April-August 2024
Lehigh Valley Dance Exchange in partnership with Cedar Crest College
Allentown, PA
More info: HERE
The Moving Architects have been selected to receive the 1st ever LVDE Artist Residency. The LVDE Artist Residency Program provides a space grant, informal showing, teaching classes in the Cedar Crest Dance Program, and performance in the Dance Exposure showcase during the residency period.
Tickets: $30 HERE
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Where fierce femininity and intergenerational dance meet: ‘O my soul’
O My Soul is a vigorous dance project weaving together an intergenerational cast of feminine bodies with a lifetime of raw and real sensations, grounded in THE MOVING ARCHITECTS‘ signature aesthetic of strong and fiercely feminine dance. The dance work interconnects compelling solos, duets, and dynamic group performances with intriguing interactive props and memorable live violin and electronic sound scores. Step into a captivating journey through life’s real and profound emotions with O my soul, a one-of-a-kind dance project featuring a diverse cast of women aged 16-70’s
O my soul artists
Artistic Director: Erin Carlisle Norton
Visual Artist: gwen charles
Violinist: Grace Liu Anderson
Company Dancers: Mariah Anton-Arters, Emily Cicio, Kelly Guerrero
Guest Dancers: Hannah Liu Anderson, Meg Regan, Barbara Whitehill
Dance Film: Created/Edited/Performed: Erin Carlisle Norton
photo: Whitney Browne Photography featuring collaged fabric works by gwen charles
Essex County Payne Tech
West Market Street
Newark, NJ
Essex County teens are invited to participate in classes and workshops dedicated to fine and performing arts with the opportunity to meet other artists and peers from across Essex County. TMA Artistic Director Erin Carlisle Norton will beteaching workshops in Dance Improvisation. High schools and home-schooled students are invited to participate and individual teens can register with the help of their parents (if under 18 years old).
More Info: HERE
TO DOWNLOAD PODCAST OR LISTEN:Acrobats of God with Jeanne Ruddy
Episode 167: Show Notes.
While dance is often underfunded and under-recognized, leaders in the field acknowledge the incredible talent that lives within every dancer, reminding them that they are, in fact, ‘Acrobats of God’. Today’s guest embodies the purpose of the Movers and Shapers Dance Podcast; to share insights from those who shape the dance field, and create an archive that preserves rich, personal experiences across generations. During this episode, Jeanne Ruddy shares what it was like to be a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company, and to work with Martha herself. You’ll also hear how she forged her own unique role in dance, how she encourages other artists to flourish, and her passion for nurturing future generations of dancers in Philadelphia. Tuning in, you’ll learn all about Jeanne’s journey as a dancer, and finding her way to creative expression thereafter. Join us to hear all about the highs and lows of our guest’s incredible career today.
Key Points From This Episode:
“I walked out of Deaths and Entrances, I was definitely a child of the 60s, and I didn’t like it. Seven years later, I was playing one of the sisters in that very piece in Lincoln Centre. I loved it.” — Jeanne Ruddy
Jeanne Ruddy is a dance professional whose career has spanned six decades. Primarily a modern contemporary dance artist, her work has encompassed sacred dance, contemporary dance, Broadway, film, teaching, writing and choreography. Her work has influenced and touched generations of dancers and choreographers through her performances, her choreography and her teachings in the United States as well as in Germany, Russia, Brazil, and Cuba. She has established three dance companies over her career: Raintree Dance Harvest in Bloomington, Indiana, Jeanne Ruddy & Dancers in New York City, and Jeanne Ruddy Dance in Philadelphia. Her choreography combines compelling narratives about a variety of social issues such as abuse of women, climate change, navigating personal relationships and the universal voyage of life.
Her first professional job in New York was on the Bicentennial Tour of The King and I with Yul Brenner, where she later performed in the Broadway cast. Fulfilling a dream, she was chosen to become a member of the Martha Graham Company where she worked with Ms. Graham for a decade when Ms. Graham choreographed two new works a year for the Company’s New York seasons. Ruddy rose to Principal Dancer and was featured in the PBS Great Performances series in Graham’s Cave of the Heart. She also performed leading roles in such Graham works as Andromache’s Lament, Diversion of Angels, Deaths and Entrances, Seraphic Dialogue, Clytemnestra, Cortege of Eagles, Embattled Garden, Herodiade, and Appalachian Spring. At that time, the Graham Company toured four months of each year throughout the US, Europe, Mexico, and Canada playing the world’s most important stages. After leaving the Graham Company Ruddy was a guest professor at Connecticut College, Sarah Lawrence College, and Florida State University as well as accepting invitations for international congresses of dance and summer festivals in Brazil, Cologne, Germany, Moscow, Russia, and later Cuba. In the American Dance Festival in Moscow, Ruddy was the first to introduce the Graham Technique to Russian dancers at the Bolshoi and across Russia. Ruddy was invited to join the faculty of the Juilliard School Dance Division teaching the freshman and 2 senior classes while also serving as the scout for hopeful dancers auditioning across America. Concurrently, Ruddy taught at the Alvin Ailey School of American Dance and was promoted to Chair of the Contemporary Dance Department and was involved in the initial concept of the partnership with Fordham University for the creation of the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program.
Ruddy relocated to Philadelphia through marriage and founded Jeanne Ruddy Dance, a contemporary dance company that grew to eleven dancers performing and creating new work by Ruddy and other invited top-tier choreographers over thirteen years. The need for a rehearsal space to house the JRD Company created the Performance Garage. Co-founded by Ruddy, with her husband, Victor Keen, it is now Philadelphia’s home for dance with a 110-seat dance theater. It is a non-profit where Victor has served on the Board since its inception. Now, twenty-thousand people enjoy either classes, rehearsals, auditions, video shoots, or performances each year. Ruddy considers the creation of the Performance Garage her most important contribution to the field by supporting burgeoning dance companies and emerging independent choreographers to develop and further the art form. For her work with her company, Jeanne Ruddy Dance, and her work developing the Performance Garage, Ruddy received The Independence Foundation Fellowship Award in 2000. Other awards and grants include the National Endowment for the Arts Challenge America as well as the NEA’s Artistic Excellence award, three Pew Foundation Dance Advance awards, three William Penn Foundation grants, six Fels Foundation awards, nine years of support from the Independence Foundation, the Dolfinger McMahon, PECO—an Exelon Company, Land Services Inc,
Independence Blue Cross, and twenty years of support from the Suzanne F. Roberts Cultural Fund, among others. Ruddy received an endowed fund—the Martha LaVallee-Williams Community Outreach Fund for her Company’s work with their youth engagement program. To re-open the Performance Garage after the pandemic most essential were the Shuttered Venue Grant, and the Covid Relief Fund.
Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Post-show discussion with the artists will follow the performance. Wine and beverages will be available by donation before and after the show
Tickets: $20-$25 HERE
Tickets: $30 at the door cash/check/credit
Special Ticket: $50-$55
Includes Ticket and Limited Print by gwen charles. Collaged fabric works are featured in ‘O my soul’ and proceeds benefit The Moving Architects. See Print image in carousel below. Print will be available at the Box Office.
Where fierce femininity and intergenerational dance meet: ‘O my soul’ O My Soul is a vigorous dance project weaving together an intergenerational cast of feminine bodies with a lifetime of raw and real sensations, grounded in the company’s signature aesthetic of strong and fiercely feminine dance. The 1-hour dance work interconnects compelling solos, duets, and dynamic group performances with intriguing interactive props and memorable sound scores. The title of the project, O my soul, echoes a biblical phrase often sought in times of trial. Step into a captivating journey through the raw and profound emotions of a lifetime with O my soul, a one-of-a-kind dance project featuring a diverse cast of women aged 16-70’s.
After two years of artistic culmination, O my soul emerges as the company’s first ever full-length evening performance in Montclair, NJ, home of Artistic Director Norton since 2013.
Made possible by funds from the Essex County Division of Cultural Affairs, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
O my soul artists
Artistic Director: Erin Carlisle Norton
Visual Artist: gwen Charles
Violinist: Grace Liu Anderson
Company Dancers: Mariah Anton-Arters, Emily Cicio, Kelly Guerrero
Guest Dancers: Hannah Liu Anderson, Meg Regan, Barbara Whitehill
Dance Film: Created/Edited/Performed: Erin Carlisle Norton
photo: Whitney Browne Photography featuring collaged fabric works by gwen charles
TO DOWNLOAD PODCAST OR LISTEN:Creating a Vision for Kathak with Rukhmani Mehta
Episode 166: Show Notes
Today on Movers & Shapers, we are joined by Rukhmani Mehta (previously Rina Mehta). Rukhmani is a choreographer, dancer, educator, Artistic Director of Leela Youth Dance Company, and the Co-Artistic Director of Leela Dance Collective, which brings together leading artists from around the world to advance a collective vision for kathak, a classical North Indian dance. In this episode, Rukhmani speaks about her love for creating community through dance and her deep interest in and curiosity for collaborative projects and processes. What stands out most is Rukhmani’s resounding passion for her work and art form, despite the struggles she has had along the way, as well as the thoughtfulness with which she has built her life in dance, from co-leadership of her company to teaching to creating the first-ever endowment to support kathak dance and music in the US and more. Tune in today for an inspiring conversation about the power of collaboration, community, and preserving culture!
Key Points From This Episode:
“My work is about being an artist and putting the art form out in the world but – it has also become about creating the infrastructure that the artists who are carrying these traditions forward need.” — Rukhmani Mehta
About Rukhmani Mehta
Rukhmani Mehta (previously Rina Mehta) –pronounced RUUKH-muh-nee – brings a singular voice and vision to the art form of kathak, classical dance of North India. She is a senior disciple of the legendary kathak master, Pt. Chitresh Das, and was a principal dancer in his company, the Chitresh Das Dance Company, for over a decade. As Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Leela Dance Collective, Mehta has created numerous original works that bring kathak dance to contemporary audiences. These works include SPEAK, a kathak-tap collaboration; Son of the Wind, a dance drama based on India’s epic, the Ramayana; and Encounters with Beauty, a collaboration between kathak and contemporary chamber music. She has performed at prestigious venues across the United States and India such as NC State Live, The Broad Stage, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Green Music Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, National Centre for Performing Arts Mumbai, and more. Her artistic works have been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, California Arts Council, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, and more. She has received the ACTA Apprenticeship Grant and has been twice nominated for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award. Mehta is also Artistic Director of Leela Youth Dance Company, a pre-professional performing group that empowers young women to develop their voices and be artists and leaders. The Leela Youth Dance Company has been featured at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Philadelphia Youth Festival, and LA County’s Annual Televised Holiday Celebration.
Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
TO DOWNLOAD PODCAST OR LISTEN:Episode 165: Show Notes.
There are many legends in modern dance that are responsible for making the art form what it is today. But how do we continue their legacy? Today we hear from one of the people responsible for continuing the legacy of Anna Sokolow, Samantha Géracht. Samantha is the artistic director at the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble and in this episode, she tells us all about her incredible career, the multitude of amazing dance practitioners she has learned from and worked with, the difference between a Sokolow dancer and a Sokolow director, the challenges she faces in continuing Anna’s legacy, and so much more! From ballet to modern dance, Samantha has experienced it all as student, performer, and teacher. You don’t want to miss this one so tune in now!
Key Points From This Episode:
“Being a dancer and a modernist in an era that’s not that interested in modernism is it’s own struggle…..[I’m] giving myself a voice and figuring out what it is I want to do with Anna’s legacy and what that means.”” — Samantha Géracht
Samantha Géracht, MFA (Artistic Director) performed with Anna Sokolow’s Players’ Project for eleven years and is a founding member of the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble. In 2017 Ms. Géracht was appointed the ensemble’s artistic director. She has toured and taught Sokolow’s repertory nationally and internationally, setting Ms. Sokolow’s works on professional companies, university dance programs, and solo dance artists, including the Centre de Danse Nationale de Paris, the Boston Conservatory, Williams College, The Ailey School/Fordham University, Loyola Chicago, Franklin and Marshall College, Barnard College, Clarence Brooks, Jennifer Conely, Sandra Kaufman, Kanopy Dance Company and Academy, and Christine Dakin.
Ms. Géracht studied technique and composition with Alwin Nikolais and Murry Louis, Humphrey/Limon with Jim May, Betty Jones, Fritz Luden, and Gail Corbin, and Weidman with Deborah Carr. She has taught in the Professional Studies program at the Limon Institute, the Herbert Berghoff (‘HB’) Studio, and is on the faculty of the Hoboken Charter School. Ms. Geracht performed the Humphrey/Weidman repertory with Deborah Carr Theater Dance Ensemble and Gail Corbin. She has appeared with Rae Ballard’s Thoughts in Motion, and as a guest artist with David Parker and The Bang Group. In 2016 she choreographed Shadowbox Theatre’s The Earth and Me, a critically acclaimed climate change puppet/dance opera created for NYC public schools and community centers. Ms. Géracht served as a panelist for the Library of Congress opening of the “New Dance Group” archives. She holds an MFA in dance from Montclair State University (NJ) and a BS in dance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ms. Géracht is committed to the preservation of early American Modern Dance, making the works of modern dance pioneers more accessible to dance education programs, young artists, and new audiences.
Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street
New York, NY 10002
Pentacle’s twelfth year of Fall Further presents an evening of dance at New York City’s renowned Dixon Place. Presenting artists are Sonia Plumb Dance, Claire Porter, Milk Leaf Productions, Freespace Dance, and The Moving Architects.
TICKETS: $12-$18 HERE
Seoul Dance Film Festival
Art Nine
Seoul, South Korea
More info on Art Nine: HERE
More info on Seoul Dance Film Festival: HERE
Program includes “O my soul” created/performed by Erin Carlisle Norton of The Moving Architects.
photo: Erin Carlisle Norton in “O my soul”
Episode 164: Show Notes.
Whether it’s for communication, social media, budgets, scheduling, or meetings (and more!), we can attest to the level of detail, creativity, and make-it-happen-attitude required in the support to make dance happen! The role of the Arts Administration is dedicated to translating vision into action, and with great appreciation and admiration we introduce today’s guest, Alyssa Alpine. Alyssa, with her accompanying drive and passion, is the Founding Director of the CUNY Dance Initiative, a residency program for NYC choreographers on City University of New York (CUNY) college campuses. In our conversation with Alyssa today, we delve into the story of how her love for dance stems from both sides of her family and what has fueled her lifelong commitment. She takes us through her academic path and recounts the story of how she fell into a career as an Arts Administrator. Alyssa elaborates on the functioning of the CUNY Dance Initiative and highlights some of the challenges and peak moments she’s encountered along her career journey. Tune in to this episode to hear more from Alyssa Alpine, a true master of wearing many hats (concurrently!) and doing them all successfully!
Key Points From This Episode:
Alyssa Alpine is the founding director of the CUNY Dance Initiative, an expansive residency program that provides rehearsal and performance spaces on City University of New York college campuses to local choreographers and dance companies. She has worked in non-profit administration for 20+ years across areas of programming, marketing, development, and operations for organizations such as New York Live Arts, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, New Jersey City University’s Center for the Arts, and Armitage Gone! Dance, with some forays into arts journalism along the way. As a performer, she cut her teeth with Minnesota Dance Theater, The Hartt Ensemble, and the Connecticut Opera before moving to NYC, where she’s worked with Geraldine Cardiel, Alan Danielson, Patricia Hoffbauer, Yehuda Hyman/Mystical Feet, Stephan Koplowitz, Jonathan Monk, and RedWall Dance Theatre. She holds a BA in English from Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
