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.
Frame Dance Films (also called Dance-for-Camera) – In its series of films produced annually, Frame Dance creates new experiences for audiences using technology to record and edit dance performance into dynamic video narratives that document stories that would otherwise remain unheard. Frame Dance has produced nine films since 2010 each from 3 to 40 minutes in length, including There’s a Height Limit, Satin Stich, Crease, Framing Bodies: Love Me & Shamed. Frame Dance videos are powerful because they:
offer audiences the familiarity of a screen in which to view something new and unfamiliar-contemporary dance can be
allow audiences to engage with dancers and the story outside the limitations of a live, real-time performance;
mingle and participate in the visual arts world; and
reach additional audiences members and artists via the films’ internet distribution
Since Shamed, currently in production with Frame Dance, Eddie has been busy with a number of creative projects. In July and August 2014, he studied composition with Wandelweiser founder Antoine Beuger in Düsseldorf, Germany (where he also attended concerts and looked for birds). His work has been recently performed by the Da Capo Chamber Players (for philip von zweck), Dalia Chin and Kate McDuffie (when we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe), and the Callithumpian Consort (curving tide). His current projects include new pieces for the Laramie County Community College New Music Ensemble (Cheyenne, Wyoming) and Musica Nova (Tel Aviv, Israel).
In January 2015, Eddie co-founded the Experimental Music Study Group, which curates discussions and performances in the Durham/Chapel Hill-area. He is completing his dissertation work at Duke University, where he currently teaches a class about Sonic Ecology.
Frame Dance casts a vision for the next five years with steel string guitars, percussion toys, and sophisticated dancing
Houston, TX—February 5, 2015. Framed in Five is a celebration of Frame Dance Productions and the vibrant “Framer” community they have grown over their first five years. The program will feature new dance and live music ranging from surprising and intricate percussion, to a curious and whimsical guitar duo, to an emotive string quartet that “depicts the wind and rainfall during a rain shower.”
Framed in Five runs May 1 & 2, 2015 in the Margaret Alkek Williams Dance Lab at The Houston Ballet Center for Dance. This vibrant program will feature winners from the Frame Dance Music Competition: composers Joel Love (Austin), Gabriel José Bolaños (California), and Robert Honstein (Boston). Baylor Percussion Ensemble, a steel string guitar duo, and string quartet will perform with Frame Dance in three new pieces.
Frame Dance’s newest programs: Little Framers Children’s Ensemble and the Multi-Generation Ensemble will join the cast for a special premiere, Lightscape. Lydia Hance has choreographed a dance that integrates the professional dance company, the children’s ensemble, and adults of different ages from around Houston revealing the depth of age, the vitality of youth, and the resonance of vulnerability.
Artistic Director Lydia Hance will reveal the vision for Frame Dance in the next five years with an exciting new video.
Margaret Alkek Williams Dance Lab
Houston Ballet Center for Dance
601 Preston St.
Houston TX 77002
May 1 at 7:30pm, May 2 at 2pm and 7:30pm
On street, lot, and garage parking
Cost: $11-22, family rates and group ticketing available
About the Choreographer and Composers: Dubbed Houston’s “queen of curious locations,” Lydia Hance is the Executive and Artistic Director of Frame Dance Productions. She has been named an Emerging Leader by Dance/USA and has been leading Frame Dance in performances from the Galveston pier onto the METRO light rail, into the backs of U Haul trucks, and into museums, stages, and warehouses throughout Texas for the past five years. A champion of new music composers, her work deepens interdisciplinary collaborations and investigates the placement of dance in our lives. She is the former Education Director of Hope Stone Inc., and has recently launched the children’s ensemble Little Framers. She is a choreographer, curator, filmmaker, educator, and dance writer originally from the California Bay Area. She holds degrees in Dance Performance and English Literature from SMU and trained at the Taylor School, Graham School, Tisch School of the Arts, Limon Institute and SMU.
Gabriel José Bolaños Chamorro is a Nicaraguan-American composer and guitarist. He is pursuing his PhD at UC Davis. He received a bachelor’s
degree from Columbia University in 2007 where he studied composition with Fabien Lévy and Sebastian Currier, and orchestration with Tristan Murail. He has also worked as a freelance musician in New Haven, CT, and was a professor of theory, analysis and guitar at the Casa de los 3mundos music academy in Granada, Nicaragua. His work draws upon a variety of interests including linguistics, spectralism and the physical properties of sound, psychoacoustics and geology.
Joel Love’s music has been performed by The Aura Contemporary Music Ensemble, The California State University Los Angeles Wind Ensemble, Da Camera of Houston’s Young Artists, The Boston New Music Initiative, the Ohio State University Wind Symphony, the Texas A&M University Symphonic Winds, the Lamar University A Capella Choir and Wind Ensemble, the University of Texas Wind Symphony, and exhibited at many art galleries throughout the United States. Joel’s first work for wind ensemble, Aurora Borealis, was recently selected for performance at the 2013 SCI National Conference. In a recent review of 2013 SXSW events, Capital Public Radio’s Nick Brunner commented that “The Peace of Wild Things” was a “gorgeous piece of music, wafting along into the ether.” He recently finished is doctorate from the University of Texas Austin.
Celebrated for his “roiling, insistent orchestral figuration” (New York Times) and “glittery, percussive pieces” (Toronto Globe and Mail), composer Robert Honstein is a composer of orchestral, chamber, and vocal music. Robert has received awards, grants and recognition from Carnegie Hall, Copland House, the New York Youth Symphony, ASCAP, SCI, the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, the Young New Yorkers Chorus, the Lake George Music Festival, the Boston New Music Initiative, the Ithaca College Chamber Orchestra, and New Music USA. Robert co-founded Fast Forward Austin, an annual marathon new music festival in Austin, TX. Described as “the first ever classical music event in Austin to make its own beer koozies” (Austin American Statesmen), Fast Forward Austin features local and national, cutting-edge artists in a “welcomingly relaxed venue… [that] tapped into what is so great about the Austin vibe: a community of people who are artistically curious, non- doctrinaire, and unpretentious” (NewMusicBox).
Charles Halka, Winner of the Frame Dance Music Composition Competition 2012
“After the birth of my beautiful daughter at the end of the summer, I started a new job teaching composition and music theory at Stephen F. Austin State University. Around that same time I was chosen as Musiqa‘s first “Composer+Intern”, a kind of composer-in-residence position through which I was commissioned to write three new works for their current season (the next one is at the CAMH on February 26!). It was a joy to finally be able to bring to life Imaginary Spaces, which debuted as METRODances, with Frame Dance Productions. The project had been in the works for quite some time, so it was really great to have it come alive and to get support from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music. Most recently, my orchestra work Impact got its U.S. premiere by the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra, and my opera collaboration with composer-librettist (and Houston native!) Impact got its world premiere by the Mexican National Symphony in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in May 2014. John Grimmett and I were selected by Fort Worth Opera for its prestigious Frontiers program and showcase. Our opera, And Jill Came Tumbling After, will be workshopped and performed in Fort Worth in May.”
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2015 Frame Dance Music Composition Competition! Their work will be presented by Frame Dance throughout 2015. Many thanks to all who submitted and our incredible panel.
First Place: Alex Freeman
Blueshift
for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion
Alex Freeman (b. 28 April 1972) is a recipient of the 2014 McKnight Composer Fellowship. His music has garnered acclaim and commissions from the Jerome Foundation, ASCAP, The American Scandinavian Foundation, the Sibelius Academy, American Composers Forum and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Born in Raleigh, NC, He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Boston University’s School of Fine Arts, and the Juilliard School, where he completed his doctoral studies in 2004. His doctoral research led him to Finland, via Fulbright Fellowship, where he lived for six years, studying at The Sibelius Academy and freelancing, before he assumed his current position of Assistant Professor of Music in Composition at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. His chamber works and choral music are performed regularly in the US and abroad.
Recordings of his music have been released by Albany Records, Innova Recordings, and Navona Records, including, most recently, a CD of complete his piano works by Albany Records, Inner Voice, a recording of his chamber work, Blueshift, by Parma Recordings, and internationally acclaimed recordings of his choral works by The HOL Choir and Tapiola Children’s Choir. His degrees are from The Juilliard School, Boston University, and The Eastman School of Music.
Second Place: Gabriel José Bolaños Chamorro
Miniatures
For Steel String Guitar Duet
Gabriel José Bolaños Chamorro (b.1984 Bogotá, Colombia) is a Nicaraguan-American composer and guitarist. He is pursuing his PhD at UC Davis, and is currently studying with Mika Pelo.
He received a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 2007 where he studied composition with Fabien Lévy and Sebastian Currier, and orchestration with Tristan Murail. He has also worked as a freelance musician in New Haven, CT, and was a professor of theory, analysis and guitar at the Casa de los 3mundos music academy in Granada, Nicaragua. His work draws upon a variety of interests including linguistics, spectralism and the physical properties of sound, psychoacoustics and geology.
Third Place: Joel Love
Lightscape
for string quartet
The music of Joel Love explores an eclectic mix of genres, from short video pieces to works for chamber and large ensembles. It creates colorful landscapes of sound through the use of image, melody, and extended tonality, and seeks to reveal the connection between music and spirituality.
Joel was recently commissioned to compose a new work, Lightscape, for the opening of light artist James Turrell’s The Color Inside, which was unveiled in October of 2013. Molly Glentzer from the Houston Chronicle wrote that “the music evocatively captures the emotion of The Color Inside.” PARMA Recordings selected Lux andSynchronicity in Purple Minor for publication in their 2013 and 2012 Anthology, respectively. In May of 2013, Aurora Borealiswas selected as a finalist in the 3rd International Franck Ticheli Composition Contest. In 2010, Real Fiction received a Compositional Excellence Citation by the New York Youth Symphony. In 2009, Da Camera of Houston presented Joel with an Aspiring Artist Award and the commission of Just One Person.
His film scores include the documentary film Stitched, official selection at the 2011 Carmel Art and Film Festival, as well as a short film Kidfellas, “Best Musical Score” at Houston’s 2011 48-Hour Film Project. Other notable collaborations with artists from other disciplines feature a city-wide public art exhibit with artist Karyn Olivier, Inboud: Houston, anda 3-month installation by Prince V. Thomas, On Joy, On Sorrow at the Houston Center for Photography, praised by the Houston Chronicle as ”a beautiful piece that feels cleansing to watch.”
Joel recently completed a DMA in Composition from the University of Texas at Austin and holds degrees from The University of Houston’s Moores School of Music (M.Music) and Lamar University’s Mary Morgan Department of Music (B.Music).
Film Score Winner: Leah Reid
Ring, Resonate, Resound
7 channel acousmatic composition
Leah Reid (b. 1985, New Hampshire) writes vibrant compositions that examine the innermost nature of sounds. Reid’s work is noted for its exploration of time, timbre and texture. Reid holds a D.M.A. and M.A. in composition from Stanford University and a B.Mus in composition from McGill University. She was awarded the Pauline Oliveros Prize for her piece “Pressure” for viola and electroacoustic media. Reid has had works performed in the United States, Canada and Europe with premieres by Livia Sohn, Geoff Nuttall, the Jack Quartet, Sound Gear, Talea, Seth Josel, the Pheonix String Quartet and McGill’s Contemporary Music Ensemble. Reid’s principal teachers include Mark Applebaum, Jonathan Berger, Brian Ferneyhough, and Sean Ferguson.
Reid currently teaches at the University of the Pacific and continues her research on the compositional applications of multidimensional timbre representations.
Last week for submissions to the Frame Dance Music Composition Competition!
We’re calling all composers to submit to our annual music competition to find a collaborator for one of our live dances, and/or one of our dance films. We’ll be using the winner’s music in one of our pieces for the Spring season.
We do not accept works previously licensed to third-party publishing companies. This requirement, of course, does not limit works that are self-published where the composer has not entered into a licensing relationship with a third party.
The entry fee is $15.00. Composers may submit one, two, or three pieces for the single entry fee.
Submission Guidelines
Works may be written for solo, duet, trio, quartet, or quintet.
Acoustic works that utilize electronic playback are also acceptable.
Electronic music is accepted and encouraged.
We’re calling all composers to submit to our annual music competition, for a chance to find a collaborator for one of our live dances, and/or one of our dance films. We’ll be using the winner’s music in one of our pieces for the Spring season.
We do not accept works previously licensed to third-party publishing companies. This requirement, of course, does not limit works that are self-published where the composer has not entered into a licensing relationship with a third party.
The entry fee is $15.00. Composers may submit one, two, or three pieces.
Submission Guidelines
Works may be written for solo, duet, trio, quartet, or quintet.
Acoustic works that utilize electronic playback are also acceptable.
Electronic music is accepted and encouraged.
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.
Award and Performance
The winning composer’s music will be the basis of a new original work– film and/or live performance, and your music will be exposed to new audiences. The composer and music will be featured prominently as a collaborator with Frame Dance Productions. There are often press opportunities to increase the composer’s visibility as well as the possibility of future commissions. The composer will, in essence, have a fully produced evening centered around his/her work.
Eligibility
All composers, who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents, are eligible.
Submission Guidelines
Works may be written for solo, duo, trio, quartet, or quintet.
Acoustic works that utilize electronic playback are also acceptable.
Electronic music is accepted and encouraged.
*HINT: We’ve been working a lot with percussion lately; we can’t say for sure, but it’s probably not likely we will select a percussion piece this year.
All music must be unpublished.
Interested composers should submit:
• a recording of the piece(s)
• a biography
Entry Fee and Deadline
The entry fee is $15.00. Composers may submit one, two, or three pieces for the single entry fee.
To apply, click “SUBMIT” above.
The deadline is Friday, January 9, 2015.
The winning composition will be announced at FrameDance.org on Friday, January 30, 2015.
For more information on Frame Dance Productions, please visit FrameDance.org.
Last week, the Framers performed for 400 people at the Blanton Museum in Austin with Fast Forward Austin Music Festival. The show featured music by FFA co-founders Ian Dicke, Steven Snowden, and Robert Honstein (winner of the Frame Dance Composition Competition in 2014). Frame Dance performed Honstein’s An Index of Possibility alongside Baylor Percussion Group. We love live music!
NEW! November 8, 2014 (Houston) Frame Dance premieres METRO DANCES for a stage in motion: the METRORail. METRO DANCES will begin at the Hermann Park/Rice U METRORail Station and finish at the Preston stop with a final performance in Market Square. Audiences are invited to ride the rail with the dancers and musicians to see this performance on and off the light rail. METRO DANCES will feature a new work for percussion by Charles Halka. METRO DANCES is made possible by support from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and METRO.
Oct. 3-4, 2014 (College Station) We perform Divide by Five in the Brazos Contemporary Dance Festival at Texas A&M University!
Nov. 7, 2014 (Houston) We are back on the runway with DiverseWorks’s Fashion Fete! We created the dance for the fashion show last year, and we’re pumped to be back. And you know we love fashion.
We hope to see you soon! We’d love to have you in rehearsal too! Like to help? We will need some fabulous volunteers on November 8. (You’ll get a Framer shirt.) Contact us for the hook up.
To Art!
Lydia and the Framers
(more exciting performance announcements coming next week!)
