key to developing curricula that addresses the need for increased inclusionary dance training practices in the 21st century. The class will be led by professional dance educators with and without disabilities from the Dancing Wheels Company & School, the first professional physically integrated dance company in the United States and a leading voice in the disability arts movement. Participants should wear comfortable clothing suitable for movement. No shoes required.

MARY VERDI-FLETCHER is President/Founding Artistic Director and principal dancer of The Dancing Wheels Company & School (Cleveland, OH). Born with spina bifida, Mary founded the Company in 1980 as a means for people with disabilities to have full and equal access to the world of dance. As the first professional wheelchair dancer in the United States, Ms. Verdi-Fletcher has danced many lead roles and has had the distinct honor to work with numerous distinguished choreographers. Mary was a featured performer on the ABC television special, Christopher Reeve: A Celebration of Hope. In 2001, The Ford Foundation named Mary one of 20 semifinalists from over 3000 international nominees for the “Leadership for a Changing World Award.” Mary was the recipient of a 2007 Emmy Award for hosting WNEO/WEAO PBS Television “Shortcuts to Happiness “and a 2010 Athena Award Finalist. www.dancingwheels.org

Saturday, August 3, 2013

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Bruce R. Birmingham Studio

“Danza en Comunidad (Community Dance)” with Alejandra Garavito

Alejandra Garavito will be teaching a dance called Danza en Comunidad. Danza en Comunidad is a dance that can be danced by everybody. It celebrates life and promotes spaces of interaction through strengthening and sharing the emotions of confidence and joy with tools such as synchronicity and circles. Danza en Comunidad has been danced by more than 1400 people from different origins, backgrounds and abilities in Guatemala. In this class participants will learn the dance and hear about the experience in the project since 2011. Photo by Franco Guaglianone

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Earl Kraul Studio

“Extending the Physical: Reimagining Contact Improvisation in Non-Touch Contexts” with Kyle G. Rivieccio

The goal of this class is to journey into depths of contact improvisation without physical contact. This seemingly contradictory concept will provide movement facilitators new opportunities to explore ways to connect with another human being without physical touch. The best opportunity to explore this concept is in a creative practice, choreography course or physical education setting. Among challenges faced by educators and students are constraints on physical contact due to social norms, educational policies or cultural beliefs. Educators will have ways to work with students that cannot or chose not to touch. Reimagining contact improvisation within an educational setting while using props gives instructors better opportunities to reach students with multiple forms of dance not just what is afforded. This inclusive approach is for participants of all ages and abilities. Although it is not intended to be therapeutic, explorations will catalyze individual awareness, opening up the availability of personalized movement studies. Investigations in this workshop utilize fabric to promote creative interactions between conference participants. With non-physical contact and resulting limitations, participants can explore improvisational movements. Development of skills through the body encourages communication with people in diverse contexts, which positively build bridges and increases knowledge about the dynamic world.

KYLE RIVIECCIO started dancing at the age of sixteen under the direction of Suzanne B. Pomerantzeff and Patricia Page Parks at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg, Florida. Kyle attended summer programs at The Rock School for Dance Education, Boston Ballet and the Alonzo Kings Lines Ballet. After graduating, He moved to Philadelphia to gain a BFA in Dance Education at the University of the Arts. While dancing with City Ballet of San Diego, Kyle performed roles such as Vales Fantaisie, The Nutcracker Prince, Rubies, Swan Lake and choreographed works on the company. Kyle is studying for his MFA in Dance at the Herberger Institute of the Arts School of Dance at Arizona State University. He has worked with choreographers such as Donald Lunsford, Anastasia Babayeva, Robert Moses, Scott Jovovich, Peter Kalivas, Alonzo King and Eileen Stanley.

Choreography Labs Participants at the Conference & Festival have the unique opportunity to work with one of the choreographers selected by the Conference Committee during a week- long rehearsal series culminating in a performance to be presented at the Closing Ceremony on Sunday, August 4, 2013.

Participants must be willing be part of daily evening rehearsals where they will explore and participate in a choreographer’s creative practice and process. Each Choreographer has a unique vision and different methodology. Note that there will not be a formal audition. Rather, participants will be able to select the lab they wish to become part of; the intent being to expose participants to new ideas and techniques, and the choreographers to working with individuals from varying backgrounds. If there are more participants interested in participating than space available for a specific lab, or for the success for a choreographer’s process, the choreographers will have the option of selecting the appropriate number of participants from those in attendance at the initial meeting.

Participants interested in being part of this wonderful and unique experience will meet Tuesday, July 30, from 9:30 am to 11:00 am in the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio. During this initial meeting, the choreographers will introduce themselves, their chorographic vision, process, and some phrase materials for the participants to explore. Participants will work with the various choreographers to determine which labs interest them and best suit the choreographic vision needs.

Each Choreographic Lab will have two hours each day/evening from Tuesday through Sunday where participants and the choreographer they are working with can explore process and work together in creating a final work. Participants that elect to be part of a lab need to be willing to dedicate themselves to the Lab series, complete rehearsal schedule, and be open exploring unfamiliar choreographic territories.

We are delighted and excited to offer this new forum of creative and collaborative process for the participants of the WDA-Americas Conference & Festival. We encourage you to attend and take part!

The Re-staging of “Flood” Lab led by Erin Scheiwe Rockwell

Premiered at Belhaven University in December 2008, Flood is a visual representation of the qualities of water in a storm. Like raindrops collecting into a rushing stream, the dance builds in visual complexity as the dancers’ bodies are propelled through space and collect into a swirling sea of movement. Originally set on a cast of twelve, this piece is physically demanding and requires proficiency in floor work and release-based modern dance technique as well as comfort with partnering techniques. Within the ChoreoLab the choreographer will re-set the first 5- minute section entitled Raindrops, which has a great range of high-energy and dynamic movement that promises to challenge dancers’ fluidity, floor work, partnering, and ability to dance in unison. In addition to learning set vocabulary, the dancers will be led in choreographic assignments designed to increase individual ownership through the development and integration a personal movement material.

(Note: Flood can be viewed online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkEKfog3b84&feature=youtu.be)

“Corporecord II” Lab led by Rebecca Weber

“Corporecord II” is a re-setting of a contemporary dance work which explores embodied memories at the intersection between somatic investigation and concert dance. Performers expose their humanity and investigate their own lived memories on stage. The work examines our bodies as catalogues and transmitters of our histories. From provocative or playful to traumatic or troubled, the work evokes the pasts written in our own corporeality.

Performers will explore practices of embodiment and investigate their own somatic memory in exercises designed to draw out implicit memory. Because the work hinges on personal histories, this will be a co-creative process, where dancers will self-generate authentic movement which will then be crafted into the final product, and may vary each time it is performed. The work will culminate in a mélange of improvisational scores, set movement, and partnering work. Though not a requirement, performers with previous Somatics training/experience are especially invited to audition. Honesty, bravery, playfulness, authenticity, and a willingness to expose vulnerabilities are key.

The performance invites audience members to serve as witnesses to dancers’ instantaneous processing and embodied recollection. From provocative or playful to traumatic or troubled, “Corporecord II” evokes the pasts written in our own corporeality.

“If you can walk you can dance, if you can talk you can sing” -African proverb Lab led by Petagay Letren

West African and Caribbean folkloric dance forms embrace the use of the pelvis, angulation of the spine, and play with gravity and rhythm. These movements are simple exaggerations that people use while performing everyday activities. I seek to create a choreographic work that incorporates the use of these pelvis and spinal angulations using a post-modern approach.

As a choreographer, I encourage the use of dancer created movement invention and encourage dancers to embellish or manipulate any movement ideas that I present. I work to combine my movement ideas and dancer created movements or movement phrases. I sometimes manipulate dancer created movement invention, however overall I aim to connect my movements and the dancers movement with organic transitions to the greater concept of the work.

In this choreographic lab, my choreographic process will include exploring the strengths of the dancers and their abilities to accentuate the sway and circular motions of the pelvis, as well as moving in a weighted fashion (i.e. walking in various patterns using plié and using plié to give into and fight gravity.) Using a post-modern approach, we will seek to explore creating pictures with stillness and building upon the pictures with pedestrian movement that creates intricate or unconventional movement patterns.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

“Passing” (excerpt) Performers: Sarah Mitchell & Mikey Rioux Choreography: Kate Corby

Kate Corby & Dancers will present an excerpt from Passing, an evening-length suite of dances exploring mortality, life cycles and our complex relationship with time. Performed by Sarah Mitchell and Mikey Rioux, this particular section explores both the delicate affection and passionate strife of a young relationship. Much of the dance happens along a blank wall, which serves as both a support and an obstacle for the dancers and their relationship.

KATE CORBY has shown her choreography extensively in the US and in Mexico, Brazil, Taiwan and Hungary, where she traveled as a Fulbright fellow. Kate is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she teaches contemporary technique, somatics, composition and improvisation. Her choreography has been called “ingenious” by the Chicago Reader and is consistently a Critics’ Pick in Time Out Chicago. Kate was also featured in Dance Magazine’s April 2011 issue as one of six choreographers “on the cusp of making waves in the larger dance world.” She completed her MFA at the University of Illinois at Urbana in 2007 and has served on the faculties of Beloit College, Columbia College Chicago and the Pedagogy Department of the Hungarian Dance Academy. katecorby.com

“Core” Choreography and Performer: Ruth Levin Music: “Painted Bird” by Mark Deutsch, edited by Ruth Levin

Core is a short, solo work that seeks to access those powerful,mysterious forces that first formed, and that continue to shape, the Earth. It is an exploration of gravitation, centre, and of how these can be understood and wielded by the human body. This work asks: “How can dance teach us about forces much larger than ourselves? Can this embodied learning catalyze healing and integration in the human body?”

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

“a world where alarm clocks ring in the morning” Performer: Jin-Wen Yu Choreography & Intermedia: Danielle Russo Music: “[quad_planar]” by Robert Henke, edited by Michael Wall

“a world where alarm clocks ring in the morning” is a multidisciplinary solo performance investigating the dancing body split of being “in-time” versus “on-time”. It is a physical deliberation of muscle memory versus photographic memory, repetition versus rendition, duration versus distortion, endurance versus exhaustion. The integration of digital technologies via live-feed video projections using TroikaTronix’s Isadora® creates and reflects deformations of the dueling past and present in an illusory duet. “[S]imple, powerful… captures the imagination… stunning. It’s dance as nesting dolls; each single motion echoes, shrinks and grows in the immediate re-telling.” Lindsay Christians of 77 Square (2012)

DANIELLE RUSSO (New York City) has been presented nationally at the American Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, The Yard; and internationally in Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Mexico, Panama. In 2012, Russo was selected to represent the United States alongside distinguished choreographer John Jasperse at PRISMA Festival de Danza Contemporánea and chosen as one of five international emerging choreographers for Springboard Danse Montréal Professional Project. Recently, she was selected as one of three international scholarship recipients for Salerno International Dance Exchange and will produce public installations in Sweden. BFA Dance and BA Anthropology from New York University (Tisch School of the Arts); MFA Dance from Hollins University/ADF on fellowship. www.daniellerussodancecompany.com

“Wigioei Bada/Endangered Sea” Choreography & Performer: Peggy Choy Music: Wigieoi Bada/Endangered Sea by Matan Rubinstein

This dance is from the Sea Solos about the haenyeo—the diving women of Jeju Island, Korea. Pollution from oil spills and plastic garbage threaten the sea on which the haenyeo rely for their living. If we listen and watch we can witness the ocean’s response.

PEGGY CHOY teaches Dance and Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is president of The Ki Project, Inc., supporting intercultural performance for future generations, and has produced collaborative performances with Cambodian, Hmong, Native Hawaiian and Korean communities since the 1980s. Choy’s work investigates women-centered stories of peril and survival, and Afro-Asian connections, including “Seung Hwa: Rape/Race/Rage/Revolution” (1995, Dance Theater Workshop, NY) and “Ki-Aché: Stories from the Belly” (1997, Danspace Project, NY). The Sea Solos focus on the haenyeo, the diving women of Jeju Island, Korea (LA, Berlin, NY, Prague, 2011-12). The New York-based Peggy Choy Dance Company premiered “Power Moves” honoring Bruce Lee (2010, Smithsonian Institution, DC). Boxing-inspired works include “Boxher” (WDA-Americas, NY, 2010), “POW!” (La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival, NY, 2011), and “THE GREATEST! Hip Dance Homage to Muhammad Ali” (Dance New Amsterdam, 2011; American Dance Guild Festival, 2012; Gleason’s Gym, NY, 2013).

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

“Casual Conversations” Choreography & Performers: Rob Kistos & Kim Stevenson Music: “West port Sunrise Sessions” by Moby Media: Rob Kitsos & Kim Stevenson

This duet is a collaboration between Vancouver based dance artists Rob Kitsos and Kim Stevenson. The process began last fall exploring pure movement generation, a retracing and detailing of phrases, and a deconstruction of timing. Both artists are drawn to a detailing of complex movement that reflects the idiosyncratic rhythmic nature of a verbal casual conversation. The work is now in process and meaning is emerging out of the inherent compositional relationships of movement phrase work and recorded conversations.

ROB KISTOS is an acclaimed dancer, teacher, performing artist, and choreographer who has performed across the United States, Asia, and Europe. He is an Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University and has been on the Faculty at Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the University of Washington. He teaches Contemporary Technique, Composition, Repertory, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, and Dance Aesthetics. He has performed his own and other works at international festivals including the Spoletto Festival South Carolina, the World Expo in Lisbon, the Grec Festival in Barcelona, Palais Royale in Paris, and others in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Venezuela. Rob has performed and collaborated with dozens of artists and companies including Doug Elkins, Gina Gibney, Pat Graney, the Chamber Dance Company, Berkshire Ballet, Peter Bignham, and many others. Rob received his BA in Theater/Dance from Bard College and his MFA in Dance from the University of Washington in 1997.

KIM STEVENSON completed her formal studies in dance, earning a diploma from Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Simon Fraser University. Kimberly is a co-founder of The Story of Force and Motion collective, whose collaborations began in 2007 and who continue to pursue opportunities to perform throughout Vancouver. Beyond The Story’s projects, Kimberly has performed professionally for Kokoro Dance Theatre, Rob Kitsos, Shauna Elton, and Deanna Peters. She apprenticed alongside choreographer Serge Bennathan through the creation of Elles, and Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg through the process of HighGate. Kimberly was honored to work with Rob Kitsos on A Moving, a dance and film research and performance process supported by Simon Fraser University, and continues to work professionally with him on future projects. Kim is opening her own dance school this fall. www.thehappeningdance.com

“Spirit Transforming” by Dancers of Damelahamid Performers: Andrew Grenier, Nigel Grenier, Margaret Grenier, Raven Grenier, & Candice Johnson

Spirit Transforming is the signature new dance work by the Dancers of Damelahamid. It combines the richness and beauty of the tradition of masked dances of the Gitxsan, of the Northwest Coast of British Columbia, and also explores presenting this genre in a minimalistic way in order to relook at its primary elements, the very essence of this dance form. The dance piece tells a story that responds to contemporary times through the main character’s portrayal of a young person in their search of self. It asks the question, “What is contemporary Aboriginal identity in traditional dance forms?” in order to create a complex understanding of diversity of Aboriginal artistic practices. The story, in its entirety carries so much relevance to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people where we are threading together our sense of self and moving forward from our commonPhoto colonialby Derek history. Dix

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

“Paradox” Performer: Heather Klopchin Choreography: Melissa Rolnick

Paradox examines the juxtaposition between a woman’s self –acceptance/authenticity and a contrived, embodied persona in response to the cultural pressures that exist within our patriarchal, media driven society.

“EXIT/NO EXIT” and “Passages” Performers: Elizabeth Sexe, Sarah Mitchell, & Petra Weith Choreography: Marlene Skog Music: “Summa for Strings,” “Arvo Part,” & “Cello Suites” by Benjamin Britten

EXIT/NO EXIT and Passages are works of contemporary ballet that explore confinement in contrasting social scenarios. They address the enduring question of what it means to be human, as two people sharing or competing for space (EXIT/NO EXIT) and alone within the confines of one’s mind (Passages). Unlike trends in contemporary choreography that tend to deconstruct elements of the overall work, this choreography is purposeful in its strong synthesis of movement, music, and message.

Photo by Kat Cameron

MARLENE SKOG, Choreographer, Assistant Professor, teaches Ballet and World Dance Cultures at University of Wisconsin Madison. Skog worked in Sweden was awarded The People’s University (Folkuniversitetet) Cultural Prize, Gosta Knutsson Award, Nordbanken’s Cultural Award, choreographed for the International Arts Festival Norway, Scandinavian Cultural Conference, International Women’s Convention Uppsala University, official cultural events, historical theater and folk opera. Skog directed international dance company, collaborated with choreographer Birgit Cullberg. Skog founded Uppsala Dansakademi Sweden. She received Creative Achievement Award from the University of Arizona, is first recipient of the Green Valley Concert Association Fellowship Award, had work performed at King’s Palace Edinburgh Scotland. Her work is described as “Most striking, danced with a rush of intensity.” WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL. “sexy and strong. … Many striking moments”. ISTHMUS

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

“Here be Dragons-Non Plus Ultra” (excerpts) Performers: Sepehr Samimi & Remy Siu Choreography: Henry Daniel

“Here Be Dragons-Non Plus Ultra” is an excerpt from a 70 minute work performance work that explores the concept of ’going west to find east’. Based on Christopher Columbus’ desire to get to China, India and Japan by crossing the Atlantic, it first inverts the phrase, i.e., ‘going east to find west’, and then plays on the inherent paradox of going in either direction to find the other. This work is a collaboration between performers, musicians, media artists from Barcelona, Spain and Vancouver, Canada. projectbarca.blogspot.ca

HENRY DANIEL began his career in Trinidad as an actor with Derek Walcott’s Trinidad Theatre Workshop and Astor Johnson’s Repertory Dance Theatre of Trinidad and Tobago. In the USA he was a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Centre Workshop, the Bernhard Ballet, and soloist with the José Limón Dance Company of New York, among others. In Germany he founded and directed Henry Daniel and Dancers while continuing to work as a member of Tanzproject München, Tanztheater Freiburg, and Assistant Director, Choreographer, and Dancer for Tanztheater Münster. In the UK he founded and directed the performance group Full Performing Bodies. Henry attended the Boston Conservatory of Music and the Juilliard School in the USA, and has an MA in Dance Studies from City University, The Laban Centre, London, as well as a Ph.D. in Dance, Performance Studies and New Technology from Bristol University’s Department of Drama: Theatre, Film, Television. He is currently Professor of Dance and Performance Studies at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts and Principal Investigator for Project Barca, a SSHRC funded Research/Creation initiative (2011-2014).

“Straddling Trio” Performers & Spontaneous Choreography: Sarah Gamblin, Nina Martin, & Andrew Wass

Straddling Trio is the result of many years of interrogating, practicing and performing spontaneous dance choreography, though not always simultaneously. Nina Martin, Andrew Wass and Sarah Gamblin perform this ten minute dance using the practice of Ensemble Thinking along with the dialogue of their individual emergent improvisational practices.

100

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

NINA MARTIN’s choreographic works and master teaching has been presented in New York City; the US; and abroad; including Russia, Austria, Ireland, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Venezuela, Mexico, and Japan. Performance credits include David Gordon Pick-Up Company, Mary Overlie, Deborah Hay, Martha Clarke, and Simone Forti, among others. Martin has received funding for her work from the National Endowment for the Arts through six choreography fellowships, New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Joyce-Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Meet the Composer/ Choreographer Grant, Texas Commission on the Arts, and others. Martin continues to teach and tour with Lower Left internationally, cultivate a dance community interested in collaborative inquiry, and as of Fall 2008, she joins the dance faculty at Texas Christian University as Assistant Professor.

“Passage” (2001) Performers: Teresa Deziel, Arianna Dunmire, Melissa Holland, Taylor Kiesow, Shoshana Moyer, Alison Roberts, Katie Warner, & Marissa Watson Choreography: Jin-Wen Yu Music: The Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir

Using stones as props to symbolically resemble the fertile and ancient ground of life in female body, this dance expresses the female bodies in various ranges of movement quality with a ritual-like spatial design. It depicts the female bonding in the contemporary society. This dance is the Gala Concert Winner of the 2002 Great Lakes Region American College Dance Festival.

101

Thursday, August 1, 2013

“Ridicule” by Git Hayetsk

Prayer Song written by Chief Macky Robinson (Nisga’a Nation) Nickolys’s Victory Song written by Mique’l Icesis Dangeli (Tsimshian Nation of Metlakatla, Alaska)

Main Singer: Mike Dangeli – Nisga’a, Tsimshian, Tlingit Nations. Drummers & Singers: Heather Pritchard (Musqueam & Tsimshian Nations), Woody Morrison (Haida Nation), Sandra Greene (Haida Nation), Una-Ann Moyer (Tahltan Nation), & Mark Clayton (Lil’wat Nation)

Dancers: Mique’l Icesis Dangeli (Tsimshian Nation of Metlakatla, Alaska), Nick Dangeli (Nisga’a, Tsimshian, and Tlingit Nations), Helen Stephens (Nisga’a Nation), Shaniece Angus (Nisga’a Nation), Gerald Angus (Nisga’a Nation), Duane Steward (Haisla Nation), Shayna Gray (Musqueam & Tsimshian Nations), Lisa Gray (Musqueam & Tsimshian Nations), Reshea Doolan (Nisga’a Nation), & Joyce Wesley (Gitxan Nation)

This is a ridicule dance targeted at the Canadian government for the ways in which the Indian Act has rendered us, as First Nations people, unrecognizable to each other and ourselves. We do not recognize one another by “Status” as delineated by Canada’s policies, by percentage of blood as enforced in the US, or any other legislation that quantifies and classifies our identities. These policies, however, enter into our everyday lives – working to exclude and exterminate us. Regardless of these subjugation efforts, we continue to identify one another and ourselves as our ancestors always have: by Nation, family, clan, community and other aspects of our hereditary rights. In this dance, we remove these systems of oppression by embodying our ancient practice of self- determination.

“Key Notes” Choreography & Performer: Erin Scheiwe Rockwell Music: “The Venice Dreamer, Part One” & “Tamarack Pines” by George Winston

Erin is thrilled to premier her solo, Key Notes, at this wonderful event. Inspired by the beautiful sounds and motions of a concert pianist, this piece personifies the emotional journey of the performer as experienced in the mind of the musician. The dance embodies the flurry of anxiety masked by the calm flow of fingers on keys accompanied by the dazzling sound poured out from this percussive instrument while under the command of a brilliant musician.

102

Thursday, August 1, 2013

“Monument” (excerpt) by The Seldoms Dance Company Sound Design: Richard Woodbury with Liz Burritt Costume Design: Abigail Glaum Lathbury

“Monument” (2008) is a dance theater work that explores the relationship between the human environment and the natural environment, and the extent to which that relationship has become unbalanced. “Monument” is built around the notion of inadvertent (and in some cases disastrous) human monuments, like the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island that, at its peak, was taller than the Statue of Liberty. “Monument” follows the voracious, frenzied course of our individual acts of consumption along the one-way ride to the trash-heap. Photo by William Frederking

Hailed by TimeOut Chicago for an “intellectually adventuresome, whistle-clean aesthetic”, The Seldoms make dance driven by inquiry in contemporary issues, the history of art and ideas, and reflection on personal experience toward our pursuit of bold, exacting and potent physicality. Under the direction of Carrie Hanson, one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2012, the center of the work is dance, however the vision and collaboration extends to a total action and environment. In its eleventh season, the company has performed at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago, Joyce SoHo in New York, abroad in Russia and Taiwan, and less conventional sites including an Olympic-sized pool. They were named “best local dance company” by New City in 2012. “Ashes” Performer & Choreography: Ashima Suri Choreographic Consultant: Hiroshi Miyamato Visual Artist: Vishal Misra Music: “On the Nature of Daylight” & “Infra 5″ by Max Richter, mixed by Bobby Singh

Ashima Suri presents the performance ‘ASHES’ from an upcoming production ‘RE- BIRTH’. In collaboration with Choreographic Consultant from inDANCE, Hiroshi Miyamato and Visual Artist, Vishal Misra, Ashima tells a story of a woman who, through the reflection of herself in the painting, begins to shed the many layers and expectations of herself to the point where all that is left are ashes. Photo by Hamidah Hemani

As an Artistic Director for Limitless Productions, dancer and social activist, ASHIMA SURI explores ways of using performance art as a tool for social change. Having branded Indo-contemporary dance (a mix of Indian classical & Contemporary), the focus of her work has been to bring forth issues that are generally seen as taboo in her culture and create an open dialogue for change. Recently choreographing her first International show in Osaka, Japan, Ashima continues to use dance as tool for storytelling – connecting with the human heart & soul. As a South Asian dancer, Ashima does what many in her culture do not do and that is openly speak about feelings that are honest and real, without fear. She pushes boundaries in dance and explores a new way of looking at dance. www.ashimasuri.com

103

Thursday, August 1, 2013

“Flight Dreams” and “Hailey’s Albedo” (excerpts from TAKING FLIGHT! 2013) CORE Concert Dance Company of Contemporary and Aerial Dance Choreography: by Bala Sarasvati (aka Shelly Shepherd) Performers: HyeYoung Borden (soloist) & Emi Murata Choreography & Film: Bala Sarasvati Music: “Maisey Rika” (Hinepukohurangi), Vangelis (Albedo O.39), & Unknown, edited.

Flight Dreams (Soaring) (duet) and Hailey’s Albedo (solo) are excerpts from Taking Flight! 2013, a full-evening work that combines contemporary dance with a range of aerial apparatus. In these two excerpts, we explore aerial dance on the lyra, or “aerial hoop”. Performers display fluidity and strength as they float, swing, spiral, coil and spin both on the floor and in the air.

Flight Dreams (Soaring) exists amidst the earth’s natural forces and elements, where we find ourselves re-awakening in an altered unearthly realm and it seems that we do have the capacity to fly. Hailey’s Albedo explores the vast universe beyond – which seems incomprehensible when preoccupied with the daily realities of our planet – does each soul represent a tiny reflection of light, which when joined, expands unlimited universal realities?

104

Friday, August 2, 2013

“Riot of Spring” Performers: Teresa Deziel, Allison Espeseth, Melissa Holland, Tori Iannuzzi, Rachel Krinsky, Li Chiao-Ping, Shoshana Moyer, Alison Roberts, Liz Sexe, & Christina Briggs Winslow Choreography: Li Chiao-Ping Music: “Le Sacre du Printemps” by Igor Stravinsky

Connecting to this year’s WDA theme “Evolve + Involve,” and in celebration of the 100 year anniversary of Stravinsky’s radical work, Li Chiao-Ping’s “Riot of Spring” brings together inventive, athletic, and rhythmic choreography. Ms. Li brings a refreshed approach to this now- classic work.

Photo by Kat Cameron

LI CHIAO-PING, one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to watch,” is the Artistic Director of LI CHIAO-PING DANCE and Chair of the UW-Madison Dance Department. Her choreography has been shown throughout the world and prominent festivals, including Jacob’s Pillow, Bates, The Yard, and the American Dance Festival. A recipient of grants from the NEA and fellowships from the Wisconsin Arts Board and Scripps/ADF Humphrey-Weidman-Limon, she is the subject of two documentaries about her work, The Men’s Project and Women Dancing. She is the creator of The Extreme MovesTM Training Method. www.lcpdance.org.

“Clockwork” by Michelle Beard’s Visual Acoustics Dance Project Performers: Michelle Beard, Allison Badar, Lindsay Cole, Megan Morgan, & Lexy Silva Music: “Different Trains: I. America-Before the War” by Kronos Quartet

Inspired by an ordinary encounter on a New York subway, Clockwork reveals the multiple ways in which life’s intersections and expectations can unfold. The structure encourages audience members to forge certain notions about the projected future of the dance, and then functions to disrupt their expectations. Clockwork is organized through an ebb and flow of connection and disconnection that offer opportunities for various layers of information and recognition to resonate between performer and viewer.

MICHELLE KATHERINE BEARD (Eureka Springs, AR) is the founder and Artistic Director of Visual Acoustics Dance Project. She has recently trained with Irene Dowd, K.J. Holmes, Barbra Mahler, and Lisa Race at Movement Research (New York) as well as Kathleen Hermesdorf and Sarah Shelton Mann at Alternative Conservatory (San Francisco). Michelle has studied dance making and composition under Tere O’Connor, Neil Greenberg, and Ishmael Houston-Jones. In conjunction with her role as Artistic Director, Michelle has performed in works by Kanji Sigawa, Christian von Howard, and Stafford Berry, Jr.

105

Friday, August 2, 2013

“Tarana” Performer & Choreography: Bageshree Vaze Composer: Pt. Balwantrai Bhatt

Kathak dance originated in the royal court (darbar) era of India during the 17th century, but continues to be an evolving art. Dancers compose rhythmic syllabic language and interpret this language through dynamic movements, sparkling pirouettes (known as chakkars), and intricate footwork. Much like other dance styles, movements and repertoire in the Kathak style became codified in the 20th century, but what makes Kathak unique is that each dancer creates in the moment through his or her unique spirit, adding a bit of their personality and experience through rhythmic and movement language and interpretation. ‘Tarana’ celebrates this evolution with a ‘salon’ piece that highlights the signature movements of this dance style and the manner in which it may have existed centuries ago, alongside contemporary melodic and rhythmic composition. Choreographed, performed and sung by Bageshree Vaze, this song is composed by Pt. Balwantrai Bhatt, and appears on Bageshree’s Tarana CD.

Remnant Hit/fix addresses missteps, stumbles, missed opportunities and discordant situations. A wrong turn, even in the most benign setting, can precipitate a fall.Truncated movement phrases and gestural indicators of an impulsive condition are strung together to create an anti-declaration of feminine experience.

AMY CHAVASSE, Associate Professor of Dance, choreographer, performer, educator, improviser, storyteller and Artistic Director of ChavasseDance&Performance joined the faculty at University of Michigan in 2006. She has been a guest artist/ faculty member at numerous institutions, including Middlebury College, Arizona State, Virginia Commonwealth, and University of NC School of the Arts. She has taught at Florence Summer Dance since 2007, and will teach an improvisation/ composition intensive with Peter Schmitz at ProDanza Italia, July 8-13, 2013 in Castiglioncello, Italy. She has taught internationally at Duncan 3.0 (Rome), the Beijing Dance Festival and the American Dance Festival/Henan (summer 2012. As Artistic Director of ChavasseDance&Performance, her work has been presented throughout the U.S. including Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, in Cuba, Lithuania, Italy, Vienna, and Cali, Colombia. She’s danced in many companies and independent projects in NC, DC and NYC, and with Bill Young/ Colleen Thomas Dancers and Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians. She received her BFA from the University of NC School of the Arts and her MFA from the University of Washington.chavassedanceandperformance.com

106

Friday, August 2, 2013

“Organ Stories” (head and heart excerpts) Performer: Krista Posyniak Choreographer/Costume/Organs: Susan Kendal Poetry: Lindsay Zier-Vogel Music: “Flume” by Bon Iver & ” Optical Theory” by Michael Nyman Text: Gray’s Anatomy, Dr. C. Hrazdil, A. Levencrown

Organ Stories (head and heart excerpts) is a theatrical dance work that brings anatomical knowledge and physical embodiment together in a whimsical, poetic lecture-demo-performance about internal workings, both emotional and physical. Handmade, 3-dimensional knitted organs emphasize this dance as the performer is affected by the knowledge and weight of each organ. Originally performed at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2011, the full-length work includes 4 organs: lungs, heart, uterus and brain.

KRISTA POSYNIAK is an Edmonton-based contemporary dance artist. A graduate of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Krista has performed across the country in works by Susie Burpee, Kate Nankervis, Eroca Nicols/Lady Janitor, and Tedd Robinson, among others. As a choreographer and dance instructor, Krista is an advocate of education through movement. Krista is studying Arts Management at Grant MacEwan University and works for Sugar Swing Dance Club.

107

Saturday, August 3, 2013

“Exit from the Blue Room” Performer: Kaleila Jordan Woodwinds and Piano (live): Bennie Maupin Choreography: Seónagh Odhiambo Music: “Lorrin’s Theme,” “Blue Morning,” & “Escondido,”composed by Bennie Maupin Costume Design: Carole Frances Lung Lighting Design: AJ Munie

Exit from the Blue Room is a collaboration between composer Bennie Maupin and choreographer Seonagh Odhiambo of Asava Dance. The work premiered in 2012 in Los Angeles when Maupin drew from observations of the dancers in rehearsal to compose an original score. The excerpt performed here, a duet of live music and dance, is between Maupin, legendary bass clarinetist of Miles Davis’ classic, Bitches Brew, and dancer Kaleila Jordan, a soloist in contemporary traditions of Africa and North America. Appreciating the weave between dance and music in live collaboration, the choreographer works with a fusion of modern techniques, African influences, and Photo by Keith Settle powerful gestures. The dancer digs into the theme of oppression as it connects to both jazz history and everyday life. The result is an emphasis on positive transformations— strength and beauty that, like America’s only original art form jazz music, rise up out of painful circumstances.

Photo by Anthony Elgott

SEONAGH ODHIAMBO defines dance as a point of contact through which ideas, inspiration, movement, and meaning travel. Interested in collaborations with live music, Odhiambo founded Asava Dance, based in Los Angeles. With her partners in music and dance she approaches a choreography process that is collaborative and activist. In this way, she lays the foundation for a somatically-oriented critical pedagogy and dance theory. Her scholarly research stems from descriptions of dancers’ experiential learning in the creative process and offers a perspective on the body as a zone of critical praxis. Odhiambo’s theoretical reflections in the area of liberatory pedagogy radically expand the areas of dance theory and dance education. A Fisher Center Fellow, Odhiambo received a PhD in Dance from Temple University. She is now an Assistant Professor of Dance at CSULA where she teaches advanced theory in dance, choreography, and world performance as Director of the Graduate Program.

108

Saturday, August 3, 2013

“Stand Up” (excerpts) Performers: Heather Klopchin & Erinn Liebhard Choreography: Jeffrey Peterson Music: “Sunday Kind of Love” (composed by Barbara Belle, Anita Leonard, Stan Rhodes, & Louis Prima) & “Fool That I Am” (composed by Floyd Hunt), performed by Etta James, edited by Jeffrey Peterson Text: Lisa Landry & Wanda Sykes, edited by Jeffrey Peterson

“Stand Up (excerpts)” poses questions regarding the presentation and viewing of socially charged dance. The work seeks to dissect the communication of theatrical modern movement when coupled with bold accompaniment, juxtapositions, and repetitions. Exploring meaning making, “Stand Up” employs strategic compositional tools in route to dissecting our perceptions regarding love, marriage, reproductive rights, and child rearing. Through disparate emotional trajectories, deliberate spatial tension, and rich audio tracks, “Stand Up” seeks to confound viewers’ empathetic and intellectual responses. In its entirety, “Stand Up” includes five additional sections, all of which tackle specific angles within a similar amalgamation of topical commentary and compositional approach. The work premiered by Jeffrey Peterson Dance as part of How Do You See It? at the Minnesota Fringe Festival in August 2011.

“Man Alone” (excerpt from “Urban Fissure”, 2013) Performer: Guy Thorne of FuturPointe Dance Choreography: Chris Walker

Described as a “populist folkloric piece in a contemporary arrangement,” Chris Walker’s “Urban Fissure” draws direct influences from Jamaican reggae and dancehall, body language and aesthetic. The work addresses the layered and often dangerous realities of urban life conveying a gritty feeling of resistance, resilience, endurance and survival. As a landscape, the choreography has ongoing ebb, lacking in flow, which over time creates a buildup of tension that is then released as the community’s response. The group section investigates camaraderie while the opening solo ‘man alone’ was created as a challenge to bravado.

109

Saturday, August 3, 2013

CHRIS WALKER is a dancer and choreographer with the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica. He received a professional diploma in Dance Theatre Production at Edna Manley College in Kingston, and MFA and BFA degrees from SUNY-Brockport. Walker is the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards including the 2004 New York-Thayer Fellowship, Certificate for Merit from the American Theatre Festival Association for choreography, gala performance of his work at American College Dance Festival. He continues to tour, present work and conduct artistic residencies throughout the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, North and South America. At UW-Madison, Walker is Assistant Professor in the Dance Program and Artistic Director of the First Wave Hip Hop Theater Ensemble. He is also the co-founder and artistic director of NUMORUNE COLLABORATIVE – an ensemble of dancers, choreographers, storytellers and musicians, who come together under a united artistic vision to create collaborative works. Germaul Barnes (www.ViewsicEx.org) and Guy Thorne (futurpointedance.org) will be representing the collaborative for World Dance Alliance Assembly in Vancouver.

“In Waiting” Performers: Jackie Nii & Cody Wilbourn Choreography: Robin Conrad Music: Leonard Cohen, Rokia Traore, & L’Arpeggiata

“In Waiting” is an exploration of our intimate selves both inside and out and a study of what happens when we drop our veneers to integrate with one another and connect on a deeper level.

“Inside In” is a poetic, thoughtful solo that explores ‘doing as a way of thinking’. It searches out a way to communicate the self—investing in the ordinary and the everyday as a means of survival. It speaks to the idea that the simple discipline required for survival can lead to the extraordinary. (The original 20 min solo -2009- was created with and performed by Laura Hicks. This is an adaptation created specifically with Brenna)

CLAIRE FRENCH (MFA, BA (Hons)) is Vancouver-based, UK-born. She is co-artistic director of Restless Productions (alongside composer James Maxwell). The company recently premiered the dance and music production,”The Moment of Forgetting”, and is currently developing a chamber opera evening entitled “Little Crimes”. French is also an independent choreographer, teacher, performer, and arts administrator. Over the past seventeen years her work has been presented in Europe, the UK, and Canada and she has taught and performed internationally. www.restlessproductions.com

110

Saturday, August 3, 2013

“Stand Up” (excerpts) part 2

“South Facing Window” (2013, World Premier) Performer: Germaul Barnes Choreography: Chris Walker Music: Major Scurlock “Phoenix”, “Phoenix Back and Fore”, & “Madonna Sub D 1 Hybrid” Costumes: Chris Walker Lighting Design: Stephen Arnold

I grew up learning that the black, green, and gold of the Jamaica flag meant, “hardships there are, but the land is green and the sun shineth”. Many Jamaican scholars argued the use of “hardship” to represent “black” in a country where 90% of the population is black. Created for Germaul Barnes, a Bessie Award winner with meticulous focus and expressive delivery, “South Facing Window” structurally draws on the color psychology and metaphors outlined in of the Jamaican flag. I use Manley’s “up the down escalator” as a way of exploring vocabulary for living in memories instead of creating new ones. The work was created to original composition by Major A. Scurlock, a pianist and composer of unique talent and drive who earned BM and MM degrees from the world famous Juilliard School.

111

112

Friday, August 2

10:00 am – 11:20 am Judith R. Marcuse Studio

“Consider Your Audience: A Pas de Trois: Dancers-Audience-Critics” Panel: Gigi Berardi, Doug Fullington, & Erin Jorgensen Join PNB’s Doug Fullington (Education Programs Manager and Assistant to Artistic Director Peter Boal), On the Boards’ Erin Jorgensen (Communications Director), and dance writer Gigi Berardi in an open forum/discussion addressing important roles and niches for administrative and artistic staff and dancers, audiences, and critics — in making and selling dance. Admittedly, the critic’s audience is the reader, and the dancer’s audience is the viewer, and sometimes, reader and viewer are one and the same. The Forum will encourage discussion around provocative questions such as: How much do dance audiences, much less critics, influence marketing and artistic decisions? When and where is there space (literally and figuratively) for the dance critic, the dance feature writer? To what extent do dance writers help create dance persona — why, for example, do writers tend to interview the same dancers over and over? It would seem that here, too, both audiences and critics have their favorite dance personalities. Whither all else, and market be damned?

GIGI BERARDI’s academic background and performing experience allow her to combine her professional interests with her interests in dance, as both critic and writer. She has written over 200 articles for publications including Dance Magazine, Dance International, the Los Angeles Times, the Anchorage Daily News, The Bellingham Herald, IDEA Today, LA Weekly, and scientific journals such as Journal of Dance Medicine & Science, Kinesiology and Medicine for Dance, Dance Research Journal, and Impulse: The International Journal of Dance Science, Education, and Medicine. She has written as a national advocacy columnist for the Dance Critics Association Newsletter and served on performing arts panels for the Alaska State Council on the Arts. She currently serves as a contributing editor and writer for Dance Magazine and writes regularly for Dance International. A professor at Western Washington University, she has written several books, Finding Balance (Routledge), and her current book project, entitled A Cultivated Life.

DOUG FULLINGTON is Education Programs Manager and Assistant to Artistic Director Peter Boal at Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. He is responsible for developing PNB’s audience education programs and is also on the consulting staff of Pacific Northwest Ballet School as dance historian. Doug is a fluent reader of Stepanov notation and has contributed reconstructed dances to The Daughter of Pharaoh for the Bolshoi Ballet (2001); Le jardin animé for PNB School (2004); Le Corsaire for the Bavarian State Ballet (2007); andGiselle for PNB (2011). In 2014, he will collaborate with Alexei Ratmansky on Paquita for the Bavarian State Ballet. Doug’s writings on the Stepanov notations have been published in Ballet Alert!, Ballet Review, Dance View,and Dancing Times. He has also presented several lecture- demonstrations about Stepanov notation on the Guggenheim Museum’s Works and Process series.

ERIN JORGENSEN has worked at On the Boards, an internationally-known presenting house for contemporary dance, theater and music, for over a decade. She currently works in communications, social media, and design, working to find the best ways to connect innovative artists with a sometimes art-shy public. As a Seattle-based musician, she has worked with artists ranging from indie-rockers Built to Spill to sound engineer/maverick Steve Fisk. She studied percussion performance and music composition at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA.

114

Friday, August 2

11:30 am – 12:50 pm Judith R. Marcuse Studio

“Who Are Dance Critics Today?” Panel: Carolyn Kelemen, Sandra Kurtz, Mariko Nagashima, & Brian Schaefer Moderator: George Jackson Dance criticism today is more diverse than it has ever been. Reviewers for traditional newspaper and magazines are still read in print but today also on screen. Radio and television reviews have always been rare, but many reviews appear primarily on screen, both at organized Internet websites and as independent Internet blogs. Some of the bloggers disavow being critics at all. Pay for Internet reviewing is limited to nonexistent. Why do people do it? The panelists will debate what they believe are the most urgent things a review should accomplish. Are there qualifications for being a dance critic – having taken technique class, having performed and choreographed? Or does being a dancer and dance maker as well as a critic constitute conflict of interest? Can one learn to see dance or is it an inborn gift? Are there different yet valid ways of seeing? How distinct is dance criticism from dance reporting and dance history? Should reviewers remember that future history is being written and carefully distinguish between subjective and objective comments? Why do people read reviews? The panel’s aim is to explore the richness and resonance of dance criticism today.

Becoming aware of criticism at the University of Chicago (“the unexamined pleasure is not worth enjoying”),GEORGE JACKSON began writing on dance for the campus newspaper in 1950. Since then he has reviewed for the general media (Washington Star, Washington Post, Times of London, NPR, PBS) and for specialized sources (Ballet Review, Dance Chronicle, Dance Magazine, danceviewtimes.com, Dancing Times, et al.). He has resided in Austria (where he figure skated as a child), Britain and the USA (where he worked as microbiologist and editor, and took ballet). Recently he started writing novels.

CAROLYN KELEMEN followed James Rouse’s dream to Columbia, Md., in 1970 and soon begin writing about dance for Patuxent Publishing newspapers. Her master’s degree in dance was earned at Mills College in Oakland, Calif. She currently teaches arts and humanities at Howard Community College in Maryland and reviews dance and theater for the online DC Metro Theater Arts. In 1972 she formed the Interfaith Housing Ballet Company and staged one of the New City’s first dance benefits at Merriweather Post Pavilion. In 1999 she won a Howie Award for her support of the arts, and in 2006 she was inducted into the Howard County Women’s Hall of Fame for her efforts on behalf of “A Labor of Love” to a benefit people living with HIV/AIDS in Howard County MD.

MARIKO NAGASHIMA is a dance writer, performer, and teacher based in Seattle. She is the Editorial Director and Manager of the website SeattleDances, the only site dedicated solely to dance in the Seattle area. Her performance credits include lotusbody, Ashani Dances, and ARC Dance, as well as works by Edgar Zendejas and Alex Ketley. She holds a BFA in Ballet and BS in Biology from the University of Utah, where she was also a contributing writer to the Daily Utah Chronicle. Mariko attended the Dance Critics Association conference as a Gary Parks Scholarship winner in 2012, has written for the DCA News, and is currently a member of the DCA Board.

Some people go to Israel to study religion, some go for the politics, BRIAN SCHAEFER went for the dance. He has been living in Tel Aviv for the past three years, covering arts, culture and the LGBT community for TimeOut Israel, Haaretz daily newspaper and contributing as a freelancer to the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Dance Magazine and OUT magazine. Prior to adventures in the Middle East, he received an NEA Arts Journalism fellowship in Dance Criticism and received degrees in Dance and Communication from the University of California, San Diego. He recently received his Masters in Literature/Creative Writing at Bar Ilan University in Israel and was a finalist for this year’s Livingston Award for Young Journalists in International Reporting. He has been a Board Member of the DCA since 2011.

115

Friday, August 2

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Judith R. Marcuse Studio

“Spotlight on Vancouver” Panel: Alexander Ferguson, Peter Dickinson, & Deborah Meyers Moderator: Sarah Todd Vancouver, BC is an artistic hub of the West coast. This panel celebrates and examines this artistic vitality through the lens of dance writing in the city. Sarah Todd, curator of Western Front Gallery in Vancouver, moderates this exciting panel about Vancouver as a microcosm of the larger dance world. This discussion will focus on local dance writing and criticism, as well as the impact of social media and fan-based writing on the Vancouver arts scene. Todd and panelists Alexander Ferguson, Peter Dickinson, and Deborah Meyers will discuss the limited resources for peer-reviewed or editor-reviewed local dance critique. Among the questions to be examined are: Who is writing in Vancouver, and why? Who is reading, and why?

PETER DICKINSON is Professor of English at Simon Fraser University, where he also teaches in the School for the Contemporary Arts. He is the author, most recently, of World Stages, Local Audiences: Essays on Performance, Place, and Politics (Manchester University Press, 2010), and he blogs about Vancouver performance at performanceplacepolitics.blogspot.ca.

SARAH TODD is a curator and writer currently based in Vancouver. She went to school at the Ontario College of Art and Design and the University of British Columbia, and has worked at a number of institutions including InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, XPACE Cultural Centre, and The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Sarah has presented independent curatorial projects at the Toronto Free Gallery, The Dance Centre, Vtape Video Resource Centre, The Goethe Institut Satellite and Kunstverein Munchen. She is currently the curator of Media Arts at Western Front and a programmer at Pacific Cinematheque’s Dim Cinema. Sarah contributes regularly to Akimbo.ca‘s Art + Technology blog and a range of publications including C Magazine and the Dance Current.

116

Friday, August 2

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Judith R. Marcuse Studio

“The Proof is in the Process” Panel: Victoria Farr Brown, Zoe Scofield, & Annie Wilson Moderator: Lynn Matluck Brooks A recent development in contemporary dance practice involves choreographers inviting writers and even audiences to observe their creation process. Writers, in turn, document, blog, and weigh in on the process, which informs both their own reviews and the dance itself. In this panel, three artists/writers involved in such processes describe the ways their work interweaves dancing and writing, focusing on creative process. They investigate ways such work affects the final product’s accessibility and response from both critics and audiences. How does the ground for evaluation shift under such circumstances? How does this writing-dancing, process-based work shape dance presentation? Join Princess Grace award- winning choreographer Zoe Scofield, and dance writers Victoria Farr Brown, Annie Wilson, and moderator Lynn Matluck Brooks in a discussion of these varied and shifting processes.

VICTORIA FARR BROWN is a writer, mostly of fiction, who lives in Seattle and Martha’s Vineyard. Her loves are dance, philosophy, the Vineyard, travel, food, friends, and family. She writes the “e-whims” blog for Whim W’him Dance Company (directed by Olivier Wever and founded in 2009) in Seattle. WhimW’Him is now affiliated with Intiman Theatre. Victoria’s blogs are about ideas, whimsical or otherwise, that occur to her in the course of watching the company grow.

ZOE SCOFIELD studied ballet and modern dance at Walnut Hill School for the Performing Arts in Boston. She has danced with Prometheus Dance and Bill James among other choreographers in Toronto, Boston and Seattle. Scofield has received the Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award from Wesleyan University, Artist Trusts GAP Grant and Artist Fellowship Award, City Arts Innovator Award, Seattle Magazine’s Spotlight Award, The Strangers Genius Award short list, Alpert Award Residency and the Princess Grace Foundation Choreography Award. As collaborators in the Seattle-based company Zoe/Juniper, Scofield and Juniper Shuey have shown their work at Howard House, SOFA Gallery, Soil Gallery, TBA Festival and the Tacoma Art Museum.

ANNIE WILSON is a Philadelphia-based performer, creator, author, yoga instructor, bartender, and maybe, one day, a BodyTalk practitioner. She is a graduate of the Process Project (Bethany Merola’s improve-film-story project). In 2010 she traveled to Amsterdam to study improvisation with Katie Duck, and was supported in part by the PA Council on the Arts, friends, colleagues, and mentors. The blog from that experience can be found at dancesterdam.wordpress.com. She often tries to insert intellectual discourse where it doesn’t belong and looks forward to a project that focuses on it.

117

Saturday, August 3

10:00 am- 12:50 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“Shifting Strategies: Dance Writing for the Web vs. Print” Presentation & Class Starting with a basic intro to dance writing, this panel will discuss how writing for the web affects writing style. How does it differ from traditional journalism? Is it possible to write a review in 140 characters? Join the DCA in this forum/class that will discuss how to capitalize on the better parts of our constantly changing media landscape. With time to practice your own writing skills, this panel is sure to hone your approach to writing about dance.

2:00 pm – 3:20 pm Stephen A. Jarislowsky Studio

“The DCA and Higher Education” Panel: Lodi McClellan, Jennifer Salk, & Henry Daniel Moderator: Mariko Nagashima College is the perfect time to train aspiring artists to look at dance critically, as the critical thinking process has applications in practicing, performing, watching, creating, and writing about dance. Because dancers are able to internalize the physicality of choreography when they witness it, they are able to write about dance from a unique place of understanding. Getting them to write about it, however, can be challenging. When pitted against academic studies of dance technique and choreographic composition, writing well-crafted dance criticism is not always a student’s top priority. This higher education panel discussion aims to address this issue and to answer questions such as: How are universities encouraging young dancers to become young writers? Is there room for the DCA to become a presence in educating dance critics through college programs? And how can this process be facilitated? Join the DCA and educators from a range of universities for a forum about dance writing and its visibility in higher education. Faculty members from the University of Washington, Cornish College of the Arts, and Simon Fraser University will be featured on this panel.

118

Saturday, August 3

LODI McCLELLAN, Professor at Cornish College of the Arts, has been teaching dance technique for over thirty years in colleges and private studios on both coasts. In addition, she has taught Dance History and Criticism to Pacific Northwest Ballet summer students and was an Artist-in-Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, choreographing on and teaching modern dance to engineers. Lodi’s performance credits include the University of Washington’s Chamber Dance Company, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Beth Soll and Company, Bill Evans, Llory Wilson, Wade Madsen, and Georgia Ragsdale, among others. Her dance writing credits include the Seattle Weekly, Eastside Week, Dance International, The International Dictionary of Modern Dance, Curve, and DanceNet , which she also co-edited, and many pre-performance lectures for a variety of venues. She received her BA in Dance from Mount Holyoke College and her MFA in Dance, specializing in dance criticism, from the University of Washington.

JENNIFER SALK, MFA, is an associate professor and the Donald R. Petersen Endowed Professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. She has taught master classes and choreographed for companies and schools around the country, Europe, and South America, and is on faculty at Florida Dance Festival and Staibdance Italian Summer Dance Intensive. She is currently touring with Mark Haim. Her DVD How to Teach Experiential Anatomy in the Technique Class is in its second printing. Salk recently returned from a Fulbright sponsored residency at Mimar Sinan University State Conservatory in Istanbul. She received the Distinguished Teaching Award at UW in 2006. Salk employs embodied writing skills in all of her course work in an effort to nurture the next generation of dance writers.

119

Saturday, August 3

3:30 pm – 4:50 pm Studio 7

“What’s In a Name? ‘Branding’ in the Dance World” Panel: Tonya Lockyer, Ashani Mfuko, & Max Wyman Moderator: Sandra Kurtz How does a dance company establish its identity in a world that is increasingly dependent on social media? And how does that identity change over time? This panel will examine that process from the point of view of both artists and critics. Moderated by Sandra Kurtz, (Seattle Weekly), panelists will include Max Wyman (Vancouver critic and cultural commentator) Tonya Lockyer (Executive Director, Velocity Dance Center, Seattle) and Ashani Mfuko, (“Dancerpreneur” and online branding specialist (@AshaniMfuko), with other participants to be announced.

SANDRA KURTZ has been watching dance and writing about it, in Seattle and elsewhere, since the 1970s. She has taught on the dance faculties of the University of Washington and Cornish College, helped to found the Northwest Dance Coalition, and served on the boards of the Dance Critics Association and the Society of Dance History Scholars.

TONYA LOCKYER has served as Executive/Artistic Director of Velocity since 2011, leading the revitalization of Seattle’s premier contemporary dance center. Lockyer has overseen the artistic expansion of Velocity including: the development of Velocity’s first humanities programs, initiating an Artist-in-Residence program and Next Dance Cinema festival, launching an online journal for choreographic culture, commissioning and developing more than forty new performance works, installation and film; and the curation of over a hundred contemporary performances by established and emerging artists including zoe | juniper, Keith Hennessy, and Faye Driscoll. Lockyer participates on numerous state and local arts panels and is a sought out speaker on contemporary dance and cultural vitality. An Affiliated Faculty Member of Cornish College of the Arts, Lockyer is published in international journals and exhibition catalogues.. She holds an MFA from The University of Washington and is a Certified Movement Analyst.

ASHANI MFUKO is a Professional Dancer/Dance Instructor, Social Media Marketing Strategist, Online Branding Specialist, Business Coach, Writer, and Executive Producer. She is the Founder of Kiner Enterprises, a dance marketing, branding, & media company, and the Host and Executive Producer of the “Inside New York City Dance” television show on MNN. She has been featured in Dance Mogul magazine, Inside Woman magazine, & Dance Studio Life magazine, as well as various dance blogs online. She is the author & creator of the, “Finance Your Dance: How To Turn Your Passion Into Profit“ e-book & workshop, and her dance blog won the Reader’s Choice, “Top Dance Business Blog” of the year award, two years in a row. Ashani is currently on staff at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York city, & teaches Advanced Jazz classes for their Jazz & Contemporary program & Ballet trainee program. She also consults as their Social Media Marketing Strategist & Manager.

MAX WYMAN is a Vancouver writer and one of Canada’s leading cultural commentators. Among his books are Dance Canada: An Illustrated History (named one of the “165 Great Canadian Books of the Century” in 2000); Evelyn Hart: An Intimate Biography; Revealing Dance (a selection from three decades of writing about dance); and The Defiant Imagination: Why Culture Matters, a passionate manifesto asserting the central importance of the arts and culture to modern society. A former member of the board of the Canada Council for the Arts, he was President of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, 2002-2006. Deeply involved in the international movement to reposition the arts at the heart of the educational curriculum, he serves on the steering committee of the International Network for Research in Arts Education (INRAE) and co-edited the first INRAE international yearbook (2013). For his services to the arts he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2001 and received an honorary D. Litt. from Simon Fraser University in 2003.

120