MOVERS & SHAPERS:
Podcast No.29 – Crystal Michelle Perkins
Release Date: August 2, 2016
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 CRYSTAL MICHELLE PERKINS:
Crystal Michelle is a choreographer, dancer, and intermedia artist. She was named Associate Artistic Director of Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC) in 2014. Previous to her appointment, she was a dance artist with DCDC’s professional company for nine seasons, became Resident Choreographer, and appointed Arts Curriculum Coordinator in 2010 for DCDC’s education programs.
As coordinator, Ms. Michelle became integral to the design of Dancing to the Curriculum, a highly recognized arts-integration dance residency for elementary and middle grade students in Dayton Public Schools. Over the years, she has taught dance master classes and was teaching artist for the company’s outreach services.
As a choreographer, performer, and researcher she has traveled nationally and internationally, including Ougadougou, Burkina Faso and Port of Spain, Trinidad where she researched African Diaspora movement styles and began her newest venture: The Beautiful Archive Project. Ms. Michelle collaborated with Dayton’s Blackbird String Quartet, The University of Dayton’s Department of Music, the Khalid Moss Jazz Trio for the creation of Unrested and Unfaithful.
The creation of her site specific work The Descent of this Water: Rain (2014) was commissioned by the Dublin Arts Council and performed in Columbus and Dayton, Ohio. Her evening length contemporary work for DCDC, The Littlest Angel, premiered in December 2014. She set choreography to The King of the Magi and Martin Luther King from Duke Ellington’s, Three Black Kings performed by DCDC and accompanied by Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra in collaboration with The Dayton Performing Arts Alliance’s production of American Mosaic in 2015.
Ms. Michelle has created dance works for Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Cutno Dance, SMAG Dance Collective, and Stivers School for the Arts Dance Ensemble. She has been a guest artist for the New Orleans Ballet Association/NOLA, the Augusta Ballet Company, Compton Dance Theatre, The Moving Architects, and SMAG Dance Collective.
In 2014, she received the Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council and was honored with the Josie Award, which recognizes individual excellence in the art of dance for performers in Dayton, Ohio. Ms. Michelle holds a MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University and a BFA in Dance Performance from Southern Methodist University. She is a member of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters Inaugural Class of Leadership Fellows.
MORE ON CRYSTAL:
PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS
Augusta Mini Theater
Southern Methodist University, Dance
Augusta Ballet
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Denise Vale
Dance Spirit Magazine
Sheri “Sparkle” Williams
DeShona Pepper Robinson
Dayton Contemporary Dance Company
The Ohio State University – Department of Dance
Julius Brewster Cotton
Ulysses Dove “Vespers”
Bebe Miller
Norah Zuniga Shaw
“Boxing Up Beautiful”
Camille A. Brown
“The Littlest Angel”
Podcast produced by: The Moving Architects
Interviewer: Erin Carlisle Norton
Intro Music: “Singing Distance” by Elijah Aaron