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.
Today’s rehearsal was a first. The first time we’ve run (almost) the entire show from the beginning. This Friday we will finish the last section and play a little bit more with the silence section. Then, I believe, we will have the entire Mortar, Sylphs Wrote. I am very excited because we will be using two projectors and two screens for this show. And one of them is brand spanking new. Jonathon, (technology director) and I have been playing with the images, films and LOVING the picture. The colors are vivid and sharp and the luminosity is high. You’re going to love it. Have I mentioned that we will be projecting the film from BluRay? Yes, ladies and gentleman, nothing but the HD best for you.
Today it took us about an hour to walk through/talk through/mark through the show and about 40 minutes to run what we have. And I let the dancers out early. Yes, it happens. Oh…make sure you’re following us on twitter. @framedance.
Hello Fans of dance for camera and dance with camera. You must read this fantastic story by Nancy Wozny. I am so grateful for writers who not only embrace the relationship between dance and technology, but clearly explain why it has and deserves its presence in dance history, dance present, and dance future. Because that’s the thing about technology: it keeps on moving forward. And let’s face it, it’s fun. Read the article here.
I feel like I’m in a bit of a dance coma. Last weekend was both the premiere of Satin Stitch at Spacetaker and a screening with new live music by Chris Becker of Frame dance-for-camera At First, Delights at Frenetic Theater. The weekend before that was the premiere of a section of Mortar, Sylphs Wrote at Diverse Works. And this week the dancers have off for our spring break. So no rehearsals, and I haven’t entered into that space either. I’ve mostly been working and prepping and game-plan-making. Today I will re-enter the choreography and make plans for the upcoming rehearsals. Mortar, Sylphs Wrote is about to hit the Houston scene, so don’t miss it. Its premiere, in its entirety, will be April 16 and 17 at the Hope Center, 7:30 pm. Then on May 15 we will show a different excerpt at 2pm at Barnevelder, and then on May 21 at Archway Gallery we will show the piece, slightly altered for the new space. The gallery will be filled with the artwork of Donna E. Perkins, a beautiful collaborator from our piece Points and Coordinates. You may recall that she comes in and draws the line she sees the dancers making in rehearsals and performances and then creates beautiful paintings. You can read about our collaboration here.
So here are the dates again:
April 16,17 at Hope Center in Montrose 7:30 pm, $5
Excerpted, written by Kerri Farrell Foley
‘Frame Dance Productions offers up an excerpt from “Mortar, Sylphs Wrote” choreographed by company Artistic Director Lydia Hance. Composer Micah Clark, winner of the 2010 Frame Dance Productions Music Composition Competition (wow, that’s a mouthful), provides the haunting music for this ensemble piece. Behind the six dancers onstage, a video directed by the choreographer and Jonathon Hance rolls on, presenting alternating views of a brick wall in close-up and what appears to be a tourist-ridden street somewhere in… France? I’m guessing. It’s a rarity to see an ensemble where no single dancer outshines the rest of the cast, but these pros clearly respect the continuity of the story they’ve been entrusted to tell. Mark the full-length premiere of “Mortar” at Hope Center on April 16th and 17th on your calendar. Mark it, now. I’ll wait…’
Entire article
That’s right, mark it on your calendar! I’ll wait…
Hey Frame Fans,
Don’t forget to email Lydia.Hance@framedance.org before Saturday to get your discounted tickets for Satin Stitch. Otherwise, it’s $7 at the door. Credit card/cash/checks accepted. See you Saturday for some wine, dessert and the new Frame Dance Productions film short.
Cheers,
Lydia
Here are dancer Kristen Frankiewicz’s thoughts on our shoot for Satin Stitch, the experience of making a dance film, and how it differs from live performance:
Frame Dance Productions….Satin Stitch…
The weekend of the shoot in January seems so long ago now. So much has happened since then. So many more new projects have begun since then…yet I’m still incredibly excited about the energy surrounding the Satin Stitch project. Is it just that I haven’t seen the edited version of the film yet? Or is it something more that’s keeping this project so awake for me? It got me thinking…
Working on this dance film wound up being a single marathon day of shooting, and that day’s resonance with me has happily lasted much longer. When I think back about that cold windy weekend in Galveston, I find that I’m able to recall certain fragments and memories about space, time, direction, feelings, food, laughs, textures, colors, shapes, and images we created, but I can’t remember it all. Obviously I’ll never be able to remember it all exactly as it was. That’s a huge part of the beauty in live performance for me; it’s all a series of beautiful fleeting moments, never to be recreated or remembered exactly the same ever again. Each moment special; each moment temporal; each kept alive in memory by small details or connections, however imperfect their memory may be.
I can’t help with the simplicity of my current thought though, “Hurry up March 12th, I can’t wait to see this film already!”
Thinking back to the film shoot day, I can remember some of the laughs we all shared on the ferry ride over to Bolivar. I can remember the feel of my boots turning on wet sand, the feel of that beautiful cold grey wall, the little warmth and speed of the sun rising for our opening shots, the sharp pain of tall grass stabbing me in the face, a few movements from the zen-like gestural phrase in a diagonal, the freedom felt with improvisation, the warm quality of simple interaction I shared with Ashley, Alex, and Nichelle in the ‘hand dance’ section, and a heck of a lot of tangles in my hair from all that wind! Naturally, I find these memories diluted as I look back on the live performance I gave that weekend, but it doesn’t seem to make the moments any less substantial to me. As much as I love the thrill of performing live, it’s exciting to have opportunity to play with live dance’s counterpoint…film. I’m looking forward to watching film’s take on this project’s live performance.
Ok to be really candid, sure, I really want to see what footage Lydia ends up selecting for the final film version, how it’s edited, what it actually looks like, what the tone of the film feels like, what I look like, what we look like, what music gets used — the details and basics you know. But aside from what it looks and feels like, I really want to see if it reopens more memories of the weekend for me. I want to see if when I watch it a few months from now it’ll feel different yet again. And when I watch it much later than that, I want to see what it feels like then too. Will the film preserve some of my experience of how I felt when I danced in it? Will any of it? Will the images and tone of the film be strong enough to keep the live experience of dancing it more tangible to me? Tangible memories, mmmm 🙂
We performed and premiered a section of Mortar, Sylphs Wrote this weekend at Diverseworks in the 12 Minutes Max! program. Thank you to all of our Frame Fans and Friends who came out to support us. What a fun, diverse program. I think this may turn into an open letter to my dancers…
Beautiful work. You left your emotion, physicality, and commitment on that stage. You were bold, and subtle; gentle and gutsy. You listened to the music and to each other. I received quite a bit of feedback about you how connected your dancing is with each other. That means trusting and protecting each other. You moved as a unit but never let go of your individuality. Bravo, I can’t wait to see the progression of this piece as it unfolds into an evening-length production. See you in rehearsal.
Helloooooo. My, it has been a flurry around Frame Central. Tonight is the opening night for 12 Minutes Max! at Diverseworks. We are showing a portion of Mortar, Sylphs Wrote. Come be among the first to see what’s been happening in the studio.
Also…SATIN STITCH is premiering on March 12. Email RSVP for discounted tickets, otherwise it’s $7 at the door of the fabulous Spacetaker ARC. 8pm. Wine, dessert, dance film premiere. Get your art on. Get your Frame on.
I’m planning rehearsal for tomorrow, and I trying to decide whether to spend the entire time running and tweaking or to start more new material. Something about directing a rehearsal and not dancing in my work is that I don’t have a gauge for fatigue and over-rehearsing specific sections. I’ve been a dancer in works that have felt under-rehearsed, severely over-rehearsed, and some spot on. A lot of it has to do with the timing. There has to be a peak, and it is ideally the performance. But what happens when there are multiple performances? It is the dancer’s job to make the work new each time, any professional dancer in a touring company will explain that. But knowing what it’s like to be the dancer, and not being far from it at all, I want to be careful, persistent, and remember how beneficial “mental” rehearsal is for more cerebral dancers. If I, as a dancer, had to choose one extreme, I would probably choose being over-rehearsed. As a director, I would rather them be *slighly* under-rehearsed because there’s a spark that happens when the dancers aren’t quite comfortable with the material. There’s a little more magic in my opinion. I have to let go of the ego to see the choreography performed as I intend it, and surrender to the unmatched mystery of live performance. So have I made a decision?
For a while I was keeping my distance from Satin Stitch–our upcoming dance-for-camera. We filmed it, and I made some major progress on the initial editing (the very, very beginnings). Then something happened…almost like I became afraid of it. But I had a major breakthrough last night, and things have opened up and we’re pressing on. I really think you’ll like it…come out to Spacetaker March 12 to see its premiere. A little wine, a little Frame, a little thing I like to call “Satin Stitch.”
