MOVERS & SHAPERS:
Podcast No.30 – Christine Jowers
Release Date: August 30, 2016
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ABOUT CHRISTINE JOWERS:
Christine Jowers is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Dance Enthusiast an extension of the non-profit company, Moving Arts Projects www.
In 1997 she began creating solo performance projects, dancing and producing evenings that celebrated the voice of women in dance history. Her first productionThe Singular Voice of Woman at The Place in London, was noted for “exceptional solos” and Judith Mackrell, dance critic for The Guardian UK, hailed Jowers as “not only a remarkable performer but an important dance historian…” Other original productions, Revealing Isadora and The Dance Goddesses of NYC were performed in New York City, staged as full concert evenings and excerpted at such venues as:The World Financial Center, The New Jersey Center for Performing Arts, The Joyce Soho, Joes Pub, OK Harris Dance Gallery, DanceNowNYC, The Henry Street Settlement, The University Settlement, The Culture Project, The Children’s Museum of Manhattan, and The 14th Street Y. Jowers‘ revival of The Singular Voice of Woman was performed in 13 concerts during the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was particularly noted for her interpretation of Isadora Duncan “She brings just as much emotion, albeit a very different kind, to Isadora Duncan’s Revolutionary. Although this short piece consists of a small set of repeated movements, those movements are passionate, powerful, dramatic and despairing — thanks to both Duncan and Jowers — making this piece one of the highlights of the programme.”- Amanda Grimm, TheSkinny.co.uk
Christine started writing about dance at Sarah Lawrence College, later graduating from Goucher College with honors in Dance History/Criticism and Communications. In addition to her writing and videography for The Dance Enthusiast, she has been published by Dance/USA’s e-journal, From The Green Room, The Dance Insider, The Johns Hopkins University’s Literary Journal :The Hopkins Review, and The Huffington Post. Her writing has been highlighted by Thomas Cott, in his respected newsletter for arts administrators: You’ve Cott Mail.
As the editor of The Dance Enthusiast, Christine has been priviledged to lead talk backs on performance and writing, and coach interested groups of young writers from the Pentacle Internship Program, Arts Connection/High 5 Tickets to the Arts Program, and Columbia University. She has been delighted to work with interns from Florida State University, Hofstra, Pace, and Trinity/LaMaMa. Concerned with bridging the gap between audiences and performance, she designed The Dance Enthusiast’s Dance Up Close Series, a journalistic video program, to bring web audiences intimately into the working processes of New York City artists. Dance Up Close was awarded an Engaging Dance Audiences grant administered by Dance/USA through the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in 2013. In 2014, Christine developed the offline audience engagement program Enthusiastic Events!, a project designed to address the problem of shifting attention spans, differing knowledge bases, and available free time in dance audiences. This program is supported by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation. Christine created a place for Audience Reviews on The Dance Enthusiast to encourage new voices in writing, and to develop dance literacy and advocacy. Read more about this in Lynne Conners, We The Audience on ArtsJournal.
As an artist, Jowers has been on the faculty of the Jose Limon Institute in New York City, The Laban Centre for Movement and Dance Studies, and Danceworks in the UK, a guest teacher at the Islington Arts Factory, The Liverpool School of Performing Arts, and Roehampton College in the UK, as well as Goucher College, Kean College and various educational institutions in the USA.
Her particular interest in introducing young audiences to the beauty and inspiration of dance led her to foster outreach programs in communities throughout the east coast and Virgin Islands. She gave dance workshops, taught choreography, and performed for children and teenagers under the auspices of Artists in The Schools programs, Teen Arts, Young Audiences, and Very Special Arts programs. In 1991, Christine created a dance program for children and adults at the YWCA in Summit, NJ, directing the program from 1991-1996, and founding the highly regarded Free Community Dance Series there. Christine’s work in community dance was funded and commended by the Union County Office of Cultural and Heritage Affairs and the New Jersey State Arts Council. In 1999, established cj/MOVING ARTS PROJECTS’ MOVING KIDS SALON to sponsor workshops for kids and “their grownups” in New York City.
Originally from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, where she grew up in a West-Indian family dedicated to the arts, community, and service, Christine caught the journalism bug as a college intern for New York Public Television’s MacNeil/ Leher Report. Christinelives in NYC with her extremely supportive husband, two enthusiastic sons, and a delightful, but skittish cat, named Gracie.
MORE ON CHRISTINE
PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS
Sarah Lawrence College
Maryland Dance Theater and Larry Warren
Pittsburgh Dance Alloy
Diane Jacobowitz
Goucher College
Dance Critics Association
Robert Johnson
Doris Humphrey/José Limón
Eleanor King
Janet Eilber
University Settlement
Ann Carlson
Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Intro Music: “Singing Distance” by Elijah Aaron
