A Thought-Leader In Family & Children’s Dance Classes | Houston, TX
Frame Dance is a thought leader in dance education, inspiring the next generation of movers, makers, and world changers by offering dance classes for adults & children, multi-generational ensembles, professional performances, networking events, and film festivals. We are nestled between West U and the Museum District.
We believe in developing the whole dancer, teaching critical life skills such as creative thinking, leadership, collaboration, and resilience through our artful and playful dance curriculum at our studio and in partner schools.
Our adult modern dance classes are designed to offer you the joy and magic that’s possible when you create space in your life to move, to grow, and to share in the creative process with a like-hearted community.
For more than ten years, Frame Dance has brought radically inclusive and deeply personal contemporary dance to Houston. Led by Founder and Creative Director Lydia Hance, whom Dance Magazine calls “the city’s reigning guru of dance in public places,” the professional company is made up of six acclaimed co-creators committed to collaboration. Frame Dance has created over 50 unique site-specific performances and nine dances for the camera screened in festivals all over the United States and Europe. With an unrelenting drive to make dance in relationship to environment, Frame Dance has created dance works for and with METRO, Houston Museum of Natural Sciences, Houston Parks Board, Plant It Forward Farms, CORE Dance, Rice University, Houston Ballet, 14 Pews, Aurora Picture Show, and the Contemporary Arts Museum. Frame Dance’s productions were described by Arts + Culture Texas Editor-in-Chief Nancy Wozny as “some of the most compelling and entertaining work in Houston.” Creative Director Lydia Hance is a champion of living composers and is dedicated to work exclusively with new music.
Ahoy, Framers! Our newest member to the Frame team, Emily Pau, selected some wonderfully fun videos for you on this Links We Like Friday! We also want to send a special shout-out to 2013 Frame Dance Music Composition Winner Rob McClure on his birthday!!
Some of you know that our film “There’s a Height Limit” was selected to be a part of TenduTV’s Essential Dance Film Collection. We are really excited! We need your help getting the word out and sharing with your networks. We actually receive a portion of the ad revenue each time someone watches it. (ca-ching!) Would you take a moment and share with your friends?
Frame Dance Productions announces its competition to select a piece of music for its upcoming Spring season. Its two-fold purpose is to offer outstanding emerging composers a forum for their recognition as well as an opportunity to collaborate with the dance performance company, Frame Dance Productions. We are looking for completed pieces, or for samples in consideration for a future work.
Happy Monday morning, Framers! This is the final installment from Dance Source Houston‘s Stephanie Todd Wong. They just launched a new website, so after you read this fabulous advice, head on over and check them out!
Surrender to the Process
A few parting pieces of advice…
Immerse yourself in the place and program. If you going dedicate the time and money, you might as well make it worth your while. Don’t hold back.
Try to enjoy it. You’ll be exhausted and stressed, but try to maintain some perspective and have fun.
Luxuriate in the structure. Once you finish, you’ll be forced to create structure for yourself, which isn’t easy. So enjoy it while you can.
Be okay with being overwhelmed. It’s going to happen, and it’s okay. This too shall pass.
Get comfortable being uncomfortable. You’re going to spend a fair amount of time outside of your comfort zone, get used to it. And if you’re not being pushed there, you’re in the wrong place.
Embrace your colleagues. They will become some of your closest friends and collaborators. They will most likely also piss you off and annoy the hell out of you at times, but that’s part of their charm.
Challenge yourself and allow yourself to be challenged. Be wiling to hear what your professors and colleagues have to say about your work. This can be exceptionally difficult, but necessary to true growth.
Challenge your professors and colleagues. You should take this time to question everything and everyone. Nothing is sacred.
Take risks. You will never have a safer place to fail. Make use of it.
Stephanie Todd Wong moved to Houston in 2008 after spending ten years in Washington DC as a dancer, choreographer, dance teacher and dance administrator. Stephanie holds a BA in Dance from Mercyhurst College and received her MFA in Dance from George Mason University in 2004. While living in Washington she was a dancer in the Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company, which performed in various locations in DC and New York City. She also had the privilege of working with Lorry May, founding director of Sokolow Dance Foundation to learn and perform Anna Sokolow’s The Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter. As a choreographer, Stephanie’s work was presented at both Joy of Motion and Dance Place. Stephanie also spent time teaching dance and worked to create a high school dance program for The Flint Hill School in Vienna Virginia. Beginning in 2007, Stephanie began working for Dance/MetroDC, the local branch office of Dance/USA, serving as its Programs Associate and ultimately its Interim Director. In this role she was responsible for creating and executing all the organizations programming, including the Metro DC Dance Awards, a region wide awards program that took place at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Stephanie became Executive Director of Dance Source Houston in 2011 and currently sits on the Advisory Board for Arts + Culture Magazine and an Affiliate Working Group of Dance/USA.
It was yesterday, and we had just finished the half of rehearsal where we work on the trio/slow section of the Reich piece we’re preparing for the Liminal Space show on December 11. Laura had arrived, and I knew it was time to move into the section that gives me a panic attack/ulcer/wide eyes/jumpy feet/and a desire to run around the room.
Thank you Steve Reich.
You see…I had carefully orchestrated steps, gestures, freezing to VERY specific parts of the music. I have my own notation language.
Pretty obvious what I’m doing, right? I mean, it’s like you don’t even have to see the piece anymore. (wink.)
And I must say, the dancers were thrilled. THRILLED. with the demanding nature of the music and the tasks I had given to them. See below:
You know it’s a Frame Dance piece when the notebooks are out and the brows are furrowed.
So…back to yesterday. I forgot my notes. Kind of crucial as I don’t even try to keep all of the individual dancers’ parts in my own brain. Gotta free that bad boy up for more ideas. I send out movement and counts and then trust the dancers to remember them from there on. It’s a tall order. So…I forgot my notes. And I KNEW that I couldn’t remember it all. So what did I do? I threw it out and started over. I have to say, the dancers were relieved. Less counting this time and more instinct. More listening, I think. And I like this direction we’re headed much better.
Funny how things work out, eh? Sometimes you just have to forget your notes.
Good Monday to you Framers! Here is the second installment from the fabulous Stephanie Todd Wong, Executive Director of Dance Source Houston. Here she goes…
Reality Checks
The first question I ask someone who has expressed an interest in grad school, is “Why?” And I ask it not to be flippant or to discourage, but with genuine curiosity. Why? What is the goal? What is motivating you? What do you hope to accomplish? The administrator in me these days, wants to ask what is the ROI? I think these questions are super important, because let’s face it, higher education isn’t cheap. We’re talking about a serious investment here, in terms of both time and money. And as dancers, we can’t afford to waste either!
When I entered grad school, I did it wanting several different things. I wanted to be a better dancer and choreographer. I wanted to be able to teach at a university level. I longed for the structure school provides and the resources of space and bodies to work with. And if I’m totally honest, I wanted something I could hold up that might make others outside our field take my profession more seriously. (“I have a terminal degree now, this isn’t just a hobby!”)
Back to the ROI or return on investment…. Since I will probably be paying off my school loans up until the moment I start paying for my daughters’ college expenses, I have to bring this up. School is expensive and when you finish you’re not entering a professional world known for high compensation. Will an MFA advance your career enough to justify the expense and/or debt? Is the degree truly worth the price tag?
Take time to sit with the “why.” Having honest answers to that question will guide you more surely than any advice you could get from me.
Stephanie Todd Wong moved to Houston in 2008 after spending ten years in Washington DC as a dancer, choreographer, dance teacher and dance administrator. Stephanie holds a BA in Dance from Mercyhurst College and received her MFA in Dance from George Mason University in 2004. While living in Washington she was a dancer in the Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company, which performed in various locations in DC and New York City. She also had the privilege of working with Lorry May, founding director of Sokolow Dance Foundation to learn and perform Anna Sokolow’s The Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter. As a choreographer, Stephanie’s work was presented at both Joy of Motion and Dance Place. Stephanie also spent time teaching dance and worked to create a high school dance program for The Flint Hill School in Vienna Virginia. Beginning in 2007, Stephanie began working for Dance/MetroDC, the local branch office of Dance/USA, serving as its Programs Associate and ultimately its Interim Director. In this role she was responsible for creating and executing all the organizations programming, including the Metro DC Dance Awards, a region wide awards program that took place at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Stephanie became Executive Director of Dance Source Houston in 2011 and currently sits on the Advisory Board for Arts + Culture Magazine and an Affiliate Working Group of Dance/USA.
I wanted to give you something to sink your teeth into today, and also something that will inspire you. Last Sunday I wrote about how this is the day that I really try to prepare myself for the week ahead, to refresh my vision.
A little over a year ago, I was accepted into Dance/USA’s Institute of Leadership Training for Emerging Leaders in the dance world. I was incredibly fortunate to be matched with mentor Gina Gibney. Please take some time to watch this video about some of the work that she is doing with her company in her community and across the world. She is such an inspiration.