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.
What: Seven sewing classes in which you will make a dress and learn to adapt that basic dress pattern to work for different bodies and styles.
When: Tuesday evenings, 7-8 PM, October 6, 13, 20, 27, November 3, 10, and 17, 2020
Where: Right in front of your very own sewing machine in the comfort of wherever you have room to make a dress. Yes, you need to provide your own sewing machine. We will help you learn to use it. Classes are held online.
How: Register here. Classes are $10 each, and you must sign up for all seven classes in order to finish your dress.
Why: Once, I tried to make a dress. I put a square pocket on the chest, and I sewed all four sides of that pocket to the bodice. It was not great. If only I’d had Ashley Horn Nott to help me.
Ashley would have had a plan for my inexperience, my ignorance, my besotted love for the fabric and my overconfidence in “figuring out” a sewing machine. The first time Ashley took on a costume-making project for a dance company, her sewing experience was straight lines and stuffing. Pillows. She knew she could sew a pillow cover, and the rest she had the audacity to make up.
And it worked! Today, Ashley has made costumes for most of the modern dance companies in Houston, including her own productions. Absolutely hundreds (possibly thousands?) of dresses and other costumes gorgeously crafted. Why did Ashley’s gamble worked and mine didn’t? I’m guessing that Ashley had more tenacity to match her audacity than I did. She also made the compelling decision to promise other people that she would complete her project. No one cared when I folded up my half-dress with its unusable patch of a pocket and never unfolded it again. Ashley had a commitment to people she cared about, people who were counting on those costumes, and that accountability motivated her through the “now I have to seam-rip the whole damn thing” moments.
Let us be that accountability for you. Maybe you’ve been saying that you want to sew your own clothes. Maybe you found the most amazing fabric. Maybe you found that fabric years ago and you’re ready to give it form. Maybe you are a dancer and you want to be able to make costumes for yourself and others. This is a chance to create beside a self-made professional. Grab your audacity and make it into a dress. Your dress.
How is making a dress a creative reset? Um, can I answer that tomorrow? It’s kind of a whole thing…
Frame Dance Company is made up of brilliant and passionate dancers, and our collaborating artists are pretty amazing, too. The following Framers and Friends have generously offered to serve as hosts at our annual FUNdraising Soirée. Meet them in their Framer statements and bios below and be impressed. Meet them in person at the Soirée and be inspired.
Jacquelyne Boe – Dance
Houston Press 100 Creatives; Dance Source Houston’s Artist in Residence Program; 2019-2020 Lawndale Studio Artist Program.
“A Framer is any human who associates with Frame Dance and wants to be a part of it. I’m a Framer because I believe in Frame Dance’s mission to empower Houstonians to communicate, inspire, and connect to the world and others through movement, community and artistic collaboration, and technology.”
See more of Jacquelyne dancing with Frame Dance and Hopestone Dance, and performing her own choreography. Jacquelyne teaches dance with Frame Dance, the Hope Project, and Houston Ballet. Find her here online: http://jjboe.com/
Braden Hunt – Theater
Actor: Ensemble Theater, Main Street Theater, AD Players, Stages, Masquerade Theatre. Teaching Artist: AD Players
“I met Lydia Hance while doing a production with the late Horse Head Theatre Company in a production called The Sonic Life of a Giant Sea Tortoise by Toshiki Okada. The director, Philip Hays, wanted movement to inform the dialogue throughout and Lydia was hired as our movement coach. I was really inspired by the exercises Lydia guided us through and I continue to use them in my own training and in my teaching. I told Lydia that I wanted to work with her and continue to learn from her again.
“The next season Lydia was planning a piece that involved more narrative than she was accustomed to and invited me along to be in the show and help form the narrative. This show was called My Beloved andfollowed the lives of some high school students from the day of their senior prom to middle age. It was a brilliant blend of interactive theatre, narrative, and abstract exploration of the human struggle for connection. It’s been truly one of my favorite works to be a part of thus far in my career.
“Since then I’ve been lucky enough to dance with Frame Dance Company in Water Day Dances, Metro Dances, and Let’s Stay Home and Fight. I love to join the Multigen Dancers when I can and share in the community of valued authentic expression that Lydia has created.”
Dancer: Jonah Bokaer Choreography; William R. Kenan, Jr., Performing Arts Fellowship at Lincoln Center Education; Dance Magazine “25 to Watch.”
“This year I had the pleasure of working the the Junior Framers and though it was an intimate gathering on Mondays the impact they had on me was a refreshing one.
“Choreographically, I focused on spacial design and how their bodies would move through where they would be performing in addition to what they would be performing. It’s a combination of the two that makes dance so powerful and I wanted to share that with them.
“One thing that struck me was how there was a visible shift in their attitudes before and after class, every check in I’d ask how they were and since they were coming from school they were often sharing something from their day and their spirit and energies were low but by the end of class they were rejuvenated and it would always such a surprise to me to witness that outside of myself.
“I was reminded with this class how dance supports an individuals way of being in the world and also teaches students and teachers alike to be empathetic and communicative with others.”
Laura dances her own choreography on stages and art spaces nationwide. She taught Frame Dance Production’s Junior Framers Ensemble 2018-2019. Find Laura online at http://www.lauraegutierrez.com/
Ashley Horn – Dance
Ashley is a dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, costume designer, and artist from the Houston area. She is Frame Dance’s costume designer, set collaborator, and a founding dancer. She is also a teacher in the early childhood dance classes at Frame Dance. Find Ashley online at http://ashleyhorndance.com/
Jamie Williams – Dance
Jamie is a founding member of Aimed Dance, formerly Rednerrus Feil Dance Company. She has performed with Psophonia Dance Company, and with local independent artists Laura Gutierrez, Brittany Thetford-Deveau, and Rebekah Chappell. Jamie currently serves as a dance professor and the dance program coordinator for San Jacinto College.
Emily Roy Sayre – Dance
Emily’s career has included being featured in 225 Magazine, The Advocate newspaper, and VoyageHouston’s Most Inspiring Stories. The choreographers and companies Emily has had the honor to work with include Uptown Dance Company, The Pilot Dance Project, Frame Dance Productions, Houston Grand Opera, Sean Curran, Julio Monge, Eric Sean Fogel, Christine Crest, Mina Estrada, and Jennifer Mabus. Emily also dapples in dance for camera work. You can find Emily online at https://emilyroysayre.com/
Callina Anderson – Theater
Callina is an actor with extensive theater experience in Houston, having performed with Ensemble Theater, Main Street Theater, Horse Head Theater, The MATCH, Mildred’s Umbrella, Boiling Point Players, Cone Man Running Productions, Alley Theater’s Houston Young Playwright Exchange, and as a regular actor with Interactive Theater. Callina collaborated with Frame Dance most recently in METRODances.
Alli Villines – Music, Theater
Alli is a Houston-based performer and voice teacher whom you may have seen in Horsehead Theatre Company’s 2018 production of We’re Gonna Die, or on The Christina and Alli Show, her weekly YouTube music show co-hosted with Christina Wells. Alli is a professional singer, ukulele player, voice teacher, and actor who has credits with the Alley Theatre, Houston Grand Opera, and Catastrophic Theatre Company. Alli performed with Frame Dance in METRODances. You can find Alli online at https://ukulalli.wordpress.com/
Patrick Moore – Music
Patrick Moore is Principal cellist with the Cypress Symphony and the Houston Latin American Philharmonic and is assistant principal cellist with the Opera in the Heights. An avid chamber music player, he is the cellist of the Axiom Quartet, and performs contemporary chamber music with the Aperio New Music Ensemble and the Foundation For Modern Music. Patrick maintains a private studio as adjunct faculty at the University of St.Thomas, and teaches with the University of St.Thomas’ Music Preparatory School where The Axiom Quartet is the string quartet in residence. In addition, Patrick teaches at Axiom Quartet’s annual String Quartet Camp and is on faculty at the American Festival for the Arts during the summer. Patrick and Axiom Quartet are long-time collaborators with Frame Dance Productions, including METRODances performances and premiering works by winners of the Frame Dance Composer Competition. Find Patrick online at http://www.moorecello.com/home
David Rivera – Film
David is Houston Ballet Audio/Video Content Manager. David’s films were screened in the Cozy and Silken portions of Frame x Frame, Frame Dance Production’s inaugural dance on film festival.
Photo Credits: Jacquelyne Boe by Lynn Lane; Laura Gutierrez by Lynn Lane; Emily Roy Sayre by Toriel Borst; Callina Anderson by Pin Lim/Forrest Photography; Alli Villines by Tasha Gorel
It’s March. It’s rainy. The azaleas are blooming and my car was covered in a light dusting of yellow tree pollen this morning. I’m gonna go ahead and declare that it is SPRING IN HOUSTON!!! Time to work our gardens, get our final use of scarves and sweaters, and stock our medicine cabinets with Flonase.
Frame Dance has grown a captivating and sundry garden this spring, with flowers magically set to bloom in unison from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM on March 30th along the Houston Metro Red Line from Bell Station in the north to Hermann Park/Rice U in the south. Be there and be in a verdant landscape of performing arts, all for the price of a Metro ticket.*
Let me introduce you to our flowers:
Hermann Park/Rice U Station
Red daisies, crocuses, and celandine highlight the unconscious beauty and promise of our Junior Framers, while viscaria, wisteria, and protea bloom for the MultiGen Ensemble, symbolizing their (our!) courageous acceptance of the invitation to dance, and their arms-open welcoming of all dancers. Moonflowers will grow at the feet of Kirk Suddreath, and probably poppies, too, because his music is so g– d—- dreamy.
Museum District Station
Purple carnation, begonia, and the easily-fragmented white daisy bloom at this station, where actress-musician Alli Villines moves from story to story seeking a disintegrating past. Frame Dancers Lindsay Cortner and Jamie Williams act as unreliable muses, leading the storyteller from ground to ground like flighty seeds on the wind.
Ensemble/HCC Station
The talented Callina Anderson and Joe Palmore tell a tale as silent and ephemeral as the flowers. Linaria bipartita wishes for love to be noticed. Jonquils beg that affection be returned. Rainflower whispers, “I love you back. I will never forget you.” What happens next? Red roses? Morning glories? Forget-me-nots?
McGowen Station
Harrison Guy, Outspoken Bean, and the dancers at Urban Souls are planting the seeds at the McGowen Station, and I can’t wait to see what blossoms. Maybe some orchids for beauty, sunflowers for all-knowing ideals, protective nettle, or peaceful white poppies. Watch this space/garden plot!
Bell Street Station
Ashley Horn presents dance inspired by children’s landscape drawings and the endless, unselfconscious days of childhood. Blossoming here will be asters for daintiness and trust; camellia japonicas for unpretentious perfection; baby’s breath and white lilac for innocence and purity-of-heart, and for the memories children aren’t even aware they are making; and delphinium for lightness-of-heart, for joy, for the passionate, ardent attachments made by children and by the child in us all, and for the guiding sense of play and fun that it is so wise to follow.
If you know gardening, you know that you never really know what to expect, but we’ve planted our garden in faith, joy, and radical congeniality, and we hope that many of you Houstonians and lovers of growing, living things will walk in and ride through this garden. Like any good garden, there are multiple ways in and out, and you can come and go as you please. Wander. Notice. Be intrigued by something in the distance and follow it. You have 90 minutes of what I hope will be a lovely evening to discover, rediscover, or continue to discover the dynamic, cultured Midtown District of Houston by way of our speediest and arguably most interesting public transport.
See you on the platforms.
*$1.25 gets you unlimited transfers for three hours.
I got lots of help writing this article from the Wikipedia page on plant symbolism, and I recommend you check it out and learn a new and vibrant language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_symbolism
