FIVE COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER

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CHANCE AND COLLABORATION: THE CUNNINGHAM PROJECT

FIVE COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER 2011–2012

Top: Both casts with stager Banu Ogan. Center: A site performance at Ford Hall, Smith College. Bottom: In performance at Mount Holyoke College.

This year, the FCDD received an “American Masterpieces” grant from the National En-dowment for the Arts to restage Merce Cun-ningham’s renowned choreographic collage,

MinEVENT, on two casts of five college dancers. This proj-ect was especially timely, as it coincided with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s final international Legacy Tour — the company disbanded in January. Performances by the two different casts took place at a variety of venues throughout the fall, and included original collaborations with five college costume, set, video and sound design artists. Merce Cunningham (1919–2009) was a leader of the American avant-garde throughout his seventy-year career and is considered one of the most important cho-reographers of the modern era. Cunningham expanded

Editor: Jim Coleman (FCDD Chair) Additional help: Betty Thurston (FCDD), Eric Olsen (HC ’14) Designer: Robyn Rodman, Five Colleges

the frontiers not only of dance, but also of contemporary visual and performing arts. His collaborations with artis-tic innovators from every creative discipline have yielded an unparalleled body of American dance, music, and visual art. For this version of MinEVENT, long-time com-pany member Banu Ogan, restaged excerpts from four dances spanning four decades of Cunningham’s reper-tory: Scramble (1967), Un jour ou deux (1973), Fielding Sixes (1980), and Scenario (1997). With no familiar narrative or musical moorings, as well as constantly changing sound scores, performance spaces, visual designs and costumes, this work proved challenging and revelatory for dancers and audiences alike. n

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“You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you noth-ing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls.”

—Merce Cunningham

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FCDD STUDENT AND ALUM NEWS

Rose Abramoff (AC’09) choreographed a piece for the Dance Theater Group at Boston University, presented at the ACDFA in March and choreographed UMass Lowell’s production of Rent.

Vanessa Anspaugh (SC MFA ’08) just premiered Armed Guard Garden, a work commissioned by New York Live Arts. The New York Times said, “Armed Guard Garden draws the viewer in immediately and never lets go.” Aretha Aoki (SC MFA ’08) was one of the six dancers in this work.

Christiana Axelsen (MHC ’03) is a freelance dancer in NYC and serves as Develop-ment Director at Notes in Motion/Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre. She also dances and tours nationally with zoe|juniper, which premiered its latest work, A Crack in Everything, in De-cember at ON THE BOARDS in Seattle.

Pele Bauch (HC ‘96) was part of the Joyce SoHo Artists-in-Residence APAP Showcase January 2011 in New York City. Pele is currently focused on estab-lishing her practice in dance dramaturgy.

Jessica Bean (SC ’07) is currently living in West Hartford, CT and finishing her last year at the University of Connecticut. She will earn a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and hopes to work as a pediatric neuropsychologist.

Christine Bennett (SC MFA ’96) is now the Assistant Dance Director of the Office for the Arts Dance Program at Harvard University. Prior to this she was Artistic Director of Bennett Dance Company for 11 years, and adjunct teacher at colleges and universities in the Bos-ton area.

Nick Bentley (AC ’06) per-formed with the Phila-delphia-based Tania Isaac Dance Company on a brief tour to Jacob’s Pillow and the Bates Dance Festival before returning home to Washington DC perform-ing as as a “suitor” for a production of Kiss Me, Kate at Toby’s Dinner Theater. Currently he is a member of the Lesoles Dance Project and works as a motivational dance-party instructor for NYX Entertainment Co.

Lisa Biggs (AC ’93) is working on her Ph.D. in Performance Studies at Northwestern University.

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“DANCING WITH MERCE”

CAMILLE BROWN RESIDENCY OCTOBER 3–9

Nationally renowned choreographer and performer, Camille Brown, was in residence at UMass and the FCDD in October, where she restaged her highly praised re-cent work, New Second Line — A Celebratration of Spirit and Culture of the People of New Orleans. The piece was performed on the University Dancers Concert in December, with excerpts touring to area schools in January. Ms. Brown taught master classes throughout the five colleges, at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts High School and as a community outreach event at the Dunbar Community Center in Springfield, MA. She also presented a talk at the University Museum of Contem-porary Art on her work and career. n

Long-time Merce Cunningham Dance company member and award-winning choreog-rapher, writer and actor Gus Solomons Jr. delivered this year’s annual Five College Dance Department Lecture: “Dancing with Merce”. Weaving absurdist, chance-inspired questions for the audience, with more personal reminiscences of his dancing and long friendship with Merce, Mr. Solomons paid humorous yet poignant tribute to Cunningham’s irreplace-able genius, especially his embrace of chance methods in choreography. For Cunningham (and his philosophical mentor, John Cage) chance offered a way to transcend the bounds of the ego’s narrow conventions, its “likes and dislikes.” As Lewis Hyde writes of Cage, “He asked that intention be thwarted rigorously, not occasionally or whimsically. He worked hard at chance. He would literally spend months tossing coins and working the I Ching to construct a score . . . And when a piece was finished, it was not meant to be an occasion for improvisation; it was meant to be played within the constraints chance had determined . . . The person is being disciplined away from the ego’s habitual attitudes and toward a fundamental change of consciousness.” n

FOOD FOR THOUGHT“The very last thing one could expect of Merce was the he would discuss his intentions . . . Merce mistrusted words as descriptions of dances and was leery of putting literary ideas into our heads, fearing that we’d attempt to interpret them rather than allowing the choreography to speak for itself. It was not that he wanted us devoid of our own ideas about his dances, but that he hoped our ideas, whatever they were, would grow from the mute seed of movement.”

— Carolyn Brown Lead dancer with Cunningham for 25 years

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Nicole Bindler (HC ’95) traveled to Findhorn, Scotland in 2011 as a part of Deborah Hay’s Solo Performance Commission-ing Project. This culmi-nated in a 20-minute solo choreographed by Hay and adapted and performed by Nicole.

Rebeccah Bogue (SC ’08) has choreographed and produced six original ballets in Manhattan over the past 3.5 years. Three of the nine dancers, including the choreographer, in things we like, have traumatic brain injuries.

Alison Bory (MHC ‘97) earned her Ph.D. in Dance History & Theory at the University of California, Riverside, and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor in Dance at Davidson College in North Carolina. Her academic research explores autobiographical performance forms and has been presented at the con-ferences of the Society of Dance History Scholars and the Congress on Research in Dance.

Kimberly Brandt (HC ’99) and Walsh Hansen had a showing of their video 50 MPH at the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.

Taela Brooks (AC ’06) is living in Melbourne, Aus-tralia, working as a stage performer, choreographer and teacher. Her next show is Gershwin’s Crazy for You.

Katherine Buechner (AC ’04) is a graduate student in the Yale School of Sound Design.

Mora Cantlin (MHC ’05), after working at Jacobs Pillow on the year-round administrative staff, has taken a fundraising position at Dartmouth College where she currently works in marketing with the Audience Engagement Department at the Hopkins Center for the Arts.

Nicole Canuso (HC ‘91) premiered As the Eyes of the Seahorse, a new work for Nicole Canuso Dance Company, in Philadelphia. The company was also a recipient of The Knight Arts Challenge Grant.

Audra Carabetta (UM BFA ’99) recently pre-sented Please Be Seated, with her company, Audra Carabetta and Dancers, at Green Street Studios in Cambridge. They have also performed at the Mas-sachusetts Dance Festival, Bowdoin College, College of the Holy Cross, The Dance Complex, The Dance Place of Newburyport and the Virginia Beach Performing Arts Center.

Sue Casey-Murray (UM ’84) continues to teach in

COMMUNITY OUTREACH/DANCE IN EDUCATIONThe FCDD received a grant from Five Colleges, Inc. this spring to fund a new, half-time, two year position in Community Out-reach and Dance in Education. This new hire will help the FCDD address growing student interest in these important areas and energize its efforts to engage new and underserved populations in the broader community. Such outreach efforts have been a strong interest of the FCDD in recent years. For example, we have offered courses and projects, including an annual (January) student company tour to local K-12 schools and retirement communities, outreach to local public high school dance programs, multicultural outreach activities for youth in Holyoke and Springfield (especially through the Sankofa Proj-ect), and faculty and adjunct courses in both community outreach and dance education. The FCDD also recently received approval for a dance education licensure program (via MHC), which it hopes to open to all five college students. n

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Boston Youth Moves at the Jeannette Neill Dance Studio.

Maura Cassin (MHC ’06) has been working full time for a state representative, splitting her time between Boston and Western MA. She has just started classes for Cassin Academy of Irish Dance for adults as well as for children in East Longmeadow and Holyoke. This year, she competed in her last World champion-ships for Irish dance, held in Philadelphia.

Yanira Castro (AC ’94) pre-miered Wilderness at Dance Theater Workshop in NYC. This winter, she presented her newest work, Heather O, at DANCEROULETTE in Brooklyn, NY.

Caroline Cohn (UM ’08) just finished her second year as the Sugar Plum Fairy in BalletRox’s Urban Nutcracker in Boston.

Kathy Couch (AC ’95) trav-eled to NYC and Melbourne, Australia doing the lighting design for two projects by Wendy Woodson: SHE TURNED ON THE LIGHT at La Mama’s Courthouse, and BELONGING: REFLECTIONS ON PLACE, a video installa-tion piece at the Immigra-tion Museum.

Eva Dean (HC ‘82) and Eva Dean Dance, celebrated their 26th anniversary by mounting Beyond Silver: 1987–2011, a retrospec-tive, evening-length performance, featuring a sampling of 24 years of Eva Dean’s choreography.

Brenda Divelbliss (SC MFA ’99) moved to Portland, Oregon and is currently teaching modern dance at Beaverton’s Arts & Commu-nication Magnet Academy.

Lila Dodge (SC ’09) spent ten months in Burkina Faso, doing research on contem-porary dance under a Ful-bright Grant. She now lives in San Francisco, dances for Byb Chanel Bibene’s Kiandanda Dance Theater, and supports it all with childcare jobs (the more and the less glamorous ends of education and disci-pline) and teaching French. She is applying to graduate programs in Anthropology to continue research begun in West Africa.

Maura Donohue (SC ’92 & SC MFA ’08) is an Assistant Professor at Hunter College/City University of New York. Her most recent work, I’m not coming back was pro-duced at Danspace Project on a shared program with Vanessa Anspaugh (SC MFA ’08) last October. She serves on the board for the Congress on Research in Dance, the New York Dance and Performance (The Bes-

MONICA BILL BARNES CELEBRATES THE INNATE THEATRICALITY OF EVERYDAY LIFE

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Monica Bill Barnes was in residence this winter at Smith College, bringing her poignant, zany cho-reographic talents to the FCDD. Monica is a New-York based choreographer and performer. Born and raised in Berkeley, Califor-nia, Barnes moved to New York in 1995 after receiving her B.A. in Philosophy and Theater from the University of California at San Diego. She has created thirteen evening-length dance works, numer-ous site-specific events and several cabaret numbers for her company, Monica Bill Barnes & Company. The company has performed in many different venues in New York City, ranging from DanceNow at Joe’s Pub to Fall for Dance at New York City Center. The New York Time’s Jennifer Dunning writes, “The witty Ms. Barnes, a master of the dance equivalent of a sly guffaw, blends sadness and hilarity.” This unique blend of emotions was clearly evident and expertly woven into the new work she created, Finish Line, for Smith College and FCDD dancers. The piece was the rousing closer — complete with flying confetti — to this year’s FCDD Faculty Concert at Amherst College. n

PANDORA’S BOX AND INVISIBLE DANCEIn her recent paper, “Pandora’s Box and Invisible Dance,” presented at the Culture, Brain and Development confer-ence at Mount Holyoke College, faculty member Daphne Lowell took up “the seemingly radical notion that dance is a useful, even important, mode of human discovery, ex-pression and development.” She focused especially on the practice of Authentic Movement (Contemplative Dance), outlining its five key principles:

1. “Movement” includes “stillness.” 2. There is almost always no outside musical accompa-

niment, though movers might make sound.3. People work from what is. They accept, give them-

selves permission to have, the experience they have, while they also maintain responsibility to choose to go with, or to decline engagement with what ap-pears.

4. Contact or touch between movers can be a rich part of the work, but each person chooses or declines contact moment by moment.

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THOUGHT

“I came to see that movement is one of the great laws of life. It is the primary medium of our aliveness, the flow of energy going on in us like a river all the time, awake or asleep, twenty-four hours a day. Our movement is our behavior; there is a direct connection between what we are like and how we move. . . . As people begin to move in their own way, they are faced with feelings of surprise and delight and often of anxiety and embarrassment. Judgments, corrections and explanations are of no use. It is their movement, and it happened just that way.”

— Mary White-house

5. Each mover is the authority of his/her experience. Any witness would convey his/her experience from witnessing a mover, to the mover, only if invited, and never to any one else.

Summarizing its importance for expanding our experi-ence of our culturally neglected “bodily-being,” she writes, “What results is a dialogue-in-motion between conscious and unconscious, immediate and reflected, private and shared experience. Unlike most dance forms, move-ments are discovered rather than prescribed or learned, they are performed in private settings, and there is no at-tempt to please or impress any viewer, or to make things look any particular way. Rather, in Authentic Movement, one develops authenticity, compassion and a deep trust in oneself and ones fellow practitioners, and an interest in and valuing of difference. It is in a way an invisible dance because of the closed-eyed moving, and it opens Pando-ra’s powerful box of interior experience.” n

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sies) Awards, and writes for Culturebot. Her kids keep getting bigger.

Ashley Dowling (MHC ’04) owns and operates her own dance academy in New Hampshire, teach-ing a variety of idioms to 165 students. Her studio recently became the first dance academy/studio in NH to be accredited by the National Honor Society for Dance Arts.

Brendan Drake (UM BFA ’09) performed with J Chen Project for this year’s APAP Conference. In October, the company premiered the new work, To Identify, at Dixon Place, which was cre-ated in collaboration with fashion designer Rachel Metcalf.

Melissa Driscoll (UM BFA ’09) is finishing her MA in Dance Movement Therapy at Columbia College in Chicago.

Karyn Edison (UM ’79) is the founder and direc-tor of the Dancing Arts Center in Boston, where she teaches, choreographs and coordinates all aspects of the program

Sarah Goddard (UM ’11) is on contract with Columbia City Ballet in South Carolina.

Anna Grosslein (MHC ’08) started physical therapy school 4 weeks after her MHC graduation, and finished her Doctorate of Physical Therapy this year at Simmons College. In April, she began practicing at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, working with both Women’s/Men’s Health and Orthopedic clients.

Heidi Henderson (SC MFA ’87) continues to make work in RI under the company name, “elephant JANE dance.” Recent perfor-mances include Cambridge, MA, Connecticut College and the FlynnSpace in Burlington, VT. She is in her ninth year on the dance fac-ulty at Connecticut College and teaches regularly at the Bates Dance Festival.

Christine Higgins (UM ’98) has been dancing with Dallas Dance, a lyrical/con-temporary/ jazz/modern company, and touring the world with Mambo Dallas, a salsa company, which included a recent tour to the Dominican Republic and Peru.

CJ Holm (HC ’00) presented her new work, The Salad of the Bad Cafe, co-created with Tiana Hemlock, at Gowanus Arts in New York in January 2011. She also presented new work at Judson Church in New York in November.

CONTEMPORARY BALLET WITH DIANE COBURN BRUNING

FCDD CAREERS PANELFOOD FOR THOUGHT

“The wonderful, astonishing truth is that the arts are utterly useless. You can’t eat music or poetry or dance. You can’t drive your car on a sonnet or wear it on your back to shield you from the elements. This ‘uselessness’ is why politicians and other painfully literal-minded people during times of budget crises (which is pretty much all the time now) can’t wait to single the arts out for elimination. For them artistic activity is strictly after-school business. They consider that what we do can’t honestly be compared to the real business of life, that art is entertainment and ultimately non-essential. They don’t realize that what we artists offer is one of the few things that make human life meaningful, that through our skill and our talent and through the way that we share our rich emotional lives we add color and texture and depth and complexity to their lives.”

— John Adams Composer

Diane Coburn Bruning is an award-winning contem-porary ballet choreographer and artistic director and founding member of the NYC-based Chamber Dance Project. She was in residence in January at Mount Holy-oke College, creating a new, large ensemble work on FCDD dancers. The new work, Torrid Zone, premiered on the FCDD annual Faculty Concert in March at Am-herst College. n

“Characterized by a sophisticated combination of elegant sensuality and quirky stutters of movement, Diane Coburn Bruning’s ballet-based choreography is passionate and original.”

—Lisa Jo Sagolla in Back Stage

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This spring’s FCDD Careers Panel proved, once again, to be a timely and important re-source for students, especially for juniors and seniors thinking about work and life in dance after college. These panels are offered every other year in an effort to broaden student awareness of the wide range of careers in dance and dance-related fields. Alumni are invited from a variety of career paths to talk about their current work, focus-ing especially on their trajectories from college to career. This year’s panelists included Kathy Couch (Amherst ’95, lighting and set designer), Maura Donohue (Smith ’92, MFA ’08, dance company director, performer, choreographer, teacher, writer), Karyn Edison (UMass ’79, founder and director of a major Boston-area dance studio), Anna Grosslein (Mount Holyoke ’08, physical therapist), and Sara Smith (Hampshire ’95, interdisciplinary artist, choreographer and archivist). Many students were interested in practical strategies for finding work and surviving financially as dancers and choreographers. In response, panelists spoke of their own very circuitous paths to professional work and emphasized the need to be open to many possibilities, encouraging students to say “yes” to any and all opportunities, and to persevere, knowing that they are doing work that truly matters to them. n


Jeff Janisheski (AC ’92) was Artistic Director at the National Theater Institute before taking a new posi-tion as Head of the Acting Program at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (Australia), where Mel Gib-son, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and others have studied.

Jane Jerardi (HC ‘93) relo-cated to Chicago to pursue her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In December, she presented two exhibitions featuring video installations and a performance project.

Lucille Jun (AC ’08) is teach-ing in South Korea and has recently performed at a dance festival there.

Karinne Keithley (HC ’96) won a Bessie Award at the 2011 New York Dance and Performance Award ceremony for “Outstand-ing Production” for her work: Montgomery Park, or Opulence.

Julie Klein (MHC ‘02) is founder and artistic direc-tor of SHEmotion, based in NYC. She received her MFA in Dance Education from NYU in 2004, and has recently served as Dance Educator at Middle School 51 in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Mabel Lajes (AC ’99) is the Literacy Chair at the Boston Preparatory Charter Public School. She recently brought a group of 8th-grade students to her alma mater to tour the theater and dance department and see a current production.

Erin Law (SC MFA ’11) is an adjunct faculty member at Middle Tennessee State University, teaching dance appreciation and choreography with the dance theatre students. She teaches technique in the Vanderbilt Dance Program and is working on short films for their upcoming concert. She was invited to choreograph a piece en-titled Fads and Fancies in the Academy for a centennial celebration of John Cage’s birthday in April.

Jennifer Lawson (MHC ’91) is serving as a diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, posted in Quito, Ecuador, until 2014. She works as the outreach coor-dinator, arranging talks and workshops for visiting U.S. professors, artists, and other experts with elementary, high school, and university students throughout Ecua-dor. She has started work-ing as a dance historian and advisor with a new local dance company.

Brandye Lee (SC ’00) former company member in Ailey II and the Lion King, is living and loving ballet

FCDD FACULTY, STAFF, MUSICIANS NEWSChris Aiken (Assistant Professor, Smith College)has continued to teach and perform internation-ally since joining the FCDD. Last summer, he taught and performed at the Salt Festival at the University of Utah with Angie Hauser, in St. Julien, France with Montreal-based dancer Andrew Harwood, and this winter in Montreal with Harwood and dancer Marc Boivin. Aiken traveled to Vancouver in March to perform with Peter Bingham and Ray Chung while also at-tending the 3rd International Fascia Congress. This summer Chris and Angie Hauser will teach their Dwell intensive at Earthdance and then con-tinue on to the Bates Dance

Festival. In the fall, he will co-present Utopia Parkway at Smith College.

Paul Arslanian (Senior Lecturer, UMass) has been directing the Northampton Jazz Workshop and Jam Ses-sion at the Clarion Hotel in Northampton every Tuesday night. He will also, once again, be Music Director for

the Tap Intensive at the Ja-cob’s Pillow Summer Dance Festival.

Jean Baxter (FCDD Produc-tion Manager) has the G’s — a grandson, whom she has sorting gel into piles by size and color, and a new Graduate degree; her MBA from the UMass Isenberg

School of Management. She continues leading the FCDD productions and the infa-mous Crew Wars. Check out

the wiki if you were ever on crew: http://fcddcrewwars.wikispaces.com

Top: Are We Ready by Billbob Brown. Above: Sonnet for the Broken Hearted by Rodger Blum.

HEADLINE?

MASTER CLASSES, WORKSHOPS AND LECTURES

Andrea Miller brought her raw, fierce, visually riveting company, Gallim Dance, to the Fine Arts Center stage to perform the evening-length Blush; she and company members also taught Master Classes on several FCDD campuses during their three-day residency. About this new work, Miller writes that she wanted the dancers to “reveal moments in which blood melts the barriers around the heart and floods into the edges of the skin”.

Dancers from Andrea Miller’s Gallim Dance leading a master class for FCDD students.

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The FCDD had another busy year of master classes, work-shops and lectures, coordinated among the five campuses and open to all five college students. Master classes were offered in a variety of idioms including Contemporary/Urban (Camille Brown), Improvisation/Physical Theatre (Jules Beckman); Contemporary/Modern (Andrea Miller and Gallim Dance), Classical Ballet (Suzanne Farrell Bal-let), Gamaka: Vibrations of Sound and Movement (Shan-tala Shivalingappa), Capoeira (Joe Seitz); Social Dance (Thomas Silliman); Principles of Rolfing (Aline Newton); Classical Indian (Ranjanaa Devi); and Modern/Spanish

(Ballet Hispanico). A day-long mini-arts jazz tap workshop was offered by jazz pianist Theo Hill and jazz tap dancer, Michela Marino Lerman. A number of special lectures added to this year’s offerings included an “Artist Talk” with Camille Brown; “Dancing with Merce” by Gus Solomons; and “A Conversation with Steve Paxton,” with neuroscien-tist Asaf Bachrach and Steve Paxton. Additionally, the fall semester opened with The Instant of Combustion/Barbara Morgan Photo Exhibit and a reading by Peggy and Murray Schwartz from their recent book, The Dance Claimed Me: The Biography of Pearl Primus. n

Boston Globe correspondent Thea Singer writes, “It’s a roller coaster of a piece — an experience of controlled loss of control aimed at cracking apart our presump-tions of what makes us tick. . . . Blush exposes the sa-distic underbelly of love as jauntily as the giddiness of community.” The FCDD is exploring the possibility of bringing Ms. Miller back for a choreographic residency in the near future. n

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Rodger Blum (Professor and Department Chair, Smith College), premiered a new contemporary ballet work, Sonnet for the Broken Hearted, in November. A 30-minute prologue video of painted dancers layered with anima-tions he created, preceded the performance. He is work-ing on an installation series (with dancers from Pilobolus and Momix) that projects human movement on hand-made fabric surfaces. During his fall 2011 sabbatical, he studied two-dimensional de-sign with visual artist Nancy Crow and surface design art-ist, Carol Sunderland. He also returned for his sixth visit to the Maine Media Workshops to explore paper cut stop motion animation. Last spring he was awarded a fel-lowship to study at the Crow Timber Frame Barn Retreat Center in rural Ohio where he continued to work with Nancy Crow and UK visual artists Clair Benn and Leslie Morgan. He will return to Ohio this May to begin work on a new dance for the fall.

Billbob Brown (Associate Professor and Department Chair, UMass) performed with the Sorvino Dance Proj-ect in various eastern prov-inces of Thailand this January as part of the Surin Inter-national Festival of Dance. Dances from those concerts culminated in Meridians, in March, at the Northampton Academy of Music. Billbob and cellist Kristen Miller have joined forces to create the concert Cello Theory Dance, which had performances in September, October, and March, in various venues in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Arizona. Last summer, Billbob reconstruct-ed a number of works by Marion Kirk Jones, performed her work Skydancers, and created video interviews for her 90th birthday celebration in Arizona. His duet, Are We Ready? was performed at the Dance in the Desert Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. This year Billbob serves his first year as regional representa-tive for ACDFA.

Jim Coleman (FCCD Chair and Professor, Mount Holy-oke College) continued to chair the FCDD and served as

project and rehearsal director for the fall semester Cun-ningham project, overseeing performances on multiple campuses and collaborations with a range of area sound design, digital/video design and costume design artists. He directed a new, senior Choreolab course in the fall and created a new dance for camera piece, just this one body, with regional dance artist Katie Martin.

Rose and Charles Flachs (Professors, Mount Holyoke College) attended the CORPS de Ballet International Inc. conference at Kansas State University, attending seminars on Antony Tudor’s work and taking classes from Amanda McKerrow and John Gardner. They were guest teachers at the Pennsylvania Academy of Ballet’s summer program and directed their own summer program at the Massachusetts Academy of Ballet. The Flachs choreo-graphed Tacit Affinity for the fall faculty dance concert and were rehearsal directors for a new work of Diane Coburn Bruning’s for the Five College Faculty Concert. The Flachs are members of the CORPS de Ballet International, PassportHolyoke and own and direct the Massachusetts Academy of Ballet.

Terese Freedman (Profes-sor, Mount Holyoke College) developed a new first-year seminar titled “Introduction to Dance as an Art Form.” She is also working with MFA students in an advanced Kinesiology for Dance course, focusing on the application of scientific principles to technique teaching. She has been involved with the de-velopment of a new licensure program in dance educa-tion at Mount Holyoke, and continues to serve as New England regional director for the American College Dance Festival.

Angie Hauser (Assistant Professor, Smith College) is continuing work with Bebe Miller Company, collaborat-ing on a new piece, His-tory, an evening-length duet performed by Darrell Jones and Hauser to premiere in September 2012 at the Wexner Center for the Arts. Hauser and the History team

have recently joined media designers Nora Zuniga Shaw (HC ’06) and Maria Palazzi to collaborate on a two year project called TWO, which ex-plores the duet dance mak-ing process through research and creation of new media “objects.” TWO is funded by and in collaboration with the Forsythe Company (Germany) and Motion Bank (http://motionbank.org/en/scores-2/two/). In the fall, Hauser will present her work Utopia Parkway, co-created and performed by Chris Aiken at Smith College.

Daphne Lowell (Profes-sor and Department Chair, Hampshire College) continues to teach Authentic Movement to professionals from a wide variety of fields (nursing, dance therapy, psychology, somatics, social work, medical engineering, visual and performance art). She presented two papers this year: “Pandora’s Box” and “Invisible Dance,” to the Art on the Brain conference of Hampshire College’s Culture, Brain and Development pro-gram, and “Embodied Know-ing in the Face of Control, Neglect and Fear,” at the As-sociation for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education’s national conference. She also continues to research new ways of teaching this practice, including in her courses at Hampshire, where she involves students in the development of new lines of inquiry, articulation and documentation.

Marilyn Sylla (Five College Lecturer, Smith College)

toured with Sekou Sylla to Richmond and Hampton, Vi-riginia, and to Seattle, Wash-ington. They continue their arts and education work through Young Audiences of Massachusetts. They cre-ated a new, large-ensemble work, Carnivale, at Smith College in the fall and were in residence for the fourth year at Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA. Marilyn was the “interviewer” for the Nick Cave sound-suit-instal-lation event at the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College this spring.

Lester Tomé (Assistant Professor, Smith College) has created a new course, Interrogating Dance Global-ization, which he is teaching for the first time this spring at Smith College. The advanced seminar explores how technology, migration, commerce and multicultur-alism have transformed sal-sa, ballet, capoeira, hip hop,

belly dancing and bharata natyam into global dance forms. This spring, he is also teaching for the first time at Mount Holyoke College. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the develop-ment of ballet in Cuba, and between April and June is presenting his research in the Transatlantic Conference (Brown University) for the Latin American Studies As-sociation (San Francisco) and the Society of Dance History Scholars (The University of the Arts).

Miki Vargas (Musician/Lecturer, Smith College) presented a collaborative concert with two other composers in Boulder, Colorado in September. He also performed and taught with Nancy Stark Smith in Uruguay in November and in Buenos Aires in December. He presented a solo piano concert at Smith in April, and

Above: Mike Vargas. Below: Carnivale by Marilyn and Sekou Sylla.

Tacit Affinity by Rose Flachs

will be involved in several performance projects in Eng-land this summer.

Wendy Woodson (Profes-sor, Amherst College) spent 6 months in Melbourne Australia as International Art-ist in Residence at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Tech-nology (RMIT). During this time she completed a com-missioned video-installation project for the National Immi-gration Museum, on exhibit from July 2011 to January 2012. AC alumna Kathy Couch joined Wendy in Melbourne as a collaborator in the design of the installation. (http://be-longingreflections.com/) Also, She Turned on the Light, writ-ten and directed by Wendy and performed by AC alumna Marina Libel, was presented at LaMaMa Melbourne in June. Wendy is currently working on a new performance and video piece also inspired by Australia, to be performed in 2012–13.

From Wendy Woodson’s video installation, Belonging: Reflections on Place, in Melbourne, Australia.


with Collage Dance Collective in Memphis, TN. She is based in DC and continues to teach at Jones-Haywood. She also teaches regularly in Mem-phis for Collage. Many of its students are from impover-ished communities and ballet is making a big difference in their lives.

Lona Lee (SC MFA ’09) lives in Phoenix, where she is an Arts Education Outreach Assistant at the Mesa Arts Center and active member of a vibrant arts community. Working with local and national artists in dance, theater and music, Lona continues to engage people of all ages through art residencies, classes, workshops and festivals.

Marina Libel (AC ’01) pre-sented BRAIN WAITING ROOM in June in Brooklyn. She also performed SHE TURNED ON THE LIGHT by Wendy Wood-son at La Mama’s Courthouse Theatre in Melbourne.

Joyce S. Lim (SC MFA ’97) is on faculty at The Noh Training Project (NTP), which offers the most intensive and extensive Noh training available in the United States. This summer, together with master teachers from Japan, NTP will mount the full Noh, Atsumori, in the Town Park of Bloomsburg, PA.

Chantel C. Lucier (MHC ’98) continues with her Reflexol-ogy/Reiki practice by day, and by night, sings with the wild, political troupe “Reverend Billy & the Church of Stop Shop-ping”, who recently toured to Europe. She is also active in film, acting in the documen-tary What Would Jesus Buy? presented on the Sundance Channel this winter, and a horror film (her first) called Blue Sheep Suit. She has also been producing music videos; to see her most recent, go to youtube.com/user/ chantellucier

Mariana Valencia (HC ’06) launched Rhinoceros Event Issue No. 1 Clean Dream in January 2012. Rhinoceros Event is a quarterly paper featuring writing by Mariana, as well as writing and images by fellow artists.

Marya Wethers (MHC ‘97) is a freelance performer and cho-reographer in NYC, performing with Faye Driscoll, Palissimo, Yanira Castro and Company, and others. This fall she pre-sented An Evening with Marya Wethers and Daria Fain at The Chocolate Factory. Marya is also Program Manager at New York Live Arts (previously Dance Theater Workshop).

Teana White (AC ’10) is work-ing at the nonprofit, Phipps Community Development Corporation, as a college awareness advisor for two local Bronx schools and is dancing with the West African Dance company, Harambee.

Alie B. Wickham Trainor (HC ’07) changed jobs and got married. She is now working with a new program called the Area Health Education Center program at the University of Florida. As the primary leader for the upcoming student initiatives, she is still very involved with the Arts and Health field.

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Kellie Lynch (MFA ‘07) tours nationally with the critically acclaimed Doug Elkins and Friends’ Fraulein Maria and has been a member of Adele My-ers and Dancers since 2008. She is a founding member and Co-Artistic Director of Elm City Dance Collective in New Haven, Connecticut. Since 2007, her work has been presented throughout New England and NYC.

Michelle Marroquin (HC ’89) received her MFA in Performance and Choreog-raphy from Smith College and teaches Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis at Studio Helix.

Nicki Marshall (MHC ‘02) has been dancing with Magbana Drum and Dance NYC since the summer of 2003. Her choreography has been performed at DTW, BAX, WAX, and the Merce Cunningham Studios. She is a member of Company Amy Cox and collaborates with Helen Tocci, creating dance and vocal work. Nicki is a certified yoga instructor and teaches dance to many beautiful children around NYC.

Dustyn Martincich (SC MFA ’06) is currently serving as an assistant professor of theatre and dance at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA, specializing in jazz dance technique and beginning acting. She is a principal artist with Core Project Chicago, and also works with Matter Dance Chicago, The Monocle Eclectic Dance Company, and The Arc Theatre in Chicago.

Kaitlin McCarthy (MHC ’09) is dancing with two Seattle companies, ReddLegg Dance and Khambatta Dance Company. This past year, she has also performed in project-based work for Wade Madsen, Christen Lusk, Marlo Martin, and Pablo Cornejo.

Olive McKeon (HC ’08) completed a Master’s in Arts Politics from NYU and is a Ph.D. candidate in Culture and Performance at University of California, Los Angeles.

Leah Moriarty (UM BFA ’10) presented work at the re-bound Dance Festival in New Haven in March.

Jackie Nalett (MHC ‘94) con-tinues to work as an adjunct dance faculty member at the University of Houston where she teaches various levels of Jazz, Hip Hop and Modern technique, and advises the University Dance Theatre, a student dance company. She is also a guest teacher at Rice University and on the teaching artist roster for Young Audi-ences of Houston.

Zeina Nasr (AC ’05) is currently working on her Masters at Mills College and continuing to create dance and music compositions.

Christopher-Rasheem McMillan (HC ’04) presented his research “Meanings and Makings of Queer Dance,” at a conference hosted by the Con-gress on Research in Dance in February 2012. He received his MFA in Dance from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

Lynette P. Rizzo (MHC ’96) is working as the associate director of marketing for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a position for more than 11 years. She also serves on the executive advisory committee for Buglisi Dance Theatre.

Jennifer Rosenblit (HC ’05) and Addys Gonzalez (HC ’05) performed their new work, In Mouth, at the Bodega in Philadelphia and at New York Live Arts in NYC for which they received a favorable review in the New York Times.

Rain Ross (MHC ‘06) presented a paper on music and dance collaboration at the Congress on Research in Dance. She was an invited guest for Lebanon’s first International Dance Day Festival, where she taught a number of classes and gave a talk on collaboration. She continues to teach at the Richard Stockton College in New Jersey and recently per-formed in the Dumbo Dance Festival in New York.

Ruby Rowat (AC ’93) recently moved to Brisbane, Australia where she is starting up a new trapeze performance duo after performing all over the world for the past ten years.

Laura Ann Samuelson (HC ‘11) has been working to start a contemporary perfor-mance series in Colorado. Its first installment entitled, And The People: An Evening of Di-verse Performance, premiered in November and included a new solo titled DEMOLITION woman.

Sarah Seely (SC MFA ’01) is the Artistic Director for the New-York-based dance theater company, From the Desk of Sarah Seely, and the company manager for The Bull Moose Party production company. Sarah recently produced the Off-Broadway play, Woody Guthrie Dreams. Sarah lives in Brooklyn, New York where she teaches yoga and body work.

Christina Septien (AC ’01) is working on her Masters in Physical Therapy.

Noelle Serafino (HC ‘04) received a Masters in Per-formance Studies at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a concentration in heritage tourism, material culture, museum interventions, and American identity. She has recently relocated back to the Pioneer Valley.

Malcolm Shute (UM ‘96) holds a Master of Fine Arts in Dance with a concentration in choreography from the University of Maryland. He is a Certified Movement Analyst and teaches at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Move-ment Studies. He also teaches choreography and writing at Towson University’s BFA dance program and he is Artistic Director of Human Landscape Dance.

Jules Skloot (HC ’03) danced for the Crispin Spaeth Dance Group in Seattle; taught dance at the Creative Dance Center, which she helped to start; and was a member of the Left Field Dance Collective, which performs throughout Seattle in theaters, warehouses, and public spaces. She recieved an MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College.

Sara Smith (HC ’90) is the editor of KINEBAGO, a new printed journal of writing about dance and movement-based performance in New England. Summer 2011 was its inaugural issue.

Meaghan Thomas-Kennedy (SC ’05) is a litigator in the New York offices of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP, where she practices in the antitrust and competition law group.

Christina Tsoules Soriano (SC MFA ’03) is an assistant professor at Wake Forest Uni-versity and recently enjoyed presenting her work in Vienna, Austria, where she performed solo work by Heidi Henderson and B.J. Sullivan. Christina just completed a scientific study with Glenna Batson, looking at the ways an improvisational dance class can aid balance and mobility for people with Parkinson’s Disease.

Documents

FIVE COLLEGE DANCE DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER