MFA Monday: Megan Yankee

by Lydia MFA Mondays

MFA rightAfter the Master: The Post-Grad School Rut

 

In my last year of graduate school, I made it a point to try and develop a set personal movement practices that I could take with me after I graduated. This was my best attempt at thwarting the drop-off of creative stimulation that I had heard many of my peers experience once they graduated. I had imagined creating a single perfect set of both biomechanical warm-ups and creative practices that would allow me to remain creatively engaged when I was no longer able to attend the many classes grad school afforded me. I wanted to DEFEAT THE RUT!

 

The main change in my perspective between then and now is that, in this year since grad school, I realized that  I never really needed a single set of exercises. How limiting! Over the course of the year, I began to understand that my body and circumstances had changed so often that doing so would be like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, and into an oval hole, and in a star-shaped hole, et cetera. I have accepted that there is no way to be engaged with a creative practice that equals that of graduate school. Even a substantial career outside of graduate school is different (not better or worse) and requires different things of your creativity and body. Ah, the things I could have only learned outside of school. Abundance can teach us only so much.

 

So, serendipitously, I realized not too long ago that I already had the perfect set of tools to create a movement practice anywhere, any time. The breadth and depth of exposure that my cohort had to somatic and creative practices, as well as those I sought out on my own, were, and still are more than enough to pull from. Without my knowing it really, I had been filling my personal practice grab bag the whole time. You may think it obvious, but, silly me. I suppose I had been so focused on “the doing”  of grad school, that I hadn’t realized I was also keeping not only written documentation of it all for future reference, but a physicalized one as well. If I hadn’t written the somatic practice or creative exercise into my movement history during grad school, I at least knew where to look for more information. If I did retain a physicalized memory of any one practice or exercise, it must have been an important one!

 

For the year after graduation, I hadn’t realized I had done this. I thought it had all left me. I didn’t know I had done a majority of the work leg work already.

I was stuck, mourning the loss of the true hot bed of creatively

that I had enjoyed so much in Denton, Texas.

 

And… that’s okay. I spent a lot of time blaming myself and my program for not giving me the tools I thought I needed. Why, upon graduation had I not set myself up with a career in dance? Why hadn’t my professors taught me this or that? Why didn’t I just seek it out myself? Why was the condition of my body changing and why was I letting it happen? This is something I chalk up to my youth and lack of creative career experience prior to grad school. Between finishing my undergraduate degree and beginning my graduate studies, I had let my creative self atrophy along with my physical condition. Much less dancemaking, much more teaching and for low or no pay. It was very disheartening. I assumed for the past year, that I was doing it all over again.

 

It certainly seemed that way on the surface. I had to get a job in reception to pay the bills. I wasn’t learning a new dance or creating a new dance or going to classes. Only, again I say it’s impossible to mimic the academic environment’s many characteristics. Unless you’re in New York City or the Pacific Northwest, its unlikely that you have access to more than one truly engaging, rigorous contemporary dance class per week. You may have NO access to a somatics class outside of  yoga. If you ARE in those cities, you may not be able to afford to take class regularly. And it’s okay. I was given many things that I held onto during grad school that would only be unlocked by the serendipitous entrance of a person into my life that  ended up becoming a very close friend.

 

I owe many thanks to a single woman who helped me acknowledge and re-engage with my physical and creative self. Unlike in grad school though, she had inspired me to do so not with the intention of becoming a better dancer, not with the intention of becoming more beautiful or flexible or strong. It was, for the first time in my life, purely (and intentionally) for joy… for the love of moving and feeling and thinking with my body… and for the love of encouraging people who didn’t consider themselves dancers to understand their bodies better. Sometimes I was able to find this sweet spot in classes during school here and there, but it was always with the understandable agenda of becoming a better dancer. Rarely was it for joy and fulfillment alone.

Amy Querin, Dance Artistwww.amyquerin.com

My former roommate, who is not a dancer, often requested to do partners yoga with me for fun, sang, stretched and danced around in the house, knew how to exercise joyfully outside whether it was 10 degrees below zero or a 95 degree scorcher, and who encouraged me to pick up painting for the first time in my life. She openly asked for help with certain ailments or asked questions about parts of the body that made her curious. She and I often talked about the Philosophy of the Body course she was taking. This new perspective on a physicalized, healthy and happy body was something I hadn’t experienced as fully in all my years of gymnastics, colorguard and dance. I was lucky to have such a positively-physicalized person in my life to learn from.

 

This solution for anyone who may experience their own “Post Grad School Rut” is not really a one-size-fits-all solution, I suppose. My particular circumstances were unique and the fortunate entrance of my friend into my life happened to be what I needed at the time.

However, what I would share with my younger self if I could can be summed

up by an excerpt of an interview between

Stephen Colbert and Patrick Stewart, as silly as it may sound:

 

Colbert: If you, Patrick Stewart, could send a message back to younger Patrick Stewart, what would you warn Patrick Stewart about Patrick Stewart’s future?

 

Stewart: It’s very, very simple because I didn’t have much fun as a kid. I was always responsible … I would go back, and I would say ‘Patrick, CHEER THE **** UP!’

 

My goal here is also simple: If you find yourself in The Rut, be easy on yourself. Especially if you are just launching your career whether its as a teacher, dancer, choreographer or any combination of them all. You already made it through the gauntlet. Your life will change, possibly dramatically and its one thing to prepare for this mentally; it’s entirely different to go through it and flourish as a result. You cannot recreate the rigour of grad school in a day, or in years, so take it easy. You’ll figure it out. If you were fortunate enough not to experience The Rut, then please reach out to the people you cared about in school and catch up with them. You never know who may need you.

 

Next week we will hear from Gabrielle Aufiero. This woman took a path I hadn’t seen before after grad school by entering further training to become a teacher with Teach for America while working with a North Texas dance company called Simple Sparrow. Her steadfastness, professionalism, as well as her thoughtful and precise movement style are difficult to rival. I can’t wait to share her thoughts with you all!

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me with any further questions or thoughts at meganyankeedance@gmail.com

Megan is an indie dance artist that seeks opportunities to make and present dances in alternative spaces in order to expand the reach of concert dance. She is committed to presenting work and curating concerts in houses, busy street corners, warehouses, dance for film, online and in visual art galleries. She has performed and presented work nationally and internationally at the Nomad Express Multi Arts Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso produced by Olivier, the Sonic Arts Research Center in Belfast, Northern Ireland, American Dance Festival, American College Dance Festival, Texas Dance Improvisation Festival, Movement Intensive in Composition and Improvisation in Lancaster, PA, Emerge and Exchange Dance Festivals in Tulsa, OK, {254} Festival in Waco, Texas, Out of Loop Festival in Addison, TX, and the Rogue Festival in Fresno, CA. She has had the honor of performing in works by Christie Nelson, Amie LeGendre, Larry Keigwin, Michael Foley, Jordan Fuchs, Sandy Mathern-Smith and Sarah Gamblin.

Megan holds (and runs with) an MFA in Dance from Texas Woman’s University and currently lives in Columbus, OH with her partner, John Osburn and their two dogs, Weecho and Lucy.

 

So You Think You Can Dance

by Lydia Uncategorized
Happy Thursday, Framers! Today we’re kicking off a new column on the popular show So You Think You Can Dance, which is in its 11th season. We want to know what you think of the show– really.  Please comment below!
 

So You Think You Can Dance: L.A. Callbacks

In the search for the top 20 dancers, we traveled back  to the Contemporary Round where the judges decided the fate of Bridget. She was given a second chance to prove herself to the demanding judges as she performed her expressive solo, which she dedicated to her father. The talented Bridget demonstrated her skills well enough to impress the judges, and she moved on to the next round.

It’s Group Night on SYTYCD and the 50 young hopefuls were split into groups of mixed talents. Each group was in charge of choreographing their own dance, and stayed up late into the night perfecting them. It became especially difficult for the group One Love, which was comprised mostly of contemporary dancers and one ballroom dancer, Serena. When the routine became too demanding for her, she took over the choreography and created something new for the group. During One Love’s performance, things got challenging when the judges were unimpressed with their act and announced that the members of One Love would decide who would go home from their group. As the other dance crews took the stage, the judges continued to be disappointed with the choreography presented by the dancers. After the dancers were criticized and discouraged, we finally saw some improvement when a group of skilled dancers took the stage to dance to ‘All of Me’ by John Legend. This was my personal favorite of all the groups and the judges thought it was one of the best as well.

The group dances are complete and the competition is between the dancers is greater than ever! The drama builds as One Love still must decide the fate of one of its own members. When finally face-to-face with the judges, the group refused to send one of their own home and each dancer took responsibility for their own mistakes that were made. The entire One Love crew volunteered to go home together. Warmed by their actions, the judges awarded One Love with a second chance in the Solo Round.

During the Solo Round, every style was seen as the dancers played to their own strength. The slow process of elimination began as the unfortunate dancers were voted off by the judges. Though many loved dancers were eliminated, we got to see the top 20 celebrate their stay on So You Think You Can Dance.

–Rachel Kaminiski

*Rachel is Frame Dance’s summer social media intern.  She’ll be blogging a recap of SYTYCD each week!  Stay tuned and welcome her to the Framers.

 

Tuesday Tunes: 2000’s

by Lydia Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

 

 

 

We are wrapping up our Dancing Through the Decades series this week with a look back at the turn of the century. If you weren’t dancing in parking lots, plazas and everywhere else to the crazy moves of the Cha- Cha Slide, Souljia Boy and the Cupid Shuffle, then you were probably trying to master the hottest dance moves of the Pop Stars. Brittany Spears, NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce are just a few that revolutionized the art of choreography during the first decade of the new millennium.

 

 

The Cha-Cha Slide

 

Early 2000’s Choreography  (N*SYNC and Bye Bye Bye) 

 

 And to top it all off…the Evolution of Dance!

 

MFA Monday: Erin Law

by Lydia MFA Mondays
MFA rightGood Morning!  Framers, I am so pleased to bring you Megan Yankee’s next installment of MFA Monday, a rich interview her with colleague and friend Erin Law.  Enjoy!

 

After the Master: Interview with Erin Law, M.F.A.

I am happy to present my interview with Erin Law this week. Erin and I met at Denison University where she was teaching as a visiting assistant professor in the 2012-2013 school year. We have since traveled to Burkina Faso (West Africa) together to perform a work by Sandra Mathern-Smith. Her warmth and expertise is something I greatly admire and I cherish her friendship and mentorship. If you have any questions for her, please email me at meganyankeedance@gmail.com and I will happily forward them to her. Enjoy!

 

M: How are you using the knowledge and experiences you gained in grad school now (outside of work)?

 

E: I think mainly the knowledge and experiences I gained serve as a reminder to stay true to myself no matter what. In school I had the opportunity to delve in deep, to explore and discover my aesthetic voice. I think that in this world that often devalues art as a valid form of work, it is important to stay connected to self and to have integrity in the face of adversity.

 

M: Do you have a regular movement practice (even if it’s atypical)?

 

E: I am sure to move (consciously) every day in some way, even if it’s not exactly how I desire. I have enjoyed walking a lot recently. I like to connect with the environment that way. Sometimes I do small dances while making cowe are animalspies, others I stray from the path that leads directly from point A to point B…

 

M: What was your focus in grad school?

 

E: I focused on improvisation as performance. Through collaboration and experimentation I discovered many modalities through which to become more specific and rigorous in improvising as a soloist, part of a group, and as a contact dancer. I also focused equally on developing my skills as a sound artist. I did this so to face my fears and self-judgment and also to be able to make things that I could post online without worrying about how copyright laws apply to the presentation of my work (live or online). Although it was my last semester I discovered film through a composition class we took and I fell in love with it. So while it wasn’t a constant focus when I was there, I have continued to explore it in my independent professional work.

 

M: How/did your employment status shift after grad school? What was the job search and application process like for your current position?

 

E: Each school year following graduate school, my employment status has shifted. After graduate school where I was a Teaching Fellow, I moved back to Tennessee and did some adjunct work at Middle Tennessee State University. This was a huge turning point for me as a dance educator because I was asked to teach Dance Appreciation as a general education course. I had to learn quickly how to shift from depending largely on my body as a teaching tool to becoming an engaging lecturer. I found that the vast array of things I had been exposed to in graduate school combined with my training from Integrated Movement Studies (Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis) served me here, because it prepared me with the skills to create meaningful hands-on activities for very diverse groups of students. I then became a Visiting Assistant Professor at Denison University as a sabbatical replacement the following school year. This was my first opportunity to work full time teaching both theory and technique courses, creating choreography, and advising students. This gave me the chance to expand on things I had been developing over the last several years of my teaching career in a very supported and focused manner.

This year has been the most challenging in terms of finding meaningful work. I have experienced a lot of potential opportunities, rejections, and a great sense of humbling. I am proud of myself for my perseverance.

I feel, despite the lack of fruitful employment after a year of searching, a freedom to imagine new and different pathways for myself in the near future. I am still applying for academic positions but I am also interested in freelancing and collaborating with dance artists with whom I really want to work.

 

M: What is your opinion regarding the state of adjunct positions in the US?

 

E: I preface my personal commentary by saying I have not researched the state of adjunct positions here, so I am coming from my own frame of reference as well as hearsay from fellow adjuncts. First, I believe it must be a very different experience depending on which school and region one works. I think there is a double edged sword with adjunct work: there is less institutional responsibility, freeing me as an artist to do other things with my time but then there are no health benefits, the pay is very poor and the teaching load can still be incredibly demanding. I have enjoyed having less institutional responsibilities this year, it has allowed me to do other things with my time. Then again, as someone who enjoys investing in my students, I find myself naturally inclined to advise and mentor students; it provides me great fulfillment. This is where boundaries are fuzzy because it is not part of my job description, I am not getting paid for it, but there I am doing it anyway. I think adjunct positions—specifically in dance—only exacerbate our masochistic cultural tendency to work (or in some cases, toil) for free “all for the love of dance.” It can create in me a sense of resentment and devaluing of my own skills. It is certainly not a sustainable source of employment, but I can see how it could be useful for some.

The thing I struggle with is that adjuncts and tenured professors could be providing the same level of quality teaching but are not receiving the same benefits for their work.

Adjuncts are left out in the cold when it comes to issues of health insurance, travel benefits, and general accessibility to the perks an institution can offer. We all need to be compensated fairly for our work and that is not happening.

 

M: How are you using the knowledge and experiences you gained in grad school in your current position?

 

E: I have several jobs right now so this question has different answers depending on which job I am discussing…I will start with my day job. I support a high school English teacher who is blind. This was her very first year teaching and she had a lot to learn. Although it was not part of my job description I found myself having philosophical discussions with her all year about how to approach teaching …I think I served her as a type of pedagogical advisor. I have helped her to consider how learning can be a hands on activity and a kinesthetic experience. I have been able to bring the analytic skills I acquired in graduate school to my job evaluating her work as well as the students’ work.

In my adjunct work, the connections are much more straightforward. As I discussed before the exposure to so many different contemporary artists helped prepare me to teach Dance Appreciation. I also feel that getting to teach and take several semester length technique courses in graduate school allowed me to understand the flow of a semester and how I wanted it to progress for my students.                                                                                                                                     

 I think one of the most instrumental or significant/sentimental ways in which my experiences in grad school affect my current work is in my independent choreography.

I feel much more adequately prepared to take on big projects and take really big risks. I am not as attached to my work and don’t treat as this precious thing that is an appendage of my own body anymore and I owe that to the critique process I experienced in grad school.

I seek out critical feedback which is something I never did before in Nashville.

 

M: Roughly how many times have you performed or presented your work since you graduated. How does this compare to the amount of times you did so during and before graduate school?

 

E: I have presented work about nine times over the last three years since I graduated. This includes the production of three dance films, two of which were presented as part of live performances. During graduate school I performed or presented work one to two times per semester over a total of four semesters. I was definitely making work and/or involved in others’ work during graduate school more intensely than when I left. A marked difference in the timeline of producing work is that I now seek my own opportunities to present work and thus decide (within reason) my own deadlines/show dates, whereas in graduate school, these things were essentially determined for me. In this way it feels equal. Before graduate school I presented work as part of annual or semesters’ end dance concerts more frequently than seeking alternative or site-specific performance spaces. I adhered more to a studio’s schedule than my own desire to make work. I enjoy that I am liberated from that now!

 

M: Is there a project you’re itching to get started on?

 

E: I am very excited to start on a project that I will present at the end of July. Earlier this year I had an anxiety dream related to work and it featured me digging through bags of underwear and markers. My friend (and collaborator) suggested I shed the anxiety aspect of the dream and explore the specific images of underwear and markers in a dance. That resonated with me immediately so I started dreaming up ideas. I am looking forward to working with a few improvisers to develop a performance score with these items and mainly the freedom they represent to me.

Erin Law is a movement educator, improviser, choreographer, and performance artist based in Nashville, Tennessee who is determined to both challenge and bring harmony to her community through dance. Recently she has completed a yearlong Visiting Assistant Professorship at Denison University where she restaged a choreographic work and taught Somatics, Understanding Dance, Laban Movement Analysis, Contact Improvisation, Senior Research, and Cultural Studies as sabbatical replacement for Dr. Gill Wright Miller. Previous engagements include an adjunct professorship at Middle Tennessee State University and Assistant Director of the co-curricular Vanderbilt Dance Program.

Originally from Massachusetts, Law attended Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY from which she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. and high honors in dance. She went on to the Integrated Movement Studies program to certify in Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis (LMA) through the University of Utah and in the spring of 2011, Erin graduated from the Master of Fine Arts program in dance at Smith College (Massachusetts) with her MFA in choreography and performance.

In her independent work Erin is currently pursuing the integration of site-specific improvisations in movement, identity theory, sound, and film under the project heading salt_space. She is collaborating with fellow dance artists Janelle Bonfour-Mikes and Travis Cooper in a performance piece exploring both the repression and unleashing of humans’ animal nature with the working title “Underwear and Markers (We Are Animals)” which will be shown in late July 2014. Erin is delighted to have just returned from Burkina Faso, Africa where she had the honor of performing with Sandra Mathern, John Osburn, and Megan Yankee in Mathern’s multi-media work “I Am Relative to You” as part of Olivier Tarpaga’s 2014 Nomad Express Festival.

Megan Yankee’s MFA Monday arc began last week and continues next week!

Tuesday Tunes: 1990’s

by Lydia Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes

 

Dancers who make “larger and more variable movements in relation to bending and twisting movements of their head/neck and torso, and faster bending and twisting movements of their right knee” are most attractive. The top dances of the 90’s, hip hop and line dancing, which incorporate these dance moves, have had a great influence on dance culture.

 

 The Tootsie Roll

 

 How to do the Macarena 

 

 MC Hammer’s Can’t Touch This 

 

MFA Monday: Megan Yankee

by Lydia MFA Mondays

MFA rightHi Framers, happy Monday!

I think my favorite part of the Frame Dance blog is MFA Monday– for several reasons.  One is that is it a great reminder that we are not alone in the pursuit of dance as an advanced degree, a career, an art form, or as a tool for building communities.  It can be very isolating, especially when I don’t know all of you who read this. I wish I did!  Of course I can read the stats of viewers on the blog, but when it’s just numbers, I don’t always know if this resource is helpful.  But then there are those days that I get an email from someone who has been reading these columns, and has valued the wisdom that our fellow writers have shared and wants to participate in the conversation.  That is a VERY happy day for me.  It reminds me that although our career can at times be isolating, dancers are people who are generous with their knowledge and hungry for more.  I admire you.

Today we welcome Megan Yankee to the Frame Dance blog.  She opens a series today, and as the weeks unfold, you’ll hear from several of her colleagues about their MFA stories.  I am so very excited (and I’ve only had one sip of my coffee).  Here we go!

 

After the Master: Introduction

Many of the wonderful, previous MFA Monday contributors have provided guidance for facing the challenges leading into and during their graduate studies. Accordingly, my goal with this series is to provide a snapshot of the world after you’ve finished. My blog arch will be comprised largely of anecdotes from the subgroup of dance artists who entered graduate school during the Great Recession. Many of us are 35 years old or younger, came into graduate school with less than 5 years of making or teaching dance outside of school, and are now faced with an over-crowded and daunting job market.

If you’re anything like me, you fled that crumbling economy into graduate school for several reasons. Namely, my job prospects with a BA in dance were limited and graduate studies provided me with hope of inspiration and financial stability as a dancer. Teaching dance in public school was possible but limited and required additional schooling or certifications. Teaching in studios was financially precarious. Jobs that didn’t involve dance could pay the bills, but were largely uninteresting and could unwittingly cause creative atrophy if I wasn’t extremely disciplined with my personal practice and pursuit of non-academic performance opportunities. Graduate school offered me a way to further explore my craft alongside inspiring, intelligent peers AND the possibility of landing a position at a university that seemed financially stable and endlessly fascinating.

I have been fortunate enAmy Querin, Dance Artistwww.amyquerin.comough to find performance opportunities as well as teach for a semester at a wonderful private liberal arts university for a semester since my graduation a year ago. Based on advice given to me, I have applied for a few other university jobs that I felt truly fit my goals, talents and experience. I have been met with the all-too-common “thanks, but no thanks” that I hear many of my peers receiving. I have, after much toil, come to terms with this, although I still shoot out applications here and there. In place of sending out applications weekly or daily, I have turned to my local arts council and other funders for financial support and performance opportunities. This has also been met with marginal success. More on this in future articles.

If graduate school is near the top of your list of difficult life experiences, wait until you try to continue making or teaching dance after you graduate without the aid of academia. (Throw in a cross-country move after graduation and you may end up in break-down mode like I did, something I would never wish that upon anyone). What I didn’t read enough about in graduate school was the struggle outside of the studio that the choreographers we studied went through. Did Steve Paxton eat ramen noodles daily to save money? Did Martha Graham perform on the streets for tips? Did Trisha Brown have two office jobs to pay the rent? Maybe I was reading the wrong stuff; it’s certainly possible! But perhaps if I had sought out this kind of information, I might have felt a little more capable of making great dance without academia. Is it out of those struggles that great dance making emerges?

In the year since I earned my master’s degree, I’ve nursed dreams of starting a non-profit or my own dance company, building a tiny house on a friend’s patch of land atop a mountain in Colorado and everything in between. I’ve performed five times, attempted to learn aikido and tai chi and I haven’t finished a one of the many books that I’ve started. The forthcoming series of articles I have assembled is not meant to be a guide, dear dancer-reader, but a series of accounts of what life can be like after graduation if you don’t land a coveted tenure-track position. Admittedly, I am less interested in the artistic process for this series. I want to know what the life of MFAs is like outside of the studio because that outside life has a direct effect on the work being made or NOT made.

Coming soon will be two more articles written by yours truly on the topics I have introduced above as well as one article or interview written by each of my colleagues Erin Law, Gabrielle Aufiero and Amanda McCorckle. These fantastic women have taken separate paths after graduate school. Again, my goal here is not to guide you through life after graduate school, but to show the diversity of options (and any challenges associated with them) that we are faced with once we graduate. Stay tuned.

I welcome any reader’s desire to continue this dialogue through questions or comments. Please feel free to shoot me an email at meganyankeedance@gmail.com.

 

Megan is an indie dance artist that seeks opportunities to make and present dances in alternative spaces in order to expand the reach of concert dance. She is committed to presenting work and curating concerts in houses, busy street corners, warehouses, dance for film, online and in visual art galleries. She has performed and presented work nationally and internationally at the Nomad Express Multi Arts Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso produced by Olivier, the Sonic Arts Research Center in Belfast, Northern Ireland, American Dance Festival, American College Dance Festival, Texas Dance Improvisation Festival, Movement Intensive in Composition and Improvisation in Lancaster, PA, Emerge and Exchange Dance Festivals in Tulsa, OK, {254} Festival in Waco, Texas, Out of Loop Festival in Addison, TX, and the Rogue Festival in Fresno, CA. She has had the honor of performing in works by Christie Nelson, Amie LeGendre, Larry Keigwin, Michael Foley, Jordan Fuchs, Sandy Mathern-Smith and Sarah Gamblin.

Megan holds (and runs with) an MFA in Dance from Texas Woman’s University and currently lives in Columbus, OH with her partner, John Osburn and their two dogs, Weecho and Lucy.

Season 4 Recap

by Lydia Interviews

4th Season Recap – Frame Dance from Frame Dance Productions on Vimeo.

Ensure the power of dance and contemporary art into your lives
by donating to Frame Dance’s 5th season.
Donate HERE.

This season you’ve seen us perform at DiverseWorks; Julydoscope at Discovery Green; site specific performance in Allen Parkway Blue Trees with Houston Arts Alliance; City Hall for Mayor Annise Parker’s Holiday Celebration; Steve Reich’s 2×5 with Liminal Space Contemporary Music Ensemble; Ecouter at Spring Street Studios with composers Charles Halka, Mark Hirsch and Robert McClure; Russ Pitman Park for Art in the Park free public performance; Quiver and FM reprise at Rice University; and Dinner/Dance 19 collaboration with David Leftwich, Adam Dorris and Richard Knight with composers Robert Honstein, Matthew Peterson and Jonathan Russell at Good Dog Houston.

Help us improve!  We welcome your suggestions and questions.
Contact us HERE.

 

Frame Dance exists to help people in Houston and beyond discover the power of dance and movement to communicate, inspire, and connect to the world and others.  We believe community collaboration, artistic collaboration and technology are the secret ingredients of our craft today, and are completely necessary to expose contemporary dance to more people in our society.