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 hope all of you are enjoying your Tuesday. If not, it was because you didn’t know about Danielle Garza’sQuick and Easy Overnight Oats recipe!
It’s tough sometimes trying to find something healthy in a world of fast food and high carbs. Even breakfast items! The most important meal of the day and it’s too unhealthy and can make you sluggish. Some snack companies claim to be “healthier alternatives” but in reality are actually higher in carbs than the “bad stuff.”
It really can be challenging when you’re trying to stay fit and sometimes you just don’t have time to prepare an easy meal (or your like me and just don’t really care to cook).
Well, no fear! Here is a low-carb alternative that you can put your personal spin on.
Quick and Easy Overnight Oats
Fill mason jar with 1/2 cup oats, 1/4 cup Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup almond milk, raisins and chia seeds.
Blueberries and Bananas (Or any fruit you love)
Optional: Add cinnamon or sweetener.
Then put in the fridge over night and have a great breakfast ready in the morning that keeps you energized throughout a busy day! Or at least until your next meal 🙂
People may not think of caffeine as the most popular mood-altering drug in the world, even those who use it daily, by drinking coffee, tea, sodas or energy drinks as part of their routine.
Whether it’s brewed from a K-Cup, sipped in sweet tea, savored in chocolate or downed in cola, caffeine is a mild stimulant to the central nervous system that has become a regular fixture in everyday life.
Cari Nierenberg, a Live Science Contributor, writes about 10 Interesting Facts About Caffeine. This article covers topics like “How Long Does it Stay in Your System?”, “Withdrawal Issues”, “Can People Truly Be Addicted?” and others.
Happy Tuesday, Framers! For today’s Tuesday Tunes, we are joined by our very own Lydia Hance!
Tuesday Tunes: Lydia Hance
R: How do you envision the future of dance?
L: I envision the future of dance as being a larger part of everyday life—people “getting it” more. I see people looking at me with understanding instead of confusion when I tell them I am a dance artist. I see the definitions between genres of art continuing to blur and morph. I see dance in every classroom in America, because people will finally understand it’s the perfect synthesis of mind, body, and emotion. And as artists, we have to remember that we’re on the forefront as innovators. We have to approach the world as art ambassadors. It takes time. We have to be confident, humble, and clear. The way things are, we have to make our work, find out how to fund our work and defend our work. It’s hard, it’s exhausting, but it’s the way it is right now. We have to be consistent art warriors to get the future. (photo by Ashley Horn)
R: What has been the biggest dance challenge to overcome, in teaching or performing?
L: My biggest challenge has been my fear of making mistakes. I take the privilege of teaching seriously and that fear was quite paralyzing when I started teaching. But the more I observed great teachers, and the more I learned from teachers who were playful and humble, the more confident I became that it is totally legit (and preferable) to know that you don’t know everything and the classroom is a place for teachers to learn as well.
R: What inspired you to form Frame Dance Productions?
L: Frame Dance Productions was formed out of my desire to connect dance with technology and create collaborative works. I wanted to see culturally relevant, exciting dance that continued to innovate and shed the confines of what everyone expected of a dance company. I wanted to create a context that could evolve and adapt but could remain clear and organized. The moment you stop changing is the moment you go backwards. Just because it’s supposed to work, doesn’t mean it will—and we can create art that changes society from within, it shouldn’t exist outside of the system we’re in.
R: What music do you prefer to use when teaching a class?
L: When I teach I try to make sure there’s a variety of music— from Bach to Bob Dylan, and new American music to traditional Chinese music. I try to make sure not all of my music is in 3’s or 4’s, but that students (and children, especially) learn to hear music in 7’s and 9’s. It is about variety. Children love Rusted Root’s “Send me on my Way” and REM’s “Shiny Happy People.” Then I’ll play some yogic chanting and then some chamber choral ensemble’s work. I’ll use music that spans from new electronic music to Corelli. The music you choose impacts your students immensely. Their ears are young, they haven’t heard all that much. And, unfortunately, it may be a lot of kiddie music (gag.) I used to look forward to ballet class because of how I felt when I danced to a certain piece of music. I was better friends with the pianist than my classmates. Don’t be lazy with your music. Be curious. (Photo by David DeHoyos)
*Interview by Frame Dance’s social media intern, Rachel Kaminiski.
Lydia Hance is the Artistic and Executive Director of Frame Dance Productions (framedance.org), founded in 2010. In the past four years, her work has been performed at the Contemporary Art Museum, Miller Outdoor Theater, Jones Plaza, the Pennzoil Place building, the Photobooth on Montrose, the Port Boliver ferry, Big Range Dance Festival, clawfoot bathtubs, art galleries, and on screens in film festivals all over Houston, Virginia, and Berlin. Before that, her works were performed in San Francisco, Time Square and Malaysia.
In 2012, Hance was named Dance/USA Emerging Leader through acceptance into the Dance/USA Institute of Leadership Training. She has been named a top 100 Creative by the Houston Press and Arts + Culture Magazine dubbed her Houston’s “queen of curious locations.”
From 2012-14 she was the Education Director of Hope Stone, Inc., and she is a curator of Third Coast Film Festival. She graduated magna cum laude from Southern Methodist University with degrees in Dance Performance and English Literature. She trained at the Taylor School, Graham School, Tisch School of the Arts, Limon Institute and SMU.
We are wrapping up our Dancing Through the Decades series this week with a look back at the turn of the century. If you weren’t dancing in parking lots, plazas and everywhere else to the crazy moves of the Cha- Cha Slide, Souljia Boy and the Cupid Shuffle, then you were probably trying to master the hottest dance moves of the Pop Stars. Brittany Spears, NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce are just a few that revolutionized the art of choreography during the first decade of the new millennium.
The Cha-Cha Slide
Early 2000’s Choreography (N*SYNC and Bye Bye Bye)
The 1980’s saw great social, economic, and general change as wealth and production migrated to newly industrializing economies. The 1980’s saw the development of the modern Internet, cable television and music devices such as the cassette and the CD. Movies and wild music videos on MTV inspired popular dances like the Moonwalk, the Electric Slide, the Thriller dance, the Robot and many others. Check out these awesome dance moves that revolutionized modern dancing.
In the 21st century historians have increasingly portrayed the decade as a “pivot of change” in world history focusing especially on the economic upheavals. In the Western world, social progressive values that began in the 1960’s, such as increasing political awareness and political and economic liberty of women, continued to grow. The dance world evolved as well with hip TV shows like Soul Train that kept teens up to date with the latest moves. Discos were popping up around the cities where people grooved to the beats of ABBA, the Bee Gees, KC and the Sunshine Band, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor and of course…The Village People.
That’s Soul Dancing
Do the Hustle!
You didn’t really think I wasn’t going to do this one, did you?
The sixties were the age of youth. The movement away from the conservative fifties continued and eventually resulted in revolutionary ways in the cultural fabric of American life. No longer content to be images of the generation ahead of them, young people wanted change. Even dancing changed. Dancing was no longer about keeping the basic steps, instead it was all about how the music moved you. Your own personal dance style. The Watusi, The Twist, The Swim and a slew of others dominated the night clubs and beach parties throughout the decade. Here are just a few dances that made entertainment history.
The United States in the 1950’s experienced marked economic growth – with an increase in manufacturing and home construction amongst a post-World War II economic boom. The 1950s are noted in United States history as a time of compliance, conformity and also, to a lesser extent, of rebellion. However, in the mist of the Korean War and the Cold War, the sock hops were the hottest places to be for the young teens of the 1950’s. Kids crowded the dance floors twisting and twirling to the rockin’ tunes of Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Chubby Checker and the King himself. Rock n’ Roll was certainly here to stay!
The 1940’s were dominated by World War II and pulled the US out of the Great Depression. Women were needed in factories, agencies, companies and even baseball teams and the military to replace men who had gone off to war. Food, metals and various materials were rationed to help the Allies win against the Axis Powers that threatened the world. However, swingin’ new music from Glenn Miller, The Andrew Sisters, Artie Shaw, Count Basie and many others provided fast and up-beat songs for the latest dance crazes of the decade.
Glen Miller …. In The Mood (A tribute to the 1940’s)!
The 1930’s was a time of celebration and hardship. Talking pictures were all the rage at the local theaters and radio became a household item where everyone could tune in to hear Orson Wells tell the American public of a pending alien invasion from War of the Worlds. The Depression sent many families into poverty and many businesses were closing up shop, but that didn’t stop America’s optimism and ingenious designers from opening the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge for the whole world to see. The 1930’s had its ups and downs throughout the decade but that didn’t stop people from dancing! Dances like the Foxtrot, Tap and the Waltz were becoming popular once again on the dance floor while others like the Jitterbug and Swing were just getting started!
A Dutch instructional film from 1930, demonstrating the ballroom Foxtrot of the time.
Keep Punchin Jitterbug Contest
Fred and Ginger – Waltz in Swing Time (Waltz, Tap and Swing all in one)
