Podcast

Amanda Selwyn (Artistic Director/Choreographer) founded Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre/Notes in Motion in 2000 and in 23 seasons, has directed over 85 productions, developed a network of artists, and created the curriculum for Notes in Motion’s dance education programs. Amanda’s choreographic works include: Threads, Hindsight, Crossroads, Refuge, Renewal, It’s a Game, Detour, Five Minutes, Passage, Undercurrent, Hearsay, Interiors, Disturbance, Salut, Tilt, Tidal, Shift, Siren, Contradicting Unity, Save My Spot, Hold On, Momentum, and Behind Us. Amanda recently taught workshops at New Women, New York, the New York Gender Conference, and a Choreography Master Class at Temple University. Her 20th Anniversary Season was presented at Baruch Performing Arts Center as part of the CUNY Dance Initiative.  She has choreographed dance for Chicago’s Motivity; for theatre productions including House on Mango Street, Free to be You an Me, Once Upon a Mattress, The Wiz, Little Shop of Horrors, and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory; and for her original theatre productions which include Herland, Yellow Feather, and Slitting the Clouds. In addition to her choreographic work, Amanda has directed off-broadway theatre in NYC at John Houseman Studio, 30th Street Theatre, Grove Street Theatre, Kraine Theatre, Center Stage, and the Producer’s Club. Amanda teaches dance and theatre to New York City children and has been on faculty at The Brearley School, Brooklyn Friends School, Beit Rabban School, Solomon Schechter School, and the New Acting Company. She has taught dance composition and technique at the Berkshire Institute for Music and Art and taught dance and theatre in Israel at the Israel Museum, English Village, and the Arad Community Center. Amanda led the workshops “Accessing Inspiration for Dance-Making” and “Teaching a Choreographic Process” at the 3 NYC Arts-in-Education Roundtable’s Face to Face conferences. She has also presented her choreography at NYU’s Women and Theater conference and at Dance Teacher Summit. She is the recipient of grants from the NY State Council on the Arts, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Friars Foundation, Dizzy Feet Foundation, Bronx Council on the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Development Fund, NY City Council Members Bill DeBlasio, Andy King, Carlina Rivera, Margaret Chin, and Rosie Mendez, Manhattan Borough President, Met Life, City National Bank, Credit Suisse, and the Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation. Amanda participated in the Choreographer’s Lab program at Jacob’s Pillow. Her work has been presented twice on Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out Stage, at Tribeca Performing Arts Center, in the DUMBO Dance Festival, APAP Conference, COOL NY Dance Festival, Wassaic Dance Festival, WestFest Dance Festival, Movement Research’s Performance Series, Earth Celebrations, Dixon Place, and Pushing Progress at Peridance. Amanda has a 500-hour yoga teacher’s certification from Laughing Lotus Yoga Center in NYC and teaches yoga privately and at Crunch Gym in NYC. She has a Masters from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in performance studies and a B.S. from Northwestern University in theatre, women’s studies, and dance.

McClaine is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Contemporary Dance Choreography Festival (CDCFest). She is an awarded choreographer, Nationally Certified Pilates instructor, business owner, and dance educator.

McClaine received her MFA in Dance from the University of California, Irvine and her BA in Dance from Columbia College Chicago. Prior to receiving her degrees, she trained with Orlando Ballet School/Company and North Carolina School of the Arts in the ballet program. Post graduate school she held the position of Assistant Director of Dance and Adjunct Faculty at Sacred Heart University for 3 years.

Her choreography has been awarded “Best Choreography” in regional and national competitions, presented in the “New Grounds” Choreography Festival at University South Florida, the “EAST meets WEST” International Dance Festival at University California Irvine, the ‘Dance-Forms’ 72nd International Choreographer’s Showcase in Scotland, and the WHITE WAVE Solo/Duo International Choreography Festival in NYC, adjudicated in the ACDA Baja Regional Conference in Torrence CA, and competed in the 19th Annual McCullum Theater Education Choreography Festival as a finalist in Palm Desert CA. She was also a guest choreographer for the US International Ballet Company.

Palm Desert Choreography Festival

Adele Myers is a Miami based dance maker and Artistic Director of Adele Myers and Dancers (AMD), a national touring contemporary dance theater company made up of female athletes of the heart. For over a decade, AMD has been presented throughout the U.S with funding from the New England Foundation of the Arts, National Dance Project, and National Performance Network. Since relocating to Miami, she received commissions from Miami Light Project, Live Arts Miami and South Miami Dance Cultural Arts Center.

Adele received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, a One-Year Special Certificate from the London School of Contemporary Dance; and earned an MFA with a focus on Dance Pedagogy and Choreography at Florida State University, and an MA and PhD (ABD) in Performance Studies from New York University. She was an Assistant Professor of Dance at Tulane University and Connecticut College and has taught on faculty at New World School of the Arts in Miami.

PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS 

Sarah Lawrence College 

Viola Farber

Pina Bausch

Joy Kellman

Florida State University – Dance

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar

Tulane University – Dance

NYU Performance Studies Program

Connecticut College Dance

NEFA

NPN

Rosie Herrera

NDP Grant

South Miami-Made Cultural Arts Center

New World School of the Arts – Dance

Founded in 1992, award-winning mother/daughter artists Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy are the Artistic Directors of Ragamala Dance Company, a pioneering company rooted in the South Indian dance form of Bharatanatyam. Over the last four decades, Ranee and Aparna have forged a path for culturally rooted performing arts organizations and made Ragamala a standard-bearer within the American dance landscape. The New York Times says, “Ragamala shows how Indian forms can be some of the most transcendent experiences that dance has to offer.”

Ranee and Aparna’s choreographic work has been commissioned and presented extensively throughout the U.S., India, and abroad, highlighted by the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Joyce Theater (New York), Lincoln Center (New York), Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (MA), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), American Dance Festival (Durham, NC), The Soraya (Southern California), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, International Festival of Arts & Ideas (New Haven, CT), Cal Performances (Berkeley), Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), Just Festival (Edinburgh, U.K.), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), Sri Krishna Gana Sabha (Chennai, India), and National Centre for Performing Arts (Mumbai, India), among others.

Ranee serves on the National Council on the Arts, appointed by President Barack Obama. Among her recent awards and honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship (Italy), Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Research Fellowship (Italy), United States Artists Fellowship, and McKnight Distinguished Artist Award. Ranee immigrated to the United States in 1978 and, since that time, her work has merged the rich traditions and deep philosophical roots of her Indian heritage with her hybridic perspective as a first generation South Indian American, including bold experimental collaborations with national and international artists across forms and genres.

Aparna is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship (Italy), Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Research Fellowship (Italy), Joyce Award, and Bush Fellowship for Choreography, among others, and has been selected as one of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch for 2010. Her projects include solo, evening-length works which have toured widely, nationally and internationally, and commissions from the American Dance Festival and the Silk Road Ensemble.

Gloria McLean (Founder, Dancer, Choreographer, Dance Educator) is artistic director of LIFEDANCE/Gloria McLean and Dancers. She choreographs, teaches and performs from her base in New York City and Andes, NY.  LIFEDANCE is dedicated to the integration of body, mind and spirit through the creative process. McLean’s dances often collaborate with new music, art, language and the environment.  Her choreography has been presented in NYC and internationally, including the American Dance Festival, festivals in Ireland, Paris, Montreal, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Korea, and China. In October 2019, she produced “Lucky Dragon 5 Voyage to Hope,” with sculptor Ken Hiratsuka, bringing together artists from around the world on the theme of world peace in memory of the those who perished in the Bikini Island nuclear tests in 1954. In June 2018 in Beijing, McLean collaborated with leading Chinese avant-garde choreographer Wen Hui and Ken Hiratsuka to produce “Stone.Paper, Line. Sky. Water”—dance interacting with drawing, live stone carving, water and audience in the unique 3-story architectural space of painter Huang Rui’s Cloud Pavillion.  In 2012 McLean’s “Dancing Without Illusion” paid tribute to painter Will Barnet. Her video “Twice Marked” was exhibited at Brattleboro Museum in 2008 and the ADF Dancing for the Camera Festival 2009.

Teaching credits include: Professor of Modern Dance for two years at Keimyung University in Daegu, South Korea (2009-2011);  Henry-Bascom Visiting Professor at UW/Madison (2000); George Washington University (1997 and 2000). Adjunct positions and Guest Artist residencies at Manhattanville College, American University, Dowling College, Hofstra University, University of Texas/Edinburgh and San Marcos, and numerous others. She first received acclaim as a leading member of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company from 1982-1993, performing major female roles in the repertory, teaching at the Hawkins School, and touring the U.S. and internationally. Currently McLean is President of the American Dance Guild producing festivals live and online. She teaches live and through zoom.

“I make dances to celebrate human existence, the miracle of the expressive body, with other artists, people, places, forms, media, with ideas that inspire us, and speak to our shared condition.  I am. It dances.”

LAR LUBOVITCH is one of America’s most versatile and widely seen choreographers. He founded the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1968. Over the course of 54 years, it has gained an international reputation as one of America’s top dance companies, produced more than 120 dances and performed before millions across the U.S. and over 40 countries. Many other major companies throughout the world have performed the company’s dances, including American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Joffrey Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, and more. Lubovitch has created ice-dancing works for Olympians John Curry, Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, Brian Orser, JoJo Starbuck, and Paul Wylie, and he has created feature-length ice-dance specials for TV: “The Planets” for A&E (nominated for an International Emmy Award, a Cable AceAward, and a Grammy Award) and “The Sleeping Beauty” for PBS and Anglia TV, Great Britain. His theater and film work includes Sondheim/ Lapine’s Into the Woods (Tony Award nomination), The Red Shoes (Astaire Award), the Tony Award-winning revival of The King and I (on Broadway and in London’s West End), Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame in Berlin, and Robert Altman’s movie The Company (American Choreography Award). In 2016, he premiered “The Bronze Horseman,” based on the Pushkin poem, for the Mikhailovsky Ballet in Russia. In 1987, he conceived Dancing for Life, which took place at Lincoln Center. It was the first response by the dance community to the AIDS crisis, raising over one million dollars. Together with Jay Franke, in 2007 Lubovitch created the Chicago Dancing Festival, in collaboration with the City of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art. It presented 10 seasons entirely free to the public. Recent awards: 2007 named Chicagoan of the Year by the Chicago Tribune; 2008 named similarly by Chicago Magazine; 2011 designated a Ford Fellow by United States Artists and received the Dance/USA Honors Award; 2012 his dance “Crisis Variations” awarded the Prix Benois de la Danse for outstanding choreography at the Bolshoi Theatre; 2013 honored for lifetime achievement by the American Dance Guild; 2014 awarded an honorary doctorate by The Juilliard School; 2016 received the Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement and the Dance Magazine Award, named one of America’s Irreplaceable Dance Treasures by the Dance Heritage Coalition and appointed a Distinguished Professor at UC/Irvine. In honor of his company’s 50th anniversary, in 2018 he was presented with the Martha Graham Award for lifetime achievement.

Nadia Adame is a Spanish multidisciplinary award-winning artist with a spinal cord injury and the Artistic Director at AXIS Dance Company. She studied Ballet & Flamenco at the Royal Dance Conservatory of Madrid and has a BA in Theatre from the University of Colorado. She was a company member with AXIS (2001-2003) and Candoco Dance Company (2007-2008). In 2004, she co-founded and was the Co-Artistic Director of Compañía Y in Spain, a multimedia and performance collective. Nadia’s credits include dance, theatre, commercial, and independent film projects in the UK, Spain, US, and Canada. As a performer, she has been featured in works by Stephen Petronio, Bill T. Jones, Arthur Pita, Rafael Bonachela, Davis Robertson, Sonya Delwaide, Marc Brew, Chevi Muraday and Asun Noales, among others.

Erica Hornthal, a licensed clinical professional counselor and board-certified dance/movement therapist, is the CEO and founder of Chicago Dance Therapy. Since graduating with her MA in dance/movement therapy and counseling, Erica has worked with thousands of patients from age three to 107. Known as “The Therapist Who Moves You,” Erica has truly changed the way people see movement with regard to mental health: moving people toward unlimited potential, greater awareness, and purpose by tapping into their innate body wisdom. In addition to her passion for working with cognitive and movement disorders, neurologic conditions, anxiety, depression, and trauma, she is an advocate for the field of dance/movement therapy. Erica created the Dance Therapy Advocates Summit in 2020 in order to spread awareness and inspire and connect individuals and practitioners from all over the world. She currently lives in the North Shore of Chicago with her husband, two kids, and two French Bulldogs.