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.
I realized I haven’t written about Frame Dance in a while. We’ve been trying to get you all some interesting reads through the MFA Monday column as well as our Eat Well Wednesday column. But what has the company been up to?
Well…our 501c3 status has been approved, which is wonderful. We shot the film back in October, but I haven’t been editing it. It’s sitting on who we call Big Mac getting more and more beautiful– I’m sure. And, I’m getting more and more excited about beginning the editing process. It’s interesting, sometimes after shooting a film I have to get into the editing room as soon as possible, and other times, I need some time to breathe and get some distance before chopping and creating something magical. (No, there is no actual “editing room.”)
Third, we are rehearsing and creating a new work for the ERJCC Dance Month which is in January. Charles Halka, the extremely talented Charles Halka, is composing a brand new piece for violin. He has been watching every rehearsal, and I’m making a piece that is tied in no way to music. That’s been odd. I’m making bits and puzzle pieces keeping in mind that I will want to change the pacing and tempo and dynamics of the movement I’m creating once the music is in play. That will be next week. I’m trying to create movement that has a personality but is yet completely open to the influence of the music. Here’s a little bit of a duet phrase we’ve started. Sorry about the poor videography. Yikes, good thing I don’t make my dance films on iphones. I’m not so great at using the camera….
Keeping with the WHOLE GRAIN theme, get ready to bust out your crock pot and whip up some chili or stew to enjoy with theses AWESOME 100% whole grain garlic cheddar biscuits. They are the perfect savory pair to your favorite fall dish.
Whole grains are an excellent choice for quality carbohydrates and not only will they help keep your blood sugar stable, but the fiber helps keep you fuller longer which is great for your waist line. Which makes this biscuits an excellent alternative to the traditional white flour biscuits.
These biscuits take about 5 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to bake and the combination of garlic and cheddar make them the perfect match for your heart bowl of chili or winter soup.
Ingredients
2 cups Whole wheat pastry flour
4 teaspoons Baking powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder
1/4 cup Butter, chilled
3/4 cups Cheddar, grated
1/2-1 cup Butter milk
3/4 teaspoons Garlic Powder
1 teaspoon Lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon Salt
Directions
Step 1
Pre heat oven to 450 degrees.Line your baking sheet with a parchment paper, lightly grease, or Silpat baking sheet.
Step 2
In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and garlic salt
Step 3
Cut the butter into the flour mixture until it turns into coarse crumbs.Don’t be afraid to use your hands!
Step 4
Add grated cheddar cheese and stir well.
Step 5
Add 1/2 cup of butter milk and stir well. You might need to add more buttermilk, you want the dough to be wet and sticky.
Step 6
Form the dough into biscuit sized balls and place on prepared baking sheet.
Step 7
Bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees. You might need a bit more time, so check them and don’t be afraid to let them go to 14 minutes in the oven.
Step 8
While the biscuits are cooking prepare your garlic butter.In a small bowl, melt butter in microwave and stir in garlic powder and salt.
Step 9
Once the biscuits are done, brush on the garlic butter and serve immediately.
Enjoy and remember to eat well so you can be well!
Jill Tarpey is leading us Wednesday by Wednesday into making better food choices and being more healthful. Tune in every Wednesday to get some great recipes and advice from someone who really knows health. In an effort to fuel her passion to serve as well has enhance the lives of others through their nutritional choices, she started Eat Well SA (San Antonio). Her vision is to educate you on how to incorporate a healthy array of foods into your life. Eat Well is not a diet, nor does it embrace any one specific dietary agenda. She also offers customized programs that are educational and teach you the tools you need to maintain healthy, well balanced eating for your busy lives.
It’s late. I’m tired. My eyes are blurring. My head hurts. And I decide to clean up the mailing lists? Um… WHAT? But yes, I’ll claim it. I did. I’m still tempted to blame an error on Mail Chimp, but I could also make myself an eye appointment. I have the emails of the people who have joined to get the newsletter. BUT, the list itself was deleted. So basically, I have to go back an re-enter the addresses into the list. We don’t email very often, but we do have some exciting news that I wanted to let our Framers know via newsletter. Guess that will take a little longer. Anyway, if you want to help a gal out, just let us know you’d like to receive our infrequent and dazzling newsletter.
Hello Framers! Welcome to your new Wednesday. Your new healthy, Eat Well Wednesday. Allow me to introduce you to Jill Tarpey.
Hi, My name is Jill!
I am a Certified Nutrition Coach, experienced RYT Yoga teacher and motivational speaker, whose life experience and education background have shaped me into a dynamic and passionate woman. My journey to health began after struggling many years with an eating disorder, but I have found healing through a balanced diet, yoga and serving others. I am a foodie at heart and strive to nourish my body with balanced nutrition. I like good, quality food and find that living life nourished is the best way to live.
In an effort to fuel my passion to serve as well has enhance the lives of others through their nutritional choices, I started Eat Well SA (San Antonio) My vision is to educate you on how to incorporate a healthy array of foods into your life. Eat Well is not a diet, nor does it embrace any one specific dietary agenda. I offer customized programs that are educational and teach you the tools you need to maintain healthy, well balanced eating for your busy lives.
I am so excited to be a guest blogger on the Frame Dance Productions blog. Every Wednesday you will find helpful, practical information about nutrition and some delicious and nutritous recipes for you to whip up as well. In the mean time check out my website and blog at www.eatwellsa.com Make sure to bookmark it and check back often for new relevant information and fantastic recipes.
Thank you Lydia and Frame Dance Productions for sharing this opportunity with me. I am am so passionate about serving you and helping you find a balanced way of eating. I believe it is through the solid foundation of nutrition that we become energized and full of radiant life, and I can’t wait to lead you on your journey to health!
Lydia here, again. I am going to go through these recipes with you. Let’s do this together and get healthy. Go Framers Go!
So much cool new programming on our blog. We have:
MFA Mondays where MFAs in Dance write 3-post arcs on their experience in and after the MFA program.
Links We Like Friday where Frame Staff as well as guest curators post links we like. It’s informative, fun, and lite.
I have a VERY exciting announcement. We are adding a third program to the blog. We’re calling it
Eat Well Wednesday
Years ago (geez I sound old) I danced with a dear friend, Jill Tarpey. We performed in a company together for a couple of years. She is a phenomenal dancer. She has a passion, vision, and career as a nutrition coach. Trust me, you want her secrets. And now you get them! I get so excited about getting on track nutritionally. Even if you’re not making bad food choices, there are always new ways to get organized and find ways to feed your body better. Jill will be writing a weekly column on health, nutrition, and how to fuel your dancing or dance-loving body. Feel free to ask questions as she goes. But I will let her introduce herself to you tomorrow. Stay tuned!
How are you liking the new columns? Every Monday you will find an “MFA Monday” column written by an MFA in Dance who shares with us his or her stories and advice as an MFA graduate or stores of the program. I have to say I’m stoked about this, and I hope you are too! We have authors lined up through the rest of the year, and into 2013, but we are always interested in recommendations for future MFA Monday columnists. These writers commit to a 3-ish post arc. Here’s where I ask, “If you have an MFA or know someone who does….”
And of course, we have our old favorite, “Links We Like Friday.” Yours truly will curate tomorrow. We’ve had the priviledge of hearing from Frame Company Rep the past few weeks (they’ve been gooooood.) I’m back this week.
Okay…so what’s going on with the company?
So much! We just wrapped (as far as I know since I haven’t seen all of the footage) our latest dance film. Working title = Quiver.
photo by Jonathon Hance
This is a picture from the shoot. Ashley Horn made the costumes. She strikes again, eh? I’m in love with this color and the weight of the skirts. Beautiful. That film should release Winter 2013.
Also, we are making a brand new live piece for ERJCC Dance Month, part of the Choreographers x6 shows. One of the most exciting parts of this is that Charles Halka (you’ve probably read his name three dozen times on this blog) is composing a brand new piece. We might be his biggest fans. I approached him while we were still in the makings of CONTEXT (he had won our Composer Competition and his music was featured in CONTEXT).
He said right away he wanted to create something for electric violin.
So, the dancers and I are working on the dance, he’s working on the music and we’ll come together in a couple of weeks to starts sewing the works together. He’s been watching rehearsals, and I’m making phrases: solos, duets, trios. Honestly, we’ve only gotten to the solo and duet material. But we still have a few months.
What do I think it’s going to be like? I think striking. That’s my word right now. Clean lines, strong, off balance, bold and human.
I’ve had a blast teaching a few master classes at Rice these past few weeks. I’m also teaching on Saturday at Hope Stone from 11:30-1pm if you’d like to come dance framer style.
Fun, movey, groovey. Smiles. Sweat on Saturday.
Okay, so stay tuned, and for heaven’s sake, find us on Facebook.
We are giving away two sets of two tickets to Wanderland. The first two people to suggest who they would like to see guest-curate our “Links We Like” column here at www.framedance.org/frame will win sets of tickets to Wanderland on the evening of their choice. We actually want to know who you think would be fun, relevant, and Frame-tastic. Check out the column, posted *almost* every single Friday. Sometimes I write them, and other times I invite very wonderful guest-curators to share their favorite picks. Let’s hear ’em! Comment below. And go. Also, even if you’re not in the first two, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Now go and comment.
We are so pleased to let you know about the film of Ashley Horn, a Framer you’ve seen in our works Crease, Satin Stitch, Mortar, Sylphs Wrote, the series at The Photobooth on Montrose, CONTEXT, and our new upcoming work that has no title. (Did I forget anything?) She is also Frame’s costume designer. We think she’s fabulous. Not only is she a Framer, but she is a choreographer and filmmaker herself. She has a very exciting film premiere coming up.
The idea for this show came from a night of insomnia that I was trying to cure with random internet searches. I stumbled onto an article about how parts of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland were written as a protest to the mathematics theories his time. I had learned that the book had many references to religion, but this was a whole new part of the puzzle. I grew obsessed at the idea of a story within a story, a contemporary and timely element living within a timeless narrative. I spent the next some weeks thinking about stories, especially folk stories and fairy tales, and their power, longevity, and elasticity.
Arc
For Wanderland, I decided to create an overall narrative and then fill it out with underlying elements of storytelling- culture, fantasy, imagery, and symbolism.
photo by Lynn Lane
Costumes
I was so lucky to have the help of costume designer Angela Alongi with the costuming of Wanderland. With a cast of 18 performers, most with multiple costumes, there ended up being around 43 costumes in total. Luckily, we were able to just pull some off the rack but for some of the scenes there were massive alternations. It was important to me to have the screen full of color and volume and we played with unusual pairings to create unique characters.
Music
When I got Poopy Lungstuffing’s (Olivia Dvorak) album “Sorry I am Bad” last year, it dominated my radio for months. It is music that truly inspires me and invokes images of movement and space. Not only did this album fit perfectly with the film I wanted to create I am thrilled to be using the work of a local artist.
Who
The cast for Wanderland is a ridiculously talented and diverse group of performers: Daniel Adame, Shanon Adams, Rebekah Chappell, Bethany Dickey, Andrew Farris, Kristen Frankiewicz, Angela Fry, Laura Gutierrez, Paul Locklear, Richard Lyders, Raquel Kahn, Leo Munoz, Tad Nott, Neil Ellis Orts, Alex Soares, Prudence Sun, Emma Kate Tsai, and Sabra Yarbrough. They each brought elements of their own craft (modern dance, theater, ballroom, etc.) to every rehearsal and helped create movement that is athletic and unique.
photo by Lynn Lane p.s. I spy a Framer in this pic.
I’ve always been enamored with storytellers, especially writers and musicians. I don’t want to be limited by the idea of the narrative; in the future I plan to make whatever kind of work I am inspired to make, be it narrative, abstract, minimal, absurd, or whatever else a concept calls for. But for this specific project, I wanted to explore as many facets of story-telling under the general arc of a story line.
When and Where
Wanderland will premiere October 12, 13, 15, 19, and 20 at 8 PM at 14 Pews, 800 Aurora. Tickets are $10 for students and professional performers and $12 for all others. Tickets for Monday, October 15 will be “pay-what-you-can.” Concessions will be available for a cash donation. For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit www.wanderlanddance.com.
Wanderland is funded in part by an individual artist grant from the Houston Arts Alliance.
The last Tiny Dance I can share with you– sadly. The rest is experiential only by attending the event, I hope you can come to our next one! Reminder– watch on your smart phone. Or, just make your browser window really tiny. 🙂
