Podcast

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

Podcast No.21 – Samuel Pott

“Starring New Jersey” Special Podcast Series

Release Date: April 5, 2016

Download Episode on iTunes and Rate Us HERE
Download Episode on Stitcher HERE
Join the Movers and Shapers Facebook Community HERE
Follow on Twitter @ShapersPodcast HERE

ABOUT SAMUEL POTT

MORE ON SAMUEL:

• Nimbus Dance Works

PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS

Blood Memory: An Autobiography: Martha Graham

UC Berkley

Cunningham Dance Technique

Marnie Thomas

David Wood

Christopher Dolder

Savage Dance Company

Richard Gibson

Martha Graham Center – legal battles

Oakland Ballet

Feldenkrais Method

American Repertory Ballet

Denise Vale

Martha Graham Dance Company

“Dance to Learn”

This special podcast series “Starring NJ” was made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.  Special thanks to Charmaine Warren for serving as the Humanities Scholar for this series.

Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Intro Music: “Singing Distance” by Elijah Aaron

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

Podcast No.20 – Sharron Miller

“Starring New Jersey” Special Podcast Series

Release Date: March 22, 2016

Download Episode on iTunes and Rate Us HERE
Download Episode on Stitcher HERE
Join the Movers and Shapers Facebook Community HERE
Follow on Twitter @ShapersPodcast HERE

ABOUT SHARRON MILLER

Sharron Miller is Founder/Director of Sharron Miller’s Academy for the Performing Arts (SMAPA), a 501c3 arts education organization whose mission is to provide comprehensive, inclusive developmental training in dance and related theater arts to children, teens, adults and seniors. She is a former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater soloist and veteran of seven Broadway shows. She has appeared on television, film, and hundreds of radio and television commercials. She is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Ms. Miller, who attended The Juilliard School, is committed to enriching the lives of young people through the arts. Her early training began with the late Fred Danieli, founder and director of the Garden State Ballet, who taught her the value of self-discipline, self-respect, and a commitment to excellence. Ms. Miller’s educational focus is to foster, nurture and encourage skill building, self-discipline, self-esteem and creativity in every student.

She served on the faculty of The Renaissance Middle School in Montclair, NJ for 13 years where SMAPA provided the dance and drama program for 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade students during the school day. This program was developed with multi-year leadership support from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, praised by the State of New Jersey as an “outstanding arts education model,” and eventually fully-funded by the Montclair Board of Education. Ms. Miller has also served on the faculty of Montclair Kimberley Academy, Far Brook School, and has been affiliated with the New Jersey Performing Arts Center as an arts-in-education consultant/partner. She currently serves on their Community Engagement Advisory Committee.

SMAPA operates year-round in four divisions: Preschool (ages 2-5), Junior (ages 6-11), Prep (ages 12-18) and Adult/Senior. All classes operate on a semester basis (excluding Adult Division) and are developmentally geared based on skill and chronological age. Classes are offered in many disciplines including ballet, modern, jazz, tap, West African, Flamenco, floor barre, Pilates/Yoga, contemporary modern jazz and hip-hop. Children progress from one level to the next when skills requirements have been mastered. There are no recitals but rather parent observations twice a year. SMAPA is not a competition school but rather an arts education organization where the joy of learning is encouraged.

At SMAPA, Ms. Miller (along with a faculty of thirty teaching artists) continues to train hundreds of students yearly, but also continues to develop her arts enrichment programs and community outreach, which includes: Working in partnership with Quitman Street Community School in Newark, NJ, providing a yearlong dance residency for K-8 students; providing an 8-week dance residency over the past five years to 1^st through 5^th grade students in ten elementary school in East Orange; creating a 6-week full-day arts program, “Prime Time Summer Arts”, for children ages 6-14 in association with the Montclair Department of Recreation and Cultural Affairs (MRCA); and adapting Prime Time Summer Arts to a half-day Preschool Program operating in nine 1-week, theme-based sessions for children ages 3-5.

SMAPA receives generous financial support from foundations including the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Victoria Foundation, the Stone Foundation of New Jersey, the Turrell Fund, Hyde & Watson, Investors Bank, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Newark Arts Council.

Ms. Miller resides in Montclair, New Jersey with her daughter, Jaimie.

MORE ON SHARRON:

• Sharron Miller’s Academy of the Performing Arts (SMAPA)

PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS

Misty Copeland

Garden State Ballet

Penny Frank

Joyce Trissler 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Lena Horne 

Donald McKayle

“Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope”

Chalvar Monteiro

This special podcast series “Starring NJ” was made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.  Special thanks to Charmaine Warren for serving as the Humanities Scholar for this series.

Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Intro Music: “Singing Distance” by Elijah Aaron

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

Podcast No.19 – MAXINE LYLE

“Starring New Jersey” Special Podcast Series

Release Date: March 8, 2016

Download Episode on iTunes and Rate Us HERE
Download Episode on Stitcher HERE
Join the Movers and Shapers Facebook Community HERE
Follow on Twitter @ShapersPodcast HERE

ABOUT MAXINE LYLE

Maxine Lyle has been a choreographer, teaching artist and producer for fifteen years, specializing in African-American step dance. She began stepping at the age of seven in her hometown of Newark, New Jersey and has been performing ever since. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Williams College, where she co-founded Sankofa, the Williams College step team, now in its twentieth season under the Williams College Dance Department. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatrical Management and Producing from Columbia University School of the Arts. She has produced several plays and has also directed a youth theatre ensemble in Newark with the All Stars Project of New Jersey. In addition to her theatrical projects, she remains committed to arts education. She developed and implemented one of the first full-time, accredited step dance curriculums in the country, at Harlem Prep Middle School where she taught step for three years. She has also engaged in numerous arts education programming, combining step and other art forms through organizations such as Girls Leadership and The Leadership Program.

ABOUT SOUL STEPS

Soul Steps speaks the language of rhythm.  Founded in 2005 by Maxine Lyle, the company is based in New Jersey and New York and showcases the African-American dance tradition known as “stepping” (not to be confused with Irish step dance!). Their mission is to expand the presence of stepping throughout the world while creating avenues for cultural exchange and awareness among diverse communities. Step started among African-American fraternities and sororities on college campuses as a means of unity and self-expression, and has deep roots in the migrant labor culture of South African gold mines. For close to a century, step dancers have used their bodies as percussive instruments to create a new physical language that inspires, celebrates and forges community. Soul Steps brings this explosive art form to the stage in a high-energy performance that combines percussive movement, hip-hop rhythms, and call and response. Their performances, residencies, and educational programming are suitable for all ages.

Soul Steps brings step everywhere! From school workshops in Brooklyn, to partnerships with U.S. Embassies throughout the world, to Paris Fashion Week, to a cameo in an indie rock band video, they embrace every opportunity to expose diverse communities to the magnetism and dynamic power of step. Credits include a feature in the Diesel Jogg Jeans promotional video, “The A-Z of Dance;” the historical Rick Owens runway show during Paris Fashion Week 2013;  2012 Abok I Ngoma International Dance Festival (U.S. Embassy partnership, Cameroon); Joyce SoHo, Every Little Step, a collaborative piece performed with Dance Theatre of Ireland (New York); Stepping in Remembrance, (U.S. Embassy commissioned September 11th commemorative piece, Dublin); Skena Up International Film and Theater Festival (U.S. Embassy partnership, Kosovo); New York Musical Theatre Festival (2007 and 2011); Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out Series; and a nationally aired MTVU promotional video. Soul Steps was named the 2010 Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities Cultural Artist of the year and was described in the New York Times as giving a performance that “excels in cross rhythms” (November 23, 2011, Joyce SoHo).

MORE ON MAXINE:

• Soul Steps Web Page

• Soul Steps Facebook Page

PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS

Step Afrika!

Upward Bound 

Prudential Young Entrepreneur Program

Dance Theater of Ireland

Rick Owens Paris Runway Show

This special podcast series “Starring NJ” was made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.  Special thanks to Charmaine Warren for serving as the Humanities Scholar for this series.

Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Intro Music: “Singing Distance” by Elijah Aaron

MOVERS & SHAPERS:
Podcast No.18 – JEFF FRIEDMAN
“Starring New Jersey” Special Podcast Series

Release Date: February 23, 2016

Download Episode on iTunes and Rate Us HERE
Download Episode on Stitcher HERE
Join the Movers and Shapers Facebook Community HERE
Follow on Twitter @ShapersPodcast HERE

ABOUT JEFF FRIEDMAN

Jeff Friedman is a dancer, choreographer, dance documentarian and dance studies professor at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. He was born in 1956 and grew up surrounded by corn fields in the rural suburbs of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, near Doylestown. He began studying classical ballet at Bucks County Ballet with Carl Sandemeyer, a retired New York City Ballet dancer. Jeff graduated from Central Bucks-West High School in 1974 and studied architecture at Cornell University for 3 years, where he began seriously studying contemporary dance before he ran away with a dance company from New York City. After studying on scholarship with choreographer Twyla Tharp and company members in 1978, he then completed his 5-year professional degree in architecture from the University of Oregon in 1979. Jeff immediately moved to San Francisco, California where he joined the Oberlin Dance Collective as their first performing, non-choreographing collective member. Now known as ODC/San Francisco, Jeff performed and toured for 10 years with the company throughout the United States, including Alaska and Hawai’i, and internationally in Australia, at the 1988 World’s Fair; throughout Southeast Asia, on a State Department “soft-diplomacy” tour; and throughout the Soviet Union, in October-November 1989, while the Berlin Wall was coming down in Germany. He also performed in two avant-garde opera productions of Gluck’s Orfeo and Phillip Glass’ Satyagraha at the San Francisco, Los Angeles and Santa Fe Opera Companies. While based in San Francisco, Jeff also created several performance works, including multi-disciplinarily site-specific performance works, with photographers, videographers and composers as part of his POUNDING THE PAVEMENT site-specific dance festival; group modern dance works; and a solo dance concert created at a Djerassi Foundation Artist Residency that toured the United States as LOCUS Solo Dance, from 1990-1997.

In 1988, Jeff was part of a small group of dance artists responding to their community’s losses due to HIV-AIDS epidemic in the San Francisco Bay Area. Based on training from the Regional Oral History Office at University of California-Berkeley, he created LEGACY, an oral history project that records, collects, and makes accessible the personal and professional histories of Bay Area dance community members who are at-risk, due to their status as elders, to life-threatening illness; and cultural invisibility to the mainstream historical record. LEGACY’s methodology focuses on audio- and video-recorded unstructured oral history interviews in the long-form life-history format. LEGACY’s collection include recordings, edited transcripts, finding and contextual tools, as well as associated collections of personal papers of nearly 100 San Francisco Bay Area dance performers, choreographers, educators, administrators and critics, the largest collection of its kind outside of New York City’s Public Library for the Performing Arts oral history collections. For his pioneering work in dance oral history, Jeff has received the Isadora Duncan, James V. Mink and   awards for his service to the Bay Area dance community, and the oral history communities of the Southwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, respectively.

Based on Jeff’s performance, choreography and oral history careers, he created a new documentary-based dance-text solo work titled Muscle Memory (1992) using excerpts from LEGACY’s collection. While working as dance technique instructor at Sonoma State University, Jeff received a residency fellowship at Columbia College Dance Center in Chicago where he consolidated his interdisciplinary approach to documentary-based choreography. In 1996, he applied to and was accepted by the University of California-Riverside’s doctoral program in Dance History and Theory where he studied the theory, method and practice of oral history; phenomenological philosophy; Futurist photography; and Laban Movement Analysis. These study areas integrated into Jeff’s dissertation titled A Labanalysis of Dancers’ Life-histories toward Existential Awareness, earning his Ph.D in 2003. Jeff was appointed Assistant Professor at the Dance Department at Rutgers University-New Brunswick the same year.

Jeff’s publications include book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Spain, Germany, where he was a Senior Fulbright Teaching and Research Fellow in Frankfurt in 2010; Korea, and New Zealand, where he was Visiting Lecturer at Auckland University’s Dance Programme in 2007. Jeff has lectured at Stanford, Columbia, Brown Universities, and the University of California-Berkeley, among others in the U.S.; Kent, Bournemouth, Surrey, and Coventry Universities in the UK; Giessen, Leipzig, and the University of Performing Arts in Frankfurt, Germany; University of Warsaw and Charles University, Prague; Hebrew University, in Jerusalem, Israel; Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey; and Victoria and Auckland Universities in New Zealand. Jeff teaches oral history training workshops nationally and internationally, including 20 years at the San Francisco Museum of Performance & Design; Texas Woman’s University; Simmons College, as Allen Smith Fellow in 2014; and for the Korea Society for Dance Documentation in Seoul. He is on the editorial board of the Korean Society for Dance Research Journal and Dance Chronicle (US) and was elected to a three-year term on the the Governing Council for the National Oral History Society (2013-2015). Jeff is also commissioned to record oral histories for the School of American Ballet Oral History Project in New York City.

At Rutgers University, Jeff teaches undergraduate dance writing and dance history courses and has taught dance technique, improvisation, performance skills, and dance composition and choreography. He also has taught oral history and performance and the history of interdisciplinary for various honors programs and the new Honors College. In 2014, he was appointed Graduate Director for the incoming MFA in Dance degree, beginning in Winter 2017, where he has developed a curriculum focusing on the interdisciplinary integration of dance theory and practice and critical pedagogy. He will be teaching dance philosophy and aesthetics, the history of interdisciplinarity and special topics courses in dance documentation and reconstruction and oral history and performance. He elected to serve for a three-year term on the Rutgers University Faculty Council (2014-2016) and, in 2014, Jeff also created a Dance and Parkinson’s Program, with free classes in two sites in New Brunswick.

MORE ON JEFF:

• Jeff Friedman, Dance Department, Rutgers University

• MFA in Dance degree, Dance Department, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University-New Brunswick

• LEGACY Oral History Program, San Francisco Museum of Performance & Design

PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS

Bucks County, PA

Joffrey Ballet

Richard Colton

Minnesota Dance Theatre

Harvey Milk

Oberlin Dance Collective (ODC)

Brenda Way, ODC

Erik Hawkins

Margaret Jenkins Dance Company

Legacy Project

Joe Goode

David Gere

Leslie Farlow

San Francisco Museum of Performance and Design

Movement Pattern Analysis – Warren Lamb

Eve Gentry

This special podcast series “Starring NJ” was made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Intro Music: “Singing Distance” by Elijah Aaron

MOVERS & SHAPERS:
Podcast No.17 – DOUG POST
“Starring New Jersey” Special Podcast Series

Release Date: February 9, 2016

Download Episode on iTunes and Rate Us HERE
Download Episode on Stitcher HERE
Join the Movers and Shapers Facebook Community HERE
Follow on Twitter @ShapersPodcast HERE

ABOUT DOUG POST

Doug Post began his business career in the printing industry and then switched to the fledgling I.T. industry where he held a number of positions at various companies over a 35 year career. A musician by avocation, he has been involved in the performing arts since childhood.

In 2000, a computer consulting gig landed him in NYC on a daily basis. From this he began attending numerous modern dance performances and developing friendships with performers, choreographers, and others in the industry.

Prior to this, he was involved in his home state of NJ where he served as President of Beyondance, Inc.’s Board of Directors, was a founding member of Freespace Dance’s Board.

By 2005 the computer jobs had all gone overseas and he hadn’t. So a couple of years earlier than planned he began a second career in arts administration.

In 2007, he joined Pentacle, an artist service organization based in Manhattan, and in 2009 became Artist Representative for Pentacle’s Gallery, an eclectic collection of, principally, emerging dance artists.

He has served on the Advisory Board of ACF Dance, and is currently on the Advisory Board of Reverb Dance, the Young Choreographer’s Festival and the Brooklyn Dance Festival. He was Assistant Booking Manager for Eva Dean Dance and assists Wendy Osserman Dance Company as an Administrative Consultant.

He began curating Dixon Place’s Under Exposed performance series in Spring 2011, and then added the Moving Men series in the Fall of 2012. He also publishes a weekly newsletter of performances, auditions and other items of interest to the dance community.

PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS

José Limon’s “Moor’s Pavane”

Beyondance Inc.

Carolyn Dorfman Dance

County College of Morris

Lisa Grimes

Donna Scro

Freespace Dance

Pentacle

Kyle Abraham

10 Hairy Legs

Akram Khan

Mason Gross School of the Arts

This special podcast series “Starring NJ” was made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Intro Music: “Singing Distance” by Elijah Aaron

MOVERS & SHAPERS: “Starring New Jersey” Series

February 9-April 5, 2016

Download Episodes on iTunes and Rate Us HERE
Download Episodes on Stitcher HERE
Join the Movers & Shapers Facebook Community HERE

Follow on Twitter @ShapersPodcast HERE

The Moving Architects is pleased to announce “Starring New Jersey”, a special 5-part interview podcast series that is an extension of the semi-monthly podcast “Movers & Shapers: A Dance Podcast” hosted by Erin Carlisle Norton.  This special one-on-one interview series focuses specifically on how socio-economic status has played a part in five different individual’s development and career opportunities as “shapers” of the dance field, each of whom call New Jersey home.  Enjoy these five diverse, unique, and inspiring individuals as they tell their stories, share their expertise, and provide insights from their life experiences in New Jersey, NYC, and around the world. 

Doug Post: Gallery Artist Representative and Office Manager at Pentacle and Curator at Dixon Place

Jeff Friedman: Dancer, Choreographer, Scholar, and Associate Professor at Rutgers University

Sharron Miller: Founder/Director of Sharron Miller’s Academy for the Performing Arts, Former Soloist for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Maxine Lyle: Dancer, Choreographer, Teaching Artist, and Producer, specializing in African-American step dance as founder of Soul Steps

Samuel Pott: Founder Nimbus Dance Works and School of Nimbus Dance Works, Former Soloist for Martha Graham Dance Company

This special podcast series “Starring New Jersey” was made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.  Special thanks also to Charmaine Warren, who has served as Humanities Scholar for this project.

MOVERS & SHAPERS:
Podcast No.16 – HELEN SIMONEAU

Release Date: January 19, 2016
Download Episode on iTunes and Rate Us HERE
Download Episode on Stitcher HERE
Join the Movers and Shapers Facebook Community HERE
Follow on Twitter @ShapersPodcast HERE

ABOUT HELEN SIMONEAU

A native of Québec, Canada, HELEN SIMONEAU, has been commissioned by The Juilliard School, the American Dance Festival, the Bessie Schönberg Residency at The Yard, Springboard Danse Montréal, and the Swiss International Coaching Project (SiWiC) in Zurich. She was a resident artist at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Bates Dance Festival and has received fellowships from Bogliasco Foundation and North Carolina Arts Council. Simoneau took first place for choreography at the Internationales Solo-Tranz-Theatre Festival in Stuttgart, Germany in 2009. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally at notable venues such as Dance Place (DC), New York Live Arts, Joyce SoHo (NYC), Tangente (Montréal), The Aoyama Round Theatre (Tokyo), the L.I.G. Art Hall Busan (South Korea), Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out Stage (MA), and Athens International Dance Festival (Greece).

Helen Simoneau Danse, a North Carolina based dance company with strong New York City ties and acclaimed international presence has been described as vibrant, intricate, rich in connection and constantly curious. The company premieres original works by founder Helen Simoneau in collaboration with the dancers. In addition to an annual company season in Winston-Salem, NC, the company has been presented in Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and has toured throughout Germany, Asia, and the United States.

MORE ON HELEN:

• Website

• Facebook

• Twitter

• YouTube

PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS

Joyce SOHO

DANY Studios

Simonson Technique

Les Ballets Jazz Montréal

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company

George Balanchine

Martha Graham

University of North Carolina School of the Arts

Isabelle Van Grimde

Tangante

Lafayette College

Burr Johnson

Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Intro Music: “Singing Distance” by Elijah Aaron

MOVERS & SHAPERS:
No.15 – JULIE MAYO

Release Date: December 15, 2015
Download Episode HERE
Rate us on ITunes HERE
Join the Movers and Shapers Facebook Community HERE
Follow on Twitter @ShapersPodcast

About Julie Mayo

Julie Mayo is a choreographer and director based in Brooklyn. Mayo has recently been commissioned to create an evening length work for Gibney Dance in NYC for their Fall 2016 season and was a 2014-2015 New York Live Arts’ Fresh Tracks Performance and Residency Artist-in-Residence. Other recent commissions include the University of Wisconsin/Madison, Wilson College, Broward College, the University of Virginia and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Mayo’s choreographic work has been a “Best Of” pick in Time Out Chicago and a High Marks recipient in the Movement Research Performance Journal. She has been a recipient of creative residencies at the UCross Foundation, Djerassi, and Wilson College and has been a guest artist at schools throughout the U.S. including Dickinson College, University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, Ohio University, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Maryland, Middlebury College, as well as a teacher at community venues ClassClassClass, Brooklyn Studios for Dance and Gibney Dance. In New York, her work has been presented at New York Live Arts, Movement Research at the Judson Church, JACK, and Dixon Place, and nationally at experimental venues Highways Performance Space (Los Angeles), NOHspace (San Francisco), Links Hall (Chicago) and <fidget>space (Philadelphia). She studied Dance as an undergrad at Ohio University and received her MFA in Experimental Choreography from the University of California, Riverside.

More on Julie:

• JulieMayo.com

PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS

 Wilson College SUPA

“Whoa Man”

Ohio University Dance

Gladys Bailin Stern

Stephanie Skura

Skinner Technique

Rolfing

Samuel Beckett Trilogy

Jack

UC Riverside

Neil Greenberg

Jeanine Durning

Tere O’Connor

David Lynch

Todd Solondz

Susan Rethorst

Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Intro Music: “Singing Distance” by Elijah Aaron

MOVERS & SHAPERS:
PODCAST No.14 – NEL SHELBY

Photo: Matthew Murphy

Release Date: December 1, 2015
Download Episode on iTunes and Rate Us HERE
Download Episode on Stitcher HERE
Join the Movers and Shapers Facebook Community HERE
Follow on Twitter @ShapersPodcast HERE

ABOUT NEL SHELBY

Nel Shelby demonstrates her dedication to the preservation and promotion of dance through excellent documentation of live performances, the creation of smart and engaging marketing videos, and the making of original documentaries and films covering a variety of topics in the field.

Nel produced and directed PS DANCE!, an hour-long documentary about dance education in NYC’s public schools, created with Jody Gottfried Arnhold and Joan Finkelstein and narrated by veteran television journalist Paula Zahn. PS DANCE! had its premiere broadcast on THIRTEEN/WNET in May 2015 and has since aired on public television networks across the country. Nel’s half-hour dance documentary featuring Nejla Y. Yatkin was filmed in Central America in 2010 and was recently screened during a PillowTalk at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Nel has also created four short films for Wendy Whelan’s Restless Creature, and she collaborated with Adam Barruch Dance on a short film titled “Folie a Deux,” which was selected and screened at the Dance on Camera Festival in New York City and San Francisco Dance Film Festival.

Her New York City-based video production company, Nel Shelby Productions, has grown to encompass a diverse list of dance clients. Since 2004, Nel has served as Festival Videographer for the internationally celebrated Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires. Each season at the Pillow, Nel’s responsibilities include documenting aspects of festival culture in addition to its 20 mainstage dance performances, filming and overseeing documentation of more than 100 free performances and events, managing two dance videography interns and an apprentice, and educating students about the technical and philosophical aspects of filming dance.

She also serves as Resident Videographer at the Vail International Dance Festival where she creates short dance documentary films and marketing videos about the festival in addition to documenting its events and performances. Her longer-form, half-hour documentary on Vail’s festival, The Altitude of Dance, debuted on Rocky Mountain PBS in May 2013.

Nel has a long personal history with movement – she has a B.F.A. in dance and is a certified Pilates instructor. In addition to her dance degree, Nel holds a B.S. in broadcast video. She lives in New York City with her husband, dance photographer Christopher Duggan, and their kids Gracie and Jack.

MORE ON NEL:

• Website

• Facebook

• Video (vimeo)

• Video (youtube)

• Twitter

• Instagram

 PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS

“Water Ballet”

Up With People

Stephens College

Séan Curran

Loretta Livingston

Jacob’s Pillow Dance

Doug Varone

Jose Limón Company

Inbal Pinto

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive

Savion Glover

Urban Bush Woman

Roxanne Butterfly

Wendy Whelan “Restless Creature”

Adam Barruch

Arvo Part

Max Richter

PS Dance! Documentary

Johannes & Jenny Holub

Christopher Duggan

Fabienne Fredrickson

Capacity Interactive

Vail International Dance Festival

NYCB Moves

American Dance Machine

Chita Rivera

Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Intro Music: “Singing Distance” by Elijah Aaron

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

Photo by Marina Levitskaya, courtesy of Peak Performances at Montclair State University

Podcast No.13 – Pat Graney

Release Date: November 17, 2015

Download Episode on iTunes, Subscribe, and Rate Us HERE
Download Episode on Stitcher HERE
Join the Movers and Shapers Facebook Community HERE
Follow on Twitter @ShapersPodcast HERE

ABOUT PAT GRANEY: CHOREOGRAPHER

Seattle-based choreographer Pat Graney received Choreography Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts for 11 consecutive years, as well as from Artist Trust, the Washington State Arts Commission, the NEA International Program, National Corporate Fund for Dance and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 2008, Ms. Graney was awarded both the Alpert Award and a US Artists Award in Dance.

In 2011 Ms. Graney was the recipient of the ‘Arts Innovator’ Award from Artist Trust and the Dale Chihuly Foundation. In 2013, Ms. Graney was one of 20 Americans to receive a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award.

Ms. Graney hails from St. Augustine, Florida, where she spent her seminal years after the Graney family relocated there from Chicago. In 1969, with her family, Pat moved to Mechanicsville, VA and Philadelphia, PA, before returning to St. Augustine to finish high school. Starting her college career at Tallahassee Community College, Ms. Graney eventually went on to The Evergreen State College, then transferred to University of Arizona where she graduated with a BFA in 1979. While at U of A, Pat studied extensively with Dr. John M. Wilson. In the fall of 1979, Graney moved to Seattle, which has been her home for the past thirty years.

In 1981, Graney presented her first full evening of work entitled ‘go red go red, laugh white,’ set to the writing of Gertrude Stein. She went on to choreograph more work to Stein’s writing as well as the writing of Julio Cortazar and Raymond Carver. Departing from the written word, Graney started exploring the use of music combined with American Sign Language to create Colleen Ann, a work commissioned for the French/American Dance Exchange in 1986.

In 1987, with Beliz Brother, she created a work for 7 gymnasts on 7 sets of uneven parallel bars, set against the backdrop of Marymoor Park, and in 1988 Graney created an original work for Pacific NW Ballet. Seven/Uneven toured to the Serious Fun Festival at Lincoln Center and went on to appear at MayFest in Glasgow in 1991. Following the gymnastic works, Ms. Graney began to create a body of work related to women with Faith (1991), Sleep (1995), and Tattoo (2001). In between creating this Triptych of works, Ms. Graney created the full evening work Vivaldi, choreographed 150 gymnasts for the Goodwill Games, and worked with 130 female martial artists for the Movement Meditation Project in 1996. Following the 12 city national tour of Tattoo, Graney created the Vivian girls (set to the artwork of Henry Darger) with music by Martin Hayes and Amy Denio. In 2008, Graney created House of Mind, an installation performance work set in a 5000 square foot raw space featuring an eighteen foot high wall containing 4000 miniatures, a wall of 100,000 buttons with water flowing over it, a closet of giant little girls’ dresses, hundreds of gold shoes, a 50 x 4 foot-long room covered with 1940’s police reports and a large scale video installation by Ellen Bromberg.

Ms. Graney’s interest in working with incarcerated women began in 1992 after a conversation with Rebecca Terrell, then head of Florida Dance Festival. This conversation later morphed into what has become Keeping the Faith/The Prison Project. KTF is an arts-based residency program that features dance, expository writing and visual arts, and culminates in performances. This project has been conducted at FCI Lowell & FCI Broward in Florida, MCI Framingham in Massachusetts, Excelsior Girls School in Denver, Houston City Jail, Echo Glen Children’s Center & King County Juvenile Detention in Washington, Red Rock Juvenile Center in Maricopa County, AZ, Shakopee Women’s Prison in Minnesota, Estrella Jail in Phoenix, AZ, River City Correctional Center in Cincinnati, OH, Tokyo Girls Detention in Japan, Bahia Women’s Prison in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Munich City Jail in Munich, Germany, the Dochas Centre/MountJoy Prison in Dublin, Ireland and Washington State Corrections Center for Women and Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women in Washington State.

Keeping the Faith/The Prison Project is one of the longest-running prison arts programs in the US.

Ms. Graney’s latest work, a peformance/installation project called girl gods, will premiere at On the Boards in Seattle in 2015. With National Dance Project Production and Touring support, the work will tour nationally and internationally through 2016.

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