To close out Black History Month, we have a special conversation hosted by Vania Claiborne, focused on the experience of some of the Black dance artists connected to Dance Project and the NC Dance Festival. Vania speaks with Amelia Renee Byrd and Jordan Booker-Medley about the experiences and mentors that have influenced who they are as artists, what it was like to see themselves reflected on the stage for the first time, how they navigate expectations our culture puts on the artistic work of Black choreographers, and what they are looking forward to exploring creatively.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Upcoming workshop: Deep Care for Self and Community, March 7, 4-5:30pm. More info here.

To make a gift to the Festival Fund, click here.

Connect with these artists on IG:

Vania Claiborne

Amelia Byrd

Jordan Booker-Medley

This week Festival Director Anne Morris chats with choreographers Vania Claiborne, Taryn Griggs, and Laura Gutierrez. We have a candid conversation about the realities of being a dance artist during the pandemic, the connection between dancing and processing current events, the cost of the gig lifestyle as a choreographer, and what to do if you eat, sleep, breathe dance. These artists share how they are starting to answer some of the questions that the pandemic has raised about what is important in a dance career, and we discuss the new workshop Dance Project is starting February 14, called Maker’s Space. Taryn Griggs will facilitate this workshop for dance makers, designed to reconnect artists with their creative practice and with each other.

Links mentioned in this episode:

More info on Maker’s Space: danceproject.org/makers

Upcoming workshop: Deep Care for Self and Community, March 7, 4-5:30pm. More info here.

To make a gift to the Festival Fund, click here.

This week, Festival Director Anne Morris chats with Tommy Noonan, one of two directors of Culture Mill, a performing arts laboratory in Saxapahaw, NC. Tommy will be leading a workshop for the NC Dance Festival on February 6 via Zoom, titled “Movement for Movements”. We’ll discuss how questions of social justice and sustainable working practices are entwined in Culture Mill’s DNA, how to dance through administrative work, and what it means to be part of a creative ecosystem.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Upcoming workshop: Movement for Movements interactive workshop, February 6, 3pm. Register to join via Zoom.

Upcoming workshop: Deep Care for Self and Community, March 7, 4-5:30pm. More info here.

To make a gift to the Festival Fund, click here.

This week, Festival Director Anne Morris chats with Hannah Sutton, the video editor who created our dance film, Converge, out of the 20 microdances choreographed by NC Dance Festival artists this fall. We’ll discuss her shift from being a dancer in front of the camera to being behind the camera, the most challenging film project she’s worked on before, and how she got unstuck in the process of combining 20 dance films into one. 

To see the 20 individual microdances that NC Dance Festival artists created, visit our artist page on our website.

Links mentioned in this episode:

SITES: Accessible Art in Alternative Spaces, January 23, 12:30pm. Live on Facebook.

Movement for Movements interactive workshop, Feburary 6, 3pm. Register to join via Zoom. 

To make a gift to the Festival Fund, click here.

This week we have a little bit of a different episode for our 10th episode, and the first show of 2021. Lauren Joyner joins Festival Director Anne Morris in this conversation as we close out the very strange and challenging year that was 2020. Lauren and Anne are both Executive Directors for Dance Project, and Lauren directs our School while Anne directs the NC Dance Festival. In this conversation, we reflect on what we’ve learned this year, look forward to new adventures, and answer an assortment of listener questions, including the weirdest dance performance we’ve ever been a part of and what we might find ourselves doing in an alternate universe.

Links mentioned in this episode:

January 23rd Community Conversation: SITES: Accessible art in alternative spaces

Make a gift to the Festival Fund here.

This week, Festival Director Anne Morris chats with Zoe Litaker, a photographer based in Durham, NC. Zoe takes photographs in a number of settings, but dance is an area of primary interest for her. Her photo book and exhibition Durham Dances came out last fall, featuring dancers in a variety of dance styles in iconic locations around the city of Durham. This year, as part of the 30th Anniversary season of the NC Dance Festival, we have asked Zoe to take a series of portraits of 30 of the many dancers and choreographers who have been instrumental in establishing, defining, and evolving the Festival over the years. In this conversation, we chat about the magic and the challenge of photographing dance, Zoe’s love of art history and the ways that shows up in her work, and photography as a time-travel machine.

The NC Dance Festival 30th anniversary is supported by the National  Endowment for the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, Lincoln  Financial Foundation, Ecolab Foundation, and Stearns Financial Group. We  need the support of individual donors and business sponsors as well to  make possible the innovative work that NC dancers are creating, bring  students meaningful experiences with the arts, and strengthen the  community through dance. This December, you can help us get one step  closer to an even stronger, more resilient, more innovative, and more  accessible year of dance. Visit our website at danceproject.org/onestepcloser to take a look at some of the ways you can help us make this vision a  reality. From student scholarships, to new technology to adapt to dance  in the midst of a pandemic, to creative projects with professional  artists, you can help build a stronger community through dance. Thanks  for your support!

Links mentioned in this episode:

Monthly Zoom chat for Dance Artists: January 9, 12:30-1:30pm. Click here for the Zoom link.

Dance Project Mailing List

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube!

In this episode, Festival Director Anne Morris talks with with Dylan Reddish, one of Dance Project’s school coordinators, about a project that she brought to our student performance companies this fall. Dylan and the other performance company teachers supported the students in the process of making their own microdances on the model of the short dance films created by professional choreographers for this year’s NC Dance Festival. Just like the prompt for the professionals, these students selected a few images from a collection of 30 from the Festival’s history, and used those images as a starting place for their own dance. You’ll also hear from Sophie Kohlphenson and Clare Scott, both 12 year old dancers at Dance Project who participated in this project. Both are members of our Junior performance company and the pre-professional Rise company. Watch Clare and Sophie's micro-dances here.

The NC Dance Festival 30th anniversary is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, Lincoln Financial Foundation, Ecolab Foundation, and Stearns Financial Group. We need the support of individual donors and business sponsors as well to make possible the innovative work that NC dancers are creating, bring students meaningful experiences with the arts, and strengthen the community through dance. This December, you can help us get one step closer to an even stronger, more resilient, more innovative, and more accessible year of dance. Visit our website at danceproject.org/onestepcloser to take a look at some of the ways you can help us make this vision a reality. From student scholarships, to new technology to adapt to dance in the midst of a pandemic, to creative projects with professional artists, you can help build a stronger community through dance. Thanks for your support!

Links mentioned in this episode:

Monthly Zoom chat for Dance Artists: December 12, 12:30-1:30pm. Click here for the Zoom link.

Artist in Residence applications accepted through December 18. Click here for more information and application form.

SITES: reset call for artists; submissions due December 15. Details here.

In this episode, Festival Director Anne Morris talks to Christopher Fleming, Technical Director at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, or UNCG. For the last 3 years, Chris has also been the Tech Director and Lighting designer for the NC Dance Festival tour. In this conversation, we’ll talk about how Chris got his start as a lighting designer, what has been providing some hope in this challenging time for dance departments, with the coronavirus pandemic, how he strives to create the world he wants to live in inside of his theater, and why he’d like his students to sit outside for 24 hours.

Chris mentioned the UNCG Dance Department’s Fall Dances concert that is livestreaming this weekend, November 21st. To view the concert, featuring the dance film that Chris Fleming and Robin Gee that is mentioned in this episode, click here.

Be sure to join our mailing list from our website at danceproject.org and follow Dance Project on social media to keep up with upcoming Festival events and other Dance Project news. You can find us on Instagram and on Facebook. Short video excerpts of our podcast episodes are on our Youtube channel. Check them out!

This week, we’re bringing you a conversation with Helen Simoneau, artistic director and choreographer of Helen Simoneau Danse. As part of our NC Dance Festival activities this season, we hosted a virtual Community Conversation with Helen on October 23, titled “Finding Your Own Way through the Dance Industry.” During this community conversation on Zoom, we discussed Helen’s beginnings in dance, how to create your own opportunities in the dance world, how the pandemic has shifted Helen’s way of working, and the powerful nature of collaborations in the creative process. You’ll hear questions from some of our attendees and Helen’s advice and insight. In the live conversation, we also had the opportunity to view a short excerpt of Helen’s most recent dance, DARLING. You can view an excerpt here. We had such a great time talking with Helen, and wanted to share this conversation more widely. We’ll have more community conversations on other topics throughout the spring of 2021. Be sure to join our mailing list from our website at danceproject.org and follow Dance Project on social media to keep up with upcoming Festival events and other Dance Project news.

More about Helen:

Helen Simoneau, a native of Rimouski, Québec, is the artistic director and choreographer of Helen Simoneau Danse. Described as “a Choreographer-on-the-rise” by Dance Magazine, Simoneau creates work that exists at the intersection of intent and impact.

Her commissions include The Juilliard School, Oregon Ballet Theatre, the American Dance Festival, UNC School of the Arts, The Yard, Springboard Danse Montréal, The Ailey School, the University of the Arts (PA), and the Swiss International Coaching Project (SiWiC) in Zurich.

Simoneau was a resident artist at Baryshnikov Arts Center, NYU/Tisch, Bates Dance Festival, New York Dance Lab, The National Choreographic Center in Akron, the University of Buffalo via the Creative Arts Initiative, and has received fellowships from The NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts, the Bogliasco Foundation, and twice from the North Carolina Arts Council.

Her work has been presented nationally and internationally at 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), Athens International Dance Festival (Greece), and the Shanghai Dance Festival (China). Simoneau was awarded 1st place for Choreography at the Internationales Solo-Tanz-Theater Festival in Stuttgart, Germany.

She was recently a Fellow at Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab and is the current Choreography Fellow at New York City Center.

Follow Helen on social media:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/helensimoneaudanse

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/helensimoneaudanse

In Episode 5, Festival Director Anne Morris interviews 3 more of the 20  choreographers selected to create a microdance (30-60 second dance film)  for the NC Dance Festival's virtual season. We'll hear from Renay Aumiller as we chat about trusting your collaborators, how music influenced her creation process, and what the pandemic means for dancers who work closely with the community. Then, Anne talks to Chris Yon and Taryn Griggs about how it feels to shift to a virtual format, talk honestly about what we miss about dancing in person right now, and how the medium of film changes the creative relationship between the two of them.

To read more about Renay, Chris, and Taryn, visit our website.  You can see their work in our October 24th virtual premiere, which will screen our website at: danceproject.org/ncdfpremiere and we'll be providing glimpses of all the choreographers' work on social media. You can find us on Instagram @danceprojectinc and on Facebook @NCDanceFestival.

The NC Dance Festival 30th anniversary is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, Lincoln Financial Foundation, Ecolab Foundation, and Stearns Financial Group.  We need the support of  individual donors and business sponsors as well to make possible the innovative work that NC dancers are creating,  bring students meaningful  experiences with the arts, and strengthen the  community through dance. To make a donation toward this season’s  Festival Fund, please visit www.danceproject.org/givencdf