Dance Behind The Screen

On this episode your co-hosts Martheya and Reyna interview Lynn Lane. Lynn Lane is the founder/artistic director/sound artist of The Transitory Sound and Movement Collective (TSMC). Lynn has had a long history in the arts and is currently the official photographer for the Houston Grand Opera and the Alley Theatre. His work has been shown nationally and internationally in galleries/museums as a photographer, filmmaker and artist. His history of performance began in the early 90's in the gallery scene and well as creating many site-specific pieces which now carries on through the TSMC. He is represented in New York for his furniture design and has served on the Advisory Board for the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (NYC). He has curated projects at the Anthology Film Archives (NYC), taught documentary filmmaking in conjunction with the NYC school district, written for International Documentary Magazine and was represented in London/NYC for his documentary work. Currently, Lynn's focus is solely on his photography and the development of experiential work with the TSMC. On this episode, we go behind the screen of Lynn's career discussing the goal of dance photography, light/shadow/movement, bad dance photography, tips and tricks for studying dance photography, the importance of a private creative process, how TSMC blurs the lines as an experimental sculpture that lives and converses in front of their audience, and how social media opens a global dialogue.

Detailed showkNOwtes: https://www.knowboxdance.com/post/19-lynnlane

On this episode your co-host Martheya interviews Jill Homan Randall. Jill strongly identifies as a "modern dancer" – an umbrella for all that she does including performing, teaching, arts administration, volunteer work, mentoring, dance writing, and arts advocacy. Jill is a Professional Modern Dancer, Blogger, Teaching Artist, Writer, Arts Administrator, and Artistic Director at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley, California. As a performer, she has danced extensively with Nina Haft & Company, Paufve Dance, and Dana Lawton. Jill has served on the board of Dancers' Group and the California Dance Education Association. She has served on committees for the Alameda County Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership, Teaching Artists Organized, Service-Learning Program at Cal State East Bay, Paufve Dance and Now Next Dance. Jill recently joined the Advisory Committee of Kristin Damrow & Company and also became Chair of the Berkeley Cultural Trust in July 2018. In 2013, she received the Herbst Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence from The Hamlin School. At Hamlin, Jill created and launched the On/Line Teen Dance Film Festival. Jill co-authored the book Dance Education Essentials: 55 Objects and Ideas for New Preschool-12th Grade Teaching Artists. On the web, Jill maintains two blogs and two websites. In 2011, she started blogging about children's books on dance and In August 2012, her second blog, Life as a Modern Dancer, was created to make a "living textbook" for college students about the many ways to have a life and career in modern dance. Jill's articles about dance, performing, teaching, and arts education have appeared in journals, magazines, newspapers, and blogs including: In Dance, Teaching Artist Journal, and Dance Teacher Magazine just to name a few. On this episode, we go behind the screen of Jill's career as a modern dancer discussing how to start a blog, her step-by-step process for creating content, tips and advice on how to ask for contributions, strategies for driving an audience to your platform, Artistic Director responsibilities for a non-profit organization, and how the power of social media lies in sharing.

https://www.knowboxdance.com/post/18-jillhomanrandall-life-as-a-modern-dancer-blog

On this episode your co-host Azaria interview Dr. Lela Aisha Jones. Lela Aisha Jones is a movement performance artist and an interdisciplinary collaborator. Her work intimately intertwines personal and collective lived experiences of diasporic blackness as archived in and excavated from the body through dance. She is a proud native of Tallahassee, FL and feels quite fortunate to live and create in Philadelphia, PA. Lela is a 2015 Leeway Foundation Transformation Awardee, a 2016 Pew Fellow in the Arts, and a 2017 New York Dance and Performance Award | Bessie Nominee.​ As an organizer, Lela is invested in cultivating a society with more nurtured, insightful, and harmonized human beings and she continues to bring people together in support of eachothers' development through initiatives such as Dancing for Justice Philadelphia and The Requisite Movers Philadelphia. Furthermore, Lela is currently a Project Co-Director for Modupúe | Ibaye: The Philadelphia Yoruba Performance Project and is the Associate Artistic Director for Brownbody led by Artistic Director Deneane Richburg. On this episode, we talk about Jones' creative process and her work that lead to a Bessie nomination, Black and African diasporic performance, how to locate your activist self, identity and spiritual wholeness, creating a system of online connections, and useful tips on how to balance the challenges of being a freelance artist.

Show kNOwtes: https://www.knowboxdance.com/post/17-lelaaishajones-flyground

On this episode your co-hosts Martheya and Reyna interview Jordan Fuchs. Fuchs is a choreographer, performer and a Professor of Dance at Texas Woman's University. His choreography for stage and screen is grounded in improvisational practice, specifically the bias towards disorientation, sensation and process of contact improvisation, a movement form he has been practicing for more than 25 years. He utilizes the aesthetic values of improvisation to find the instability of each performance moment and the possibility of transformation through sensation. A Fulbright Specialist, he has received commissions from venues including, Danspace Project in NYC, and his work has been presented nationally and internationally. Fuchs is the founder of the annual Texas Dance Improvisation Festival. On this episode, we talk about starting an improvisation festival for dance, leveraging resources you have, how to create dance culture as a space for exchange, strategies for staying connected to the dance world, using Facebook groups in dance-making process for integrating documentation and communication, curating publicity content for a university dance department, and new ways of learning dance in the digital world.

Detailed showkNOwtes: https://www.knowboxdance.com/post/16-jordanfuchs

On this episode your co-hosts Martheya and Azaria interview Shaté L. Edwards. Shaté is a curriculum specialist, choreographer, and writer. After graduating with honors from Spelman College, she performed extensively throughout the U.S. and China. Her work has been commissioned by performance companies throughout the country, and she has choreographed and produced dozens of productions including industrials, concerts, musicals, and more. Shaté recently served as assistant choreographer for Tony award winning Dallas Theater Center's and ATT Performing Art Center's production of Hairspray: The Broadway Musical. Critics have called her "a talent to watch" and her movement has been described as "alone worth the price of admission." Shaté is also a master instructor who's taught thousands of students throughout the U.S. and abroad. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Sam Houston State University and spent several years serving as a dance professor. She is the author of The Freelance Dancer's Roadmap as well as career articles published in Dance Magazine, The Dance Advantage, Dance! North Texas, and Dance Mogul. Her work as a dance professor as well as the humble beginnings of her own career pursuit led to the founding of The Working Dancer. Through its blog, podcast, classes, and more, The Working Dancer offers insight and inspiration to support its mission of empowering artists to build their careers and lives on their own terms. On this episode, we talk about dance career resources, navigating a positive mindset, tips to avoid burnout, the importance of investing in yourself, how employers use social media for hiring, creating content, and using social media as a personal brand.

https://www.knowboxdance.com/post/15-shate-edwards-the-working-dancer

On this episode your co-host Martheya interviews Kyle Abraham's Abraham In Motion, Dancer and Rehearsal Director Tamisha Guy. Tamisha Guy a native of Trinidad and Tobago, began her formal dance training at Ballet Tech, the New York City Public School for Dance under the direction of Eliot Feld. Later she attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, and SUNY Purchase College as a double major in dance and arts management. She has completed summer programs with Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Springboard Danse Montreal, and Nathan Trice and performed works by William Forsythe, Pam Tanowitz, Loni Landon, Mark Morris, and Martha Graham etc. In 2013 Guy graduated with honors from SUNY Purchase College and joined the Martha Graham Company shortly after. In 2016 Guy was selected as one of Dance Magazine' Top 25 to Watch and she also received the 2016 Princess Grace Award. Tamisha joined A.I.M in 2014. On this episode, we talk about auditions, using social media as a platform to offer encouragement, podcast recommendations, scheduling tips, saying 'No' to avoid burnout, going behind the screen of Merce Cunningham Night of 100 Solos Facebook Livestream, and using the digital space to create more of an audience for dance.

https://www.knowboxdance.com/post/14-tamishaguy-a-i-m

On this episode your co-host Azaria interviews dance teacher, choreographer, ethnographer, and filmmaker with a focus on dances of the African diaspora, Dr. Ojeya Cruz Banks. Her research combining African and Pacific lineages is inspired by her identity as a Pacific Islander (Guåhan/Guam) and African American. In 2012, she was selected for the Professional Choreographer's Lab at the Jacob's Pillow School of Dance. Dr Cruz Banks was also the keynote speaker and choreographer for the award-winning 2012 BlakDance festival in Australia. Her short dance film titled Tåno/Land premiered at the 2016 Pacific Arts Festival and her choreographic project called Africa in Aotearoa nominated for best dance performance in the 2017 Dunedin Fringe Festival. Recently, her collaboration with acclaimed movement artist Lela Aisha Jones was featured in the short dance film Original Spaces that was curated at the Gibney center in New York city. In 2019, she joined the faculty of Dance at Denison University as an Associate Professor of Dances of the African diaspora. On this episode, we talk about what Black dance signifies, the importance of cultural context and dance world view, research via social media conversations, and how dance is represented and conceptualized in the media.

https://www.knowboxdance.com/post/13-ojeyacurzbanks

On this episode your co-host YeaJean interviews dance artist, scholar, and educator, Ray Eliot Schwartz, based in Puebla, Mexico. Ray Eliot Schwartz received his BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and his MFA from University of Texas-Austin. He is the co-founder of Performática: Foro Internacional de Danza Contemporánea y Artes del Movimiento and a consultant and teaching artist for ArcDanz International Dance Workshop. He has been a guest artist for diverse populations in the U.S., South East Asia, South America, and Mexico. He has served on the faculty of the American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, MELT, the ZMP Summer Dance Intensive, the Colorado College Summer Dance Festival and SFADI, among others. His somatic studies include certifications in Body-Mind Centering® and the Feldenkrais Method®. He is a research associate at the Center for Mind Body Movement. He is a published scholar who writes about the interface of somatic movement education and contemporary dance practice, and he served as Academic Coordinator of the Dance Program of the University of the Americas-Puebla in México from 2008-2018. On this episode, we talk about social media as the economy for attention, pros/cons of internet based technologies in the classroom, an inside look at the hiring process for university dance programs, using the digital space to create an international dance forum, and using a somatic-model to inform dance making.

https://www.knowboxdance.com/post/12-rayeliotschwartz

On this episode your co-hosts Azaria and Reyna interview Georgia based musician and composer David Dingess. David Dingess began sound composition and recording at the age of 15. He began releasing his work to the public during his sophomore year of college, and shortly after began to receive collaboration requests from the Georgia College departments of Theatre and Dance. Since then, David has composed for plays, dance recitals, film and social media posts for companies like Bareminerals and Tory Burch. David was a KCACTF national finalist and received honorable mention for composition and studied under Tony award-winning sound designer Rob Kaplowitz. He was also awarded Best Music at NYC Webfest 2015 for his music in R&J: The Web Series. He holds a Bachelor's of Music Education from Georgia College, and hopes to begin a masters program at his alma mater in the coming months. On this episode, we talk about negotiating the dancer/musician relationship, stealing from the past-self, pros and cons of globalizing art, the cycle of success for students who experience arts in education, and the dichotomy of following artists who inspire you on social media.

https://www.knowboxdance.com/post/11-daviddingess

On this episode your host Martheya interviews Dat Nguyen the founder of MotionVivid. Dat Nguyen a native from Vietnam, is a choreographer, photographer, filmmaker, and visual artist previously based in Salt Lake City, Utah. He received his BFA degree in Dance at Sam Houston State University and his MFA degree in Modern Dance with a Screendance Certificate at the University of Utah. As a choreographer, Dat employs collage as a way to tell his story and heighten the somatic experience/understanding of his complexed identity. As a visual artist, Dat loves exploring different media/technologies and their often intangible relationship with dance. This allows him to expand his artistic landscapes and invigorate his approaches to performances. He founded MotionVivid™ in 2014 as a dance/multimedia company to further his research and broaden his artistic practice to local communities that he is serving. On this episode, we talk about how to stay "woke" in present times (the influence of spectacle on death, politics, and social media), important things to consider when naming your dance company in the digital age, deciding what to post and caption, supporting LGBTQIA+ artists, proactive tips for taking photos of dance, and using social media as a reflection resource.

https://www.knowboxdance.com/post/10-datnguyen-motionvivid