Ecouter: An Afternoon With The Composers from Frame Dance Productions on Vimeo.

Frame Lovers everywhere, allow me to introduce…..  (yes, this would be the drum roll part)

Lena Silva, our newest member to the Frame Dance crew.  Officially we call her our Development Assistant. We’re so excited.  I want you to know how fabulous she really is, so I had her answer a few get-to-know-you questions.  Repeat Drum Roll Here.  Disclaimer:  she’s an artsy smarty pants.  So get ready.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m originally from Friendswood, Texas and moved to Houston in 2009 to attend Rice University. I’ll be graduating this May with a Bachelor’s of Art in Psychology and Bachelor’s of Art with Honors in The Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality. I’ve been dancing since I was a little girl but really fell in love with modern and postmodern movement when I joined the Rice Dance Theatre. Rice has also given me the opportunity to write an honors thesis on a topic that I chose: Contact Improvisation and its relationship to feminism and female empowerment. I am so excited to share a little bit of my research on the Frame blog!

What was your first Frame Dance experience?

My first Frame Dance experience was at the Contemporary Arts Museum in 2010 when Kristen, Alex and Lydia performed “Points and Coordinates.” I remember marveling at the use of different, but complimentary mediums: an ongoing film, recorded music, live dancers on a white sheet with dark charcoal in their hands. By the end of the dance I wasn’t sure what I had seen – a dance? performance art? the transformation of a white sheet? But, I was sure that I wanted to see more!

What are you most excited about as the Frame Dance Development Assistant?

I am most excited about getting to know the Framers and their collaborators and learning from their exceptional skill and creativity. But, I am also so excited to grow and add content to the Frame Dance blog – now I have a legitimate excuse for surfing the web and watching fun YouTube videos!

What’s something most people don’t know about you?
I really started dancing seriously in high school – as part of the Wranglerette Drill Team. For those of you not from the south, a “Drill Team” is a dance ensemble that performs during half time of football games. That’s right just good ‘ol fashioned high kicking in a cowgirl hat and boots…

Congratulations to Robert McClure, winner of Frame Dance Productions Composition Competition.  His piece Integrated Elements No. 3 “Divide by Five” for gyil and tape was selected to be the music for our premiere this spring.

Robert McClure is a composer of chamber, electronic, and percussion music.  He completed a Masters Degree in Composition from the University of Arizona.  He is currently a DMA Candidate at Rice University where he serves as the Rice Electronic Music LABS Teaching Assistant.  His main composition teachers have been Dan Asia, Shih-Hui Chen, Richard Lavenda, Kurt Stallmann, and Craig Walsh.  He has also taken lessons with Donald Crockett and Yehudi Wyner.

Robert’s music has been performed nationally by the Bowling Green State University Percussion Ensemble, the University of Arizona Percussion Ensemble, The Del Mar Percussion Ensemble, the CSU-Long Beach Percussion Ensemble, the Sonora Winds, the Ironworks Percussion Duo, Da Camera of Houston, the Foundation for Modern Music, and the Toledo Symphony Orchestra among others.

He has been commissioned by individuals such as Becky Morris, Joshua Priest, Eric Hines, Kyle Maxwell-Doherty, Aaron Levy, Lisa Kachouee  and the University of Arizona Steel Bands, the Catalina Foothills High School Steel Bands, the IronWorks Percussion Duo, the Bowling Green State University Student Percussion Association, Trio Sonora, the Mid-American Center for Contemporary Music, and the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.

His music has been included in such festivals as LaTex Electronic Music Festival, North American Saxophone Alliance Conference, the University of Central Missouri New Music Festival, the Electronic Music Midwest Festival, Bowling Green State University MAACM 2012 New Music Festival, and SEAMUS 2011 (Society for Electro Acoustic Music in the United States).

Robert’s music is published by Bachovich Music Publications, Innovative Percussion, Media Press Inc., Purple Frog Press, Resolute Publications, and Tapspace Publications.  Recent and upcoming projects include The Gate for string quartet and computer choreographed by the Art.if.Act Dance Project, Music Box 9 for ensemble written for Houston’s outsider art environment, The Orange Show, and a piece for vibraphone and computer commissioned by Stephen Tobin.

Let’s welcome him to the Frame fun!

Past Winners

2012- Charles Halka

2011- Micah Clark

Ashley Horn’s Wanderland opens this week!  Ashley is a dancer and costume designer for Frame.  Her film, Wanderland opens on Friday.  Get your tickets here.

When?  Oct. 12, 13, 15, 19, 20 at 8pm.

Where? 14 pews

We can’t wait!!!  See you there!

The 2012 winner of our music competition was Charles Halka.  We’ve loved his music so much that even after the concert that featured his music, we’ve decided to ask him to write a brand new piece for ERJCC Dance Month.  (More details to come, it’s in January).  We think he’s great.  And busy.  Here’s what Charles has been up to since our show CONTEXT which was in May.

He shares:

highSCORE Festival (Pavia, Italy):  It’s a 2-week event where young composers from around the world present their music to each other, have brand new works premiered (my new work for string quartet titled “Rupture” was premiered) get critiques and composer-ly advice from more seasoned/famous composers (Christopher Theofanidis, Amy Kirsten, Dmitri Tymoczko, Mario Garuti), and most importantly, make a whole bunch of friends.  I met over 40 composers from 9 countries!

Screening of my opera in Scranton, PA:  The video of the premiere of my opera, “Julius,” was screened at the 5th Lithuanian Heritage Day and an aria was performed live.  I also gave a radio interview about it via Skype while I was in Italy.  The interview is here.

Round and Round (one of the works included in CONTEXT) was performed at the Lake George Music Festival in Lake George, NY.

Por la Fuerza las Tierras (the winning piece of the Frame Dance Music Competition in 2012): There have been a few performances of the over the last couple of months.  All the performances were given by the group that commissioned the work, ONIX (www.onixensamble.com).  The first was in August at the San Miguel de Allende International Chamber Music Festival, but a couple of weeks ago they took the piece on a mini-tour through the state of Michoacan.  They performed it 5 times in 5 days!  They will be performing it again in an open rehearsal/symposium format on October 17 at the Fonoteca Nacional in Mexico City.

A brief work for fixed media, “Live Bass Improv,” was performed at Da Camera of Houston’s hugely successful event, “Musicircus” (in honor of John Cage), at the Menil Collection last month.

At the end of this month, I’ll be heading to Belgium to see a choral work (an excerpt from my opera) performed at the ISCM World Music Days.  It’s one of the oldest and most important international festivals of contemporary music, so I feel pretty honored/lucky to be a part of it.  It’s hosted in a different country every year, and it happened to be in Lithuania the year I was living there.  I went to almost every concert and was blown away!

That same choral work is being performed 3 times in December by Volti (www.voltisf.org), a really important chamber choir in San Francisco, so I’ll be there for that during the first week in December.

Best news of all is that I passed all my comprehensive exams for my doctoral program, so now I get to start slowly coming back to real life. (Congrats!!)

About the Competition:

2012-2013 Frame Dance Productions Music Composition Competition

Note: The deadline is January 4, 2013.

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.

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.

All music must be unpublished.

Interested composers should submit:

• a recording of the piece on a CD
• a biography, with current address, e-mail address, and phone number, and
• a stamped, self-addressed envelope, if they wish their music returned.

Entry Fee and Deadline
The entry fee is $15.00 and composers may submit up to three selections.  Make checks payable to Frame Dance Productions.  Please email for mailing address.

All entries must be postmarked no later than Friday, January 4, 2013.
Frame Dance Productions is not responsible for lost or damaged material.
The winning composition will be announced at FrameDance.org on Friday, January 31, 2013.

For submission details please email Lydia.Hance@FrameDance.org.
For more information on Frame Dance Productions, please visit FrameDance.org.

Frame Lovers everywhere, allow me to introduce…..  (yes, this would be the drum roll part)

Raquel Kahn, our newest member to the Frame Dance team.  Officially we call her our Frame Dance Productions Company Representative.  Company Rep.  We’re so excited.  I want you to know how fabulous she really is, so I had her answer a few get-to-know-you questions.  Repeat Drum Roll Here.

Tell us a little about yourself.

My grandparents had no idea that anything wrong had happened. Which I guess is true.

Q:What first brought you to dance? 

My mothers awareness of my need for movement and her desire to get me out of her hair. Ha.

Q: What is your guilty pleasure?

The Carpenters.

Q: What is your favorite meal?

Bacon with a side of bacon.

Q: What is your favorite quote?

“Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.”
Rumi

Q: What is your hometown?

Alief, TX

Q: What is something most people don’t know about you?

People know most things about me.

Tell us a joke.

Two peanuts walk into a bar.
One was a salted.

Q: What Frame projects have you been a part of / How have you been involved with Frame?

I’m a first-timer-framer!

Q: Do you have a memorable Frame Dance moment?

The first “Framed! At The Photobooth.”

Laying out on a cool or breezy sunny day…which I’m trying not to do, unless I’m coated in sunscreen and cover my face with a shirt…? Is that dermatologist approved or still a no-no?

Compilations of plain sliced chicken breast mixed with fresh vegetables like spinach, sweet potato, green onion, etc. Throw in some edimame, chick peas, bacon, red grapes, feta cheese and anything else needed that day. Perfection in a mixture.

I’m one of 6 kids, and I’m a twin…but people are starting to know that part by now I think. Ok, Cassie and I were featured artists since infancy because our unsupervised crayon/marker murals on the walls of our house existed in their original form until our senior year of high school. Love my parents.

Q: What Frame projects have you been a part of / How have you been involved with Frame?

I’ve been with Frame since the project Dancing Diana. (editor’s note: the entire existence of Frame Dance Productions)

Most memorable would be the dreamlike experience performing Points and Coordinates live at the CAMH with Alexandre Soares and Lydia Hance. I still remember some of the emotional immersion and total physical freedom of that performance. Total joy I’m grateful for.

Q: What first brought you to dance?

I’ve always admired dance. I remember my parents taking me to contemporary dance performances from a young age, and always enjoying them. I also grew up in a culture that had dance as part of everyday life and so it was always around me. Deciding to become a performer was taking a leap, chasing a passion to see where it would take me. It took me somewhere unexpected, somewhere great.

Q: What is your guilty pleasure?

I always try to own up to my pleasures, strip them of guilt, so it’s hard for me to say. I will admit that I enjoy sugar more than I’d like to. I guess that’s a little guilty because it’s bad for you. But I do love a good chocolate bar or, even worse, the gummies. Give me a bag of gummy bears and I’m a happy guy.

Q: What is your favorite meal?

Sushi. Indian is a close runner-up.

Q: What is your favorite quote?

Some brand once told me “Just do it.” It’s simplistic, but it’s true, especially when it comes to art — it’s so easy to get bogged down by your insecurities or the magnitude of your ideas.

Q: What is your hometown?

Salvador, Bahia, Brazil – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador,_Bahia

Q: What is something most people don’t know about you?

How to pronounce my first name. Give it a try.

Tell us a joke.

I’m terrible at telling jokes. The always fall flat. I prefer to dance them.

Q: How have you been involved with Frame?

I love being a part of Frame. I think the work that we do is really unique, and we seem to always be trying something new, which is fun. I was a part of Crease, Points and Coordinates, There’s a Height Limit, Mortar, Satin Stitch, Framing Bodies: Love Me, the Framed at the Photobooth series, and now getting ready for Context.

Q: Do you have a memorable Frame Dance moment?

Two moments jump to mind. Filming Satin Stitch was a really interesting group experience. It brought us all closer, I think, and it was one of those occasions when you found the work as you experienced it, and it became something more. Love Me was also really special. The process to develop it was unique, almost therapeutic, and I got to work with an incredible group of people.