nccakron

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Seattle-based choreographer, director and educator Kate Wallich. Named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” her work has been presented nationally and internationally by venues including On the Boards, Seattle Art Museum, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Walker Art Center, MASS MoCa, and The Joyce Theater. In 2010 she founded an all-abilities, community-focused class called Dance Church® which, during the pandemic, gained traction as an online streaming platform and received attention from Wired, Vanity Fair, and The LA Times.

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Champaign-Urbana, IL-based choreographer, Abby Zbikowski. Abby is the founder of the company Abby Z and the New Utility. She is a 2020 United States Artists Fellow and received the 2017 Juried Bessie Award for her work. She is also a professor of Dance at the University of Illinois and on faculty at American Dance Festival.

Strange Tools by Alva Noe https://g.co/kgs/n9Fdyj
Artist Website:  www.abbyznewutility.org
Sandi Scheuber: https://dance.osu.edu/people/hadley.4

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with New York City-based dancer, choreographer and educator Amy Miller. A former member of the Ohio Ballet, and founding member and artistic associate of Cleveland-based GroundWorks DanceTheater, she is now a Gibney Company Director and a performing member of the Gibney Company. An Ohio native, Amy earned a 2010 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and in 2009 was voted Outstanding Artist in dance by the Akron Area Arts Alliance.

www.gibneydance.org
www.groundworksdance.org
Emergent Strategy  by adrienne maree brown
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Brooklyn New York based choreographer, Raja Feather Kelly. Raja is the artistic director of New Brooklyn Theatre and founder of the dance-theatre-media company the feath3r theory. He was born in Fort Hood, Texas and holds a B.A. in Dance and English from Connecticut College. He is a three-time Princess Grace Award winner (2017, 2018, 2019). Over the past decade he has created fifteen evening-length works for the feath3r theory, choreographed extensively for Off-Broadway theatre, and performed with Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group, David Dorfman Dance, Kyle Abraham | A.I.M, and zoe | juniper.

http://thefeath3rtheory.com

Dominic Moore-Dunson hails from Akron, OH, where he attended the University of Akron and Firestone High School (Akron School for the Arts). Recently recognized as a “New Agent” by MOCA Cleveland, Dominic has received numerous fellowships and recognitions as an emerging artist and arts leader. He was a 2019 Jacob’s Pillow Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellow, a 2018 Breakout Artist by the Devil Strip Magazine (Akron), a 2016 National Arts Strategies (NAS) Creative Community Fellow (DC), and an inaugural member of Leadership Akron’s Diversity on Board Program. His solo work, CAUTION, was a 2018 commission by Akron Art Museum.

Dominic completed a certificate program with the National Arts Strategies Executive Program in Arts & Culture Strategies (University of Pennsylvania) to enhance his capacity in all aspects of running a thriving arts & non-profit culture organization. Moore-Dunson currently serves on the board of ArtsNow and the Akron Cultural Plan Steering Committee.

Dominic was a dancer, rehearsal coordinator, and educator with Inlet Dance Theatre (Cleveland, OH). During his time with Inlet, he developed a community-based dance theatre project called ‘Black Card’ Project that premiered in Sept 2018. The ‘Black Card’ Project is a live-action dance-theatre cartoon that examines the narrow definition of blackness and the African-American ideal of the “Black Card”.

EPISODE LINKS

• dommooredun.com
• Article about The Black Card Project
  ideastream.org/news/akron-firestone-grad-dominic-moore-dunson-stages-the-black-card-project

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Paloma McGregor (New York, NY) is a Caribbean-born choreographer. As co-founder and Artistic Director of Angela’s Pulse, McGregor has spent more than a decade centering Black voices through collaborative, community-specific performance projects. McGregor also facilitates technique, creative process, and community engagement workshops around the world. She toured internationally for six years with Urban Bush Women and two years with Liz Lerman/Dance Exchange and continues to perform in project‐based work, including Skeleton Architecture, an acclaimed collective of Black women(+) improvisers with whom she received a New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award for performance in 2017. 

Alongside her choreographic work, McGregor founded Dancing While Black (DWB), a platform for community-building, intergenerational exchange, and visibility among Black dance artists. Since 2012, DWB has produced more than two dozen public dialogues and performances, supported the development of 22 Black artists through the DWB Fellowship, and published the country’s first digital journal by and for Black experimental dance artists.

EPISODE LINKS

• Angela's Pulse: angelaspulse.org
• Dancing While Black: angelaspulse.org/project/dancing-while-black

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Helen Simoneau (Winston-Salem, NC), a native of Québec, Canada, has been commissioned by The Juilliard School, the American Dance Festival, Oregon Ballet Theatre, the Bessie Schönberg Residency at The Yard, Springboard Danse Montréal, and the Swiss Intl. Coaching Project (SiWiC) in Zurich. She was a resident artist at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Bates Dance Festival, and has received fellowships from Bogliasco Foundation and the NC Arts Council. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally at notable venues such as The Guggenheim Museum (NYC), Dance Place (DC), Joyce SoHo (NYC), Tangente (Montréal), The Aoyama Round Theatre (Tokyo), the L.I.G. Art Hall Busan (South Korea), Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out (MA), PACT-Zollverein in Essen (Germany), and Athens International Dance Festival (Greece).

Simoneau founded Helen Simoneau Danse (HSDanse) in 2010. Dance Magazine described Simoneau as “a choreographer-on-the-rise with a style that is both athletic and smooth."

EPISODE LINKS

• helensimoneau.org
• Excerpts from DARLING
  vimeo.com/446889223

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Taja Will (Minneapolis, MN) is a queer, Latinx (Chilean) adoptee, performer, choreographer, somatic therapist, and Healing Justice practitioner, on ancestral Dakota lands of Wahpekute and Anishinabewaki. Taja’s approach integrates improvisation, somatic modalities, text, and vocals in contemporary performance. Will’s work explores visceral connections to current socio-cultural realities through ritual, archetypes, and everyday magic.

Taja is a recent recipient of the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, in the dance field, awarded in 2021. Their work has been presented at the Walker Art Center Choreographer’s Evening, the Red Eye Theater’s New Works 4 Weeks, the Radical Recess series, Right Here Showcase, and the Candy Box Dance Festival. Will is the recipient of a 2018 McKnight Choreography Fellowship, administered by the Cowles Center and funded by The McKnight Foundation. Will has recently received support from the National Association of Latinx Arts & Culture, the Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.

Taja maintains a dynamic Healing Justice practice that includes consulting with individuals, organizations, and communities in the context of workshops, conflict mediation, one-on-one somatic healing sessions, nervous system triage, board development and organizational cultural competency, and individual coaching on unwinding from white body supremacy culture. They ground their work in indigenous solidarity and decolonization as a means to undo white body supremacy and its pervasive relationship to capitalism, Taja is committed to working for healing and liberation of Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

EPISODE LINKS

• tajawillartist.com

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Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer (Valley Cottage, NY), Co-Artistic Directors of Bridgman | Packer Dance, have collaborated in choreography and performance since 1978.

In 2001, they expanded their choreographic vision, stretching the boundaries of dance by merging it with video technology. In 2017, they received a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) for Outstanding Production for their work Voyeur at The Sheen Center.

The 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to Bridgman and Packer was the first in the history of the Guggenheim Foundation to be given to two individuals for their collaborative work. Bridgman and Packer are recipients of eleven grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (2007-2019) and grants from the New England Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, National Dance Project, USArtists International, Performing Americas Project, and La Red. They have received two Choreography Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, four National Performance Network Creation Fund Awards, and choreographic commissions from Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts), Portland Ovations, Danspace Project, and the 92nd Street Y New Works in Dance Fund.

Based in New York City, they have been presented by City Center Fall For Dance Festival, Lincoln Center, The Baryshnikov Arts Center, The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival, Dance Theater Workshop (now NYLA), Danspace Project, The Sheen Center, and Central Park's Summerstage.

EPISODE LINKS

• bridgmanpacker.org
• Remember What Never Happened at the Beirut Spring Festival in 2017
  youtube.com/watch?v=T8ZFj2p5Bjk

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Jesse Factor's (Slippery Rock, PA) growing repertoire of solo work combines a speculative view of queer histories and the archive with contemporary composition practices. He has created Mommie Queerest, presented at Queers in Revolt at Sam Houston University in 2019, Kween Kong presented at the Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival in 2017, and Marthagany: the Spectre-Acle series, which continues to tour at dance festivals, performance events, and nightclubs. Jesse Factor’s studied channeling of divas in exile--from time and body--hauntingly reflects the impressions they’ve left behind.

Awards include the Twin Cities Arts Reader Critics Pick and Minnesota Fringe Staff Pick for RELIC at the Minnesota Fringe Festival and Outstanding Dance Performance for Marthagany at the Fresh Fruit Festival-NYC. Jesse received the Kelly Strayhorn Alloy Studios Freshworks residency grant (Pittsburgh, PA) for a collaborative work with multimedia artist Scott Andrew.

Factor’s work has been presented in many American and international venues including TQ Live! at the Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh), OUTsider Festival (Austin), Milton Art Bank (Milton), RADfest (Kalamazoo), St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery (NYC), Fresh Fruit Festival (NYC), House of Yes, (NYC), and Fierce Queer Burlesque (Toronto).

Factor received the Iowa Arts Fellowship (2015-2016) and an Obermann Graduate Institute Fellowship (2017) at the University of Iowa. Jesse danced professionally with the Martha Graham Dance Company and Graham II, received a BFA in Drama with honors from Tisch/NYU, and an MFA in Dance from the University of Iowa.

EPISODE LINKS

• jessefactor.com
• blackcube.art/blog/chimera

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Bebe Miller (Columbus, OH), an American choreographer, dancer, and director, first performed her work at NYC’s Dance Theater Workshop in 1978. Interested in “finding a physical language for the human condition,” she formed Bebe Miller Company in 1985. The Company has performed extensively in the UK, Europe, Africa, and throughout the US. Miller's choreography, noted for its mix of virtuosic, athletic speed, and fragile humanity, has been commissioned by Oregon Ballet Theatre, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Boston Ballet, Philadanco, the UK’s Phoenix Dance Company, and PACT Dance Company of Johannesburg, South Africa. She was named a Master of African American Choreography by the Kennedy Center, has received four Bessie awards, United States Artists and Guggenheim Fellowships, honorary doctorates from Ursinus College and Franklin & Marshall College, and is one of the inaugural class of Doris Duke Artist Award recipients.

EPISODE LINKS 

• bebemillercompany.org
• bebemillercompany.org/projects/dancefort
• themakingroom.org
• Bebe's E-book How Dancing is Built: The Making of In A Rhythm
  bebemillercompany.org/projects/in-a-rhythm-e-book
• Dancer Darrell Drive in a solo from A History (2012)
  vimeo.com/399322591

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