the national center for choreography at the university of akron

Today we are excited to share an excerpt of the opening plenary of the 2022 CAR convening titled, “Artist as Model for the New Socioeconomic Normal.” In this portion of session, Christy Bolingbroke, our Executive / Artistic Director is in conversation with Washington DC-based performer, poet, director, and arts administrator, Marc Bamuthi Joseph. Bamuthi is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. While engaging in a deeply fulfilling and successful artistic career, Bamuthi also proudly serves as Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. He is in high demand for his creative approach to organizational design, brand development, and community mediation, and has been enlisted as a strategic partner or consultant for companies ranging from Coca Cola to Carnegie Hall. Bamuthi is the founding Program Director of the exemplary non-profit Youth Speaks, and is a co-founder of Life is Living, a national series of one-day festivals which activate under-resourced parks and affirm peaceful urban life.  

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with  Maui Hawaii-based choreographer Christopher K. Morgan. Christopher is the Executive Artistic Director of Christopher K Morgan & Artists as well as the Director of the Dance Residency Program at Art Omi. His choreography has been presented in 18 countries on 5 continents and has addressed issues including sexuality, gender identity, race, climate change, immigration and water conservation. Christopher recently joined the Maui Arts & Cultural Center to be Vice President of Programming through which he curates dozens of music, dance, and theater performances each year, oversees the Schaefer International Gallery, and a robust arts education program that serves thousands of Hawai'i youth, adults, and arts educators. Prior to joining the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, Christopher served as Executive Artistic Director of Dance Place in Washington, D.C.

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Boulder, CO-based choreographer, performance artist and innovator, Helanius J. Wilkins, whose creative research and projects are rooted in the interconnections of American contemporary performance, cultural history, and identities of Black men. Wilkins founded and artistically directed EDGEWORKS Dance Theater, Washington, DC’s first all-male contemporary dance company of predominately African-American men, that existed for thirteen years (2001 – 2014). To date, he has choreographed and directed over 60 works. Helanius is currently an Associate Professor and the Director of Dance at the University of Colorado, Boulder. 

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with New York City-based performer and educator Courtney Lopes. Born and raised in Bermuda, Courtney trained at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts for high school and went on to receive her BFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase. She now dances with Dance Heginbotham, MeenMoves, Sue Bernhard Danceworks, Kathryn Alter & Dancers, and Megan Williams Dance Projects and is a professor at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts. Courtney is also trained in Dance for PD, a specialized dance class series for people living with Parkinson’s Disease, which she enjoys sharing with communities across the US and around the world. 

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Minneapolis-St. Paul-based performer and choreographer Ashwini Ramaswamy, who trained and performs in the lineage of Bharatanatyam. As a founding member of Ragamala Dance Company, she has toured extensively, throughout the U.S. and in Russia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan, the U.K, and India, as well, she’s performed in  well-know US venues like Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and  the Kennedy Center. Her own choreographic work has been presented by venues including The Joyce Theater and The Yard, and has found support through the National Dance Project and US Artists International. The New York Times describes Ashwini as “weaving together, both fearfully and joyfully, the human and the divine…”

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 Miami-based, Cuban-American dancer and choreographer Rosie Herrera. In addition to being the artistic director of Rosie Herrera Dance Theater, she is an independent director and creative consultant and a classically trained lyric coloratura soprano who performs with the Performers Music Institute Opera Ensemble. Rosie has been awarded choreographic fellowships by MANCC and Bates Dance Festival, among others and was awarded a Princess Grace Choreographic Fellowship for her work with Ballet Hispanico.

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Twin Cities-based dancer, choreographer, and educator, Paula Mann. Mann moved to the Twin Cities in 1987, has created 50 new works, and is co-artistic director of TIME TRACK PRODUCTIONS with visual artist Steve Paul.  She has been a driving force in Contemporary Dance and Performance-based out of Minneapolis for the past 30 years; challenging, educating, and engaging artists, audiences, and communities with passion, inventiveness, and rigor. She was full-time faculty at the University of Minnesota Department of Theater and Dance from 1993-2013 and is a 2019 McKnight Choreographer Fellow.

http://www.timetrackdance.org/about.html

A recreation of New Dance by Doris Humphrey (with my teacher Linda Tarnay in the main role)https://youtu.be/EA4KmKnYRwM

Bill T Jones   https://youtu.be/o4DD3dgfvS0

Donald McKayle's Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder    https://youtu.be/kXZ2ca066Lo

Daniel Nagrin's Strange Hero          https://youtu.be/rxWVYT3_Ccc

Robert Wilson Einstein on the Beach    https://youtu.be/a8kgAkTS7oM

Sharon Wehner performs "32 Fouettes" from Swan Lake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIADfYGc9Vw

https://www.artsmidwest.org/

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Guillaume Gabriel, cofounder of French company, Companie Hervé Koubi. The company’s work was born from a mixture of techniques and influences, at the crossroads of urban dances and ballet and with the coming together of Koubi’s French-Algerian and African family history. 

https://www.cie-koubi.fr

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with New York City-based dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and photographer, Kayla Farrish. Kayla is the founder and director of Kayla Farrish/Decent Structure Arts. Through which she shares her vision of intimate storytelling and makes work that delves into socio-political structures and the liberation of people. Her work has garnered residencies and film screenings across the country, as well as commissions by Gibney Dance and Danspace Project in New York. 

https://www.kaylafarrish.com/

https://www.dance-enthusiast.com/features/social-distance-video-series/view/Kayla-Farrish-Armstrong-Now-Louis-Armstrong-

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with San Francisco, CA-based performer, choreographer, and teacher, James Graham. James dances with Lisa Wymore & Sheldon Smith’s Disappearing Acts, the Joe Goode Performance Group, and is the founder of James Graham Dance Theatre. This conversation was his second engagement with the Center, as he participated in the 2019 NCCAkron Dancing Lab: Dance as Cultural Diplomat, a multi-day symposium exploring the exchange between Israeli and American modern dance.

http://jamesgrahamdancetheatre.com

Also referenced in this episode: https://lizlerman.com/hiking-the-horizontal/

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with San Francisco-based choreographer Nicole Klaymoon. Klaymoon is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Embodiment Project, whose recent work includes a piece titled “Ancient Children”, which explores the ways restorative justice can interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline. This conversation was her second engagement at the Center, as she is an alumna of NCCAkron's Dancing Lab: Screendance that took place in July 2018.

https://www.embodimentproject.org

In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Brooklyn New York based choreographer, Brian Brooks. Brian's work has toured internationally since 2002 with presentations by BAM, the Joyce Theater, Jacob’s Pillow, the American Dance Festival, and Works and Process at the Guggenheim Museum, among others. He has developed and toured work with former New York City Ballet prima ballerina, Wendy Whelan, titled Restless Creature and appears in the film by the same name, with Whelan. 

https://www.bbrooks.org

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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Samantha Speis (New York, NY) is an improviser and movement artist based in the Bronx, and is the Artistic Director of Urban Bush Women. She has worked with Gesel Mason, The Dance Exchange, Jumatatu Poe, Deborah Hay, Marjani Forte, and Liz Lerman. She is currently a member of The Skeleton Architecture collective of black womyn and gender non-conforming artists and was recently awarded a Bessie for Outstanding Performer. She has developed a teaching practice that explores pelvic mobility as the root of powerful locomotion and as a point of connection to the stories, experiences, and lineages that reside in each of us.

EPISODE LINKS

• Urban Bush Women: urbanbushwomen.org/the-company

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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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