If you are interested in exploring the possibility of a dance minor (6 credits) or dance major (11 credits) or in just finding out more about the program, join us for conversation sometime on Friday April 4th between 4-5 PM.  We’ll have cookies and tea as well. If  you can’t come or need information before then, please feel free to contact me at lcarusoh@brynmawr.edu or our associate director, Madeline Cantor at mcantor@brynmawr.edu.

The Dance Program is pleased to announce a new initiative, Dance Faculty in Action, and we hope you will take part.

Many of the instructors in the Dance Program are practicing artists who are deeply involved in the vibrant artistic life of Philadelphia as dancers, choreographers, and company directors. They present their work in many venues in Philadelphia — in self-produced concerts and shared programs in major theaters and in interesting lofts and studios. We are offering free tickets and transportation to their performances to enable and encourage students to see the off-campus professional work of our instructors and choreographers.

How to take advantage of it? Just email your interest to Mady Cantor at mcantor@brynmawr.edu. Then you can pick up your ticket and round-trip Septa tickets to get to Philadelphia. You will be put in touch with other students who are going so you can go in a group if you wish. Simple!! The first one is coming up this weekend, so there is a quick turnaround to RSVP.

Our longtime tap instructor, Corinne Karon, who specializes in the hoofing style of tap, is showcasing her choreography in UCTT (Uniting Colleges Through Tap)..

          

You have a choice of three possible performances.
Let me know by Thursday, March 19 which performance you want to go to. Here are the details:
–Saturday, March 21 at 4:00 pm and 7:00 pm
–Sunday, March 22 at 4:00 pm.
Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St., near the corner of 2nd and Market (just north of Market and just west of 2nd St, set back from the street). It’s a historic place (founded 1695!) in Old City, in a fun area to wander around afterwards. You would take the Bryn Mawr train to Jefferson station, then walk a few blocks.

The second one is the following weekend when Rev. Nia Eubanks-Dixon, who choreographs for the African Dance Ensemble at Bryn Mawr, has a new work that will be performed by Danse4Nia Repertory Ensemble.

Let me know by Monday, March 23 if you would like to go. Here are the details:

It is a single performance, on Sunday, March 29 at 5:00 pm
Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St. in Old City, an easy walk from the Jefferson Station stop of the Bryn Mawr train.

We hope you will take advantage of these special opportunities to see the faculty artists’ work in off-campus contexts.

     Tabitha Performance Group is a student directed dance    project founded in 1999 by Emily Harney and Amanda Eicher and as another student director, Jess Hoing, described it “…a group named after and inspired by misidentification.”

    Each year, the responsibility for directing the group is handed down within the Dance Program as a ‘May Day Gift’ to a rising senior or seniors who demonstrate particular interest in and talent for direction and choreography.  This choreographer, working with a faculty mentor, then takes responsibility for a full evening of work or invites student colleagues to contribute to the performance.

   This year, Amancay Candal Tribe is coordinating the concert and presenting her senior thesis project, May is the Month of Morning.  Other participants include:

-First year student (but advanced Flamenco dancer!), Jessica Breet
-Senior Joie Waxler in the solo from modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan’s 1905 piece Dance of the Furies
-Musical interlude by the Looney Tunes, Haverford College’s a cappella group

Supported by SGA and the Dance Program

Just a reminder that students interested in applying for the Summer Arts Internships (with institutions, organizations or independent projects) or the Dance Fellowship (supported by BMC alum, Edith Aviles and used for partial support of summer study in dance at approved programs) need to do so by the end of March 15.

ARTS INTERNSHIP:  http://www.brynmawr.edu/summerfunding/Internship_Funding/deans.html and scroll down to Arts Internship fund
DANCE STUDY GRANT: http://www.brynmawr.edu/summerfunding/Internship_Funding/other.html#Dance

Last year, these grants supported Hilary Pierce (top) and Amancay Candal Tribe (Bottom)
in developing works shown in one of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival’s neighborhood venues. . .

Aurora Jensen (right) studied and performed in the Ballet X summer intensive.

Emma Cohen attended Complexions summer intensive.

PA ballet in Swan Lake

                                     A TRIP TO THE BALLET

Join the Dance Program on an outing on Thursday, March 5 to see the    Pennsylvania Ballet in Swan Lake.  Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s acclaimed 2004 production of this classic ballet is based on the original Ivanov/Petipa version to Tschaikovsky’s score, but re-imagined for today’s audiences.   The performance is at 7:30 at the glorious Academy of Music in Philadelphia. We have student rate tickets at $25 and the bus transportation is free. NOTE: it’s the Thursday before spring break. 

Email your interest to mcantor@brynmawr.edu.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
WORKS IN PROGRESS

Advanced choreography: Maddie Brady
Senior Thesis Project: Amancay Candal Tribe
Present Works in Progress. . .

-Maddie will continue to develop her work into a theater piece during the Spring semester
-Amancay will continue to develop her work for the TABITHA performance to be presented the weekend of February 27th

Camille A. Brown’s choreography and dynamic performances have led her to receive a Bessie nomination for Best Performance in her work, The Evolution of a Secured Feminine, and a Best Choreography nomination from the Black Theater Arts Alliance for her debut work set on the Ailey company, The Groove To Nobody’s Business, and was among the first cohort of fellows for Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab. This year she won her second Bessie in the Outstanding Production category for Mr. TOL E. RAncE, her first evening-length. She is also a two-time Princess Grace Award recipient (Choreography & Works in Progress Residency), a two-time recipient of NEFA’s National Dance Project: Production Grant, the recipient of the 2014 Joyce Award with DANCECleveland, and more awards than there is space to list.  Though presently on sabbatical to work in another project, one of our Dance Alums, Waldean Nelson (HC ’09)  originated a role in Mr. TOL E. RAncE.

Come and see these amazing dancers in her complex, dynamic, award-winning work–her new work, Black Girl and excerpts from Mr. TOL E. RAncE .  MASTER CLASS (int/adv modern) Thursday, December 4th 4:10, PEM STUDIO.  Brown will also lead an Art and Activism Roundtable on Saturday, December 6th,11-12:30 Dorothy Vernon Room, Haffner.

The FSDC is produced and choreographed entirely by students in the bi-co community (with some logistical support from the Dance Program) and includes work by students in Program courses as well as pieces by the many extra-curricular dance groups on campus. . .Founded by Jessica Lewis (HC ’92) and her dance colleagues, the first FSDC was performed at Haverford in 1991.

Once again, BMC is well represented in one of Philadelphia’s best ARTS events–the PHILADELPHIA FRINGE FESTIVAL, which hosts city, national, and international artists over the next three week–with students, instructors, and guest choreographers, past and present, dancing, performing, and choreographing work. Check the Fringe Festival schedule for performance time and dates…

In rehearsal
From left to right Michele, Suzanne, Jessica

Video Shoot 3
From left to right Suzanne, Jess, Michele

When fashion designer Suzanne Rae talked recently with old friends and BMC classmates, Michele Tantoco and Jess Honig, and discovered that they were working together on a dance project, she thought it would be a terrific idea to use that as an opportunity to show some of her design work.  Little did she think that they would talk her into dancing again or that she’d be back in the studio getting into shape after a several year hiatus from dancing.  Jess too had not danced much, busy as she was in developing her therapeutic practice and only when she moved back into the area and contacted Michele, who is a go-to dancer for many of the regions top choreographers, did she start working again.

But watching them shoot this video, you would never know it. Working through the choreographry, largely developed by Jess, they performed both individually as dancers and together as a group as though they had never missed a day in the studio.  Their short bios are below, along with this link to Suzanne’s web site.  Enter the site, scroll right until you get to “unfold” and sit back and enjoy the video, which was shot and edited by Gabello Studios…OR
click on this link to the BMC alum site which also posted the video.

The video shoot 1

Suzanne Rae Pelaez lives and designs out of Brooklyn. Her career path after Bryn Mawr included working in the art gallery scene in New York, the design ateliers of Costume National in Milan and Morgane Le Fay in New York, and study at Parsons The New School for Design. Her ready-to-wear line, both feminine and feminist in philosophy, is inspired by and made for the progressive and modern woman and with social awareness and sustainability as a part of the foundation, the company always apply a careful consciousness while creating clothing. Suzanne danced and performed throughout her four years at Bryn Mawr and she graduated in 2001 with a degree in Economics.

Jessica Honig is a psychotherapist with a focus area of anxiety relief. Her work employs flow – a technique she coaches for optimizing the present moment that helps unlocks creative and calming energy. Her training includes graduate work in creativity and human development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and clinical social work at Smith College.  Jess graduated in 2001 from Bryn Mawr with a double major in Dance and Math.I

Michele Tantoco is a dancer and movement educator living in Philadelphia. She has danced or collaborated with several Philadelphia choreographers including Leah Stein, Gabrielle Revlock, Meg Foley, Nicole Canuso, Charles Anderson, Kate Watson-Wallace, Jumatatu Poe as well as London-based choreographers, Sean Feldman and Siobhan Davies. Michele danced and performed during her four years at Bryn Mawr and graduated in 2001 with a major in Biology.

Video shoot 2
From left to right: Suzanne, Michele, Jessica