MOVERS & SHAPERS: A DANCE PODCAST

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

PODCAST No.87 –

Jennifer Muller

Release Date: 9.5.19

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ABOUT JENNIFER

JENNIFER MULLER (JMTW Artistic Director and Founder) has been an influence in the dance world for over 50 years, is known for her visionary approach and innovations in dance/theater, multi-discipline productions incorporating the spoken word, live and commissioned music, media, artist-inspired decor and unusual production elements. Muller has created over 118 pieces, including seven full evening productions, collaborating with such artists as Keith Haring, Keith Jarrett, Yoko Ono and Jeff Croiter. Muller is recognized as a “seminal influence on dance/theater.” Her prolific career has led to recent honors: Fortaleza’s 2010 Trophy of Cultural Responsibility and a 2011 American Masterpieces: Artistic Genius Grant, UCSB conference and exhibit and the publication Transformation & Continuance: Jennifer Muller and the Reshaping of American Modern Dance, 1959 to Present. An internationally renowned teacher and mentor of creative talent, Muller has developed a personalized technique informed by Eastern philosophy. TanzPlan Berlin chose Muller Polarity Technique as one of seven unique contemporary dance techniques for its publication/ DVD Tanztechnik 2010. Creating and re-staging pieces for 26 international repertory companies in nine countries, her commissions include Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Tanz-Forum Köln, Lyon Opera Ballet, Bat Dor, Ballet Jazz de Montreal, Ballet Contemporaneo, Nederlands Dans Theater, NDT3 and Introdans in The Netherlands. An award-winning choreographer, Muller’s choreography for theater/opera productions include The Public Theater, 2nd Stage Theater, NY Stage & Film, and the New York City Opera. In 2011, she choreographed the new musical The Spiral Show in China. Muller is currently re-staging her 2015 piece Miserere Nobis on both Introdans in The Netherlands and UC/Santa Barbara, both to be premiered in early 2020. Her most recent work The Theory of Color, which premiered at New York Live Arts this past June, received overwhelming acclaim: “a dynamic, riveting work.” 

Above all, dance has been Ms. Muller’s passion and creative voice since she was a child. Creating pieces since age seven, she danced professionally at age 15 with the Pearl Lang Dance Company followed by nine years as Principal Dancer with the José Limon Company [while graduating from the Juilliard School] and seven years as Associate Artistic Director of the Louis Falco Dance Company. Now, as a result of years of productive creativity, her work has been seen on stage and television in 45 countries.

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

PODCAST No.86 –

Jonathan Hollander

Release Date: 7.31.19

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ABOUT JONATHAN

Jonathan Hollander is a trailblazer in the field of dance beginning with his founding of Battery Dance in Lower Manhattan in 1976 at a time when the area was devoid of culture. Six years later he founded the Battery Dance Festival which is now New York City’s longest-running public dance festival. Widely recognized as one of the outstanding choreographers of his generation, his works have been presented in major theaters and festivals across five continents. In June, 2018, he was awarded the Federal Order of Merit by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in honor of his“great commitment and leadership in bringing young people together across borders through cultural exchange”.   He was the Selma Jeanne Cohen Lecturer at the Fulbright Conference in Puebla, Mexico and served as a panelist for the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication at George Washington University in November, 2018.  He established arts education residencies at the primary, middle and high school levels in New York City public schools.  He served as Fulbright lecturer on dance in India in 1992, and Fulbright Specialist in Malaysia in 2011. Hollander’s work has been supported by the U.S. Department of State on multiple occasions and by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Ford Foundation and many others. Hollander received the Silver Mask of the Silesian Dance Theatre (Poland), the USable Award (Germany) and the Arts & Business Council’s Encore Award. Under Hollander’s leadership, Battery Dance Company actively supports the commissioning of new musical scores and the inclusion of live musical performance in its productions. Hollander regularly lectures at the university level in the U.S. and overseas on Arts Management and Arts Education.  He collaborated in the creation and launching of the Cape Town International Dance Festival in South Africa and has facilitated U.S. tours by many of India’s leading dance companies over the past 25 years.  He co-founded the Indo-American Arts Council in 2000 in New York City and served on its Board until 2018. Jonathan was named Associate Professor by the Indian Institute of Finance and represented the U.S. performing arts field at the Inaugural Conference on Soft Power in New Delhi in December, 2018.

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

PODCAST No.85 –

photo: Jessie Young

Stephanie Acosta

Release Date: 7.17.19

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ABOUT STEPHANIE

Stephanie Acosta is a interdisciplinary artist who places the materiality of the ephemeral at the center of her practice, questioning meaning-making and manufactured limitations.

Acosta blends performance with practice-based research, making work in response to, while also creating, site and space. Engaging ensembles in facilitated processes, she creates fleeting performance works that challenge site, space, and perception to bring about shared experiences.

Acosta has produced and presented works with and for Museum of Art and Design, Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago, Knockdown Center, the Current Sessions, Miami Performance International Festival, Anatomy Collective, IN>Time Symposium, the Chicago Park District, the Performance Philosophy conference, High Concept Labs, Read/Write Library, No Media, and Radius. In her continued commitment to the experimental voices of New York and Chicago’s performance art communities, Acosta has also collaborated with artists such as Miguel Gutierrez, Daviel Shy, Mark Jeffery and Judd Morrissey of ATOM-r, as well as performance artist Robin Deacon, sonic artist Jeff Kolar, and lead discourse at American Realness 2018. 

A Cuban American born and raised in Miami, Florida, and currently residing in Brooklyn, Acosta works extensively with unseen histories, performance, experimental radio, and film. Acosta continues an ongoing collaborations with Intrinsic Grey Productions including on experimental feature film The Ladies Almanack, which recently had its world premiere at Outfest LA and is currently screening at national and international film festivals. Currently, Acosta heads up the monthly performance series Sunday Service with co-creator Alexis Wilkinson. She can also be found working on a new publication with longtime collaborator Rory Murphy under the name NO ONE IS ANYWHERE, as well as on the upcoming premiere of her multi-platform performance Good Day God Damn at the Chocolate Factory Spring 2020 with artists Leslie Cuyjet, Miriam Gabriel, Jessie Young, Angie Pittman, and touring nationally and internationally  with This Bridge Called My Ass created alongside collaborator Miguel Gutierrez and featuring an all Latinx cast of performance misfits. 

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

PODCAST No.84 –

Photo: Heidi Gutman

Zvi Gotheiner

Release Date: 7.3.19

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ABOUT ZVI

“One does not just watch a dance by Zvi Gotheiner. One enters a world with its own internal logic, a sensual, organic world of movement, language, and images where one is pulled along by currents unseen and inevitable.” (Dance Magazine)

Internationally acclaimed choreographer Zvi Gotheiner is the Artistic Director of ZviDance. Praised for a signature innovative style and fascinating melding of artistic mediums, his work is recognized as radical, contemporary dance theater, ground-breaking, thoughtful yet passionate, with lush movement. Zvi is also a renowned ballet teacher with a devoted following throughout the world, hailed by the New York Timesas The Zen Dance Master of New York.

His work frequently touches upon relevant issues and themes around relationships and community. He has been described “as much sociologist as dance-maker” (Alastair Macaulay,New York Times), His Dabke was recognized by the NY Times as a Top Ten Dance Favorite of 2013.

A prolific choreographer with over 35 works in the last 30 years, Zvi integrates exciting original musical scores, evocative lighting designs, with edgy multi-media and video projections. The ZviDance renowned creative team includes composers Scott Killian and Jukka Rintamak; visual designers Josh Higgason and Herzog Nadler; and lighting designer Mark London. His collaborative approach extends to the dancers and is infused with a deep regard for the individual and their creative, aesthetic role within the ensemble. His company is admired for its elasticity, athleticism and emotional expressivity.

Zvi has created numerous commissioned works for prestigious companies, institutions and universities around the world, including Repertory Dance Theatre Utah, GroundWorks Dance Theatre, Juilliard Dance New Dances, Princeton, NYU, Ohio State University, University of Washington, Bard College, Vassar College.

ZviDance performs frequently at home in New York City at venues such as Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival, Dance Now Festival, Joyce Theater, New York Live Arts and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. The company has been featured in festivals such as the American Dance Festival and Jacob’s Pillow. The company tours internationally in Germany, Poland, Russia, Israel, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and Japan.

Born in Israel, the musically gifted young Zvi encountered a performance of the Batsheva Dance Company that forever changed his life, inviting him “into a world of fantasy and self-definition”.  As a young dancer/choreographer, he was discovered by the legendary Gertrud Kraus, who took him under her wing. Following a dance scholarship with the America-Israeli Cultural Foundation, he began dancing throughout the world with Batsheva Dance Company, Joyce Trisler, Eliot Feld, among others.

He founded the Tamar Ramle Dance Company, a herald of the Israel dance fringe movement, and later directed the Tamar Jerusalem Dance Company. Increasingly drawn to New York City, he moved in 1988, and in 1989 founded ZviDance.

MOVERS & SHAPERS:

PODCAST No.83 –

Francesca Harper

Release Date: 6.19.19

TO DOWNLOAD PODCAST OR LISTEN:

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ABOUT FRANCESCA

Francesca Harper (Artistic Director, Choreographer, and Dancer) is an internationally acclaimed, multifaceted artist. After being named Presidential Scholar in the Arts and performing at the White House her senior year of high school, she joined and performed soloist roles with the Dance Theater of Harlem and later as a Principal Dancer in William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt.

Harper has choreographed works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Tanz Graz, Hubbard Street II, Dallas Black Dance Theater, and her own company, the Francesca Harper Project, which was founded in 2005. Harper enjoys her appointment as an adjunct professor at New York University and the Juilliard School, and she is a former associate professor at Barnard College, and teacher/choreographer for the Ailey School, Fordham University’s BFA program, and the Susan Batson Studio.

Harper is the Artistic Director for the Movement Invention Project® and also recently served as the Movement Director for Nick Cave’s The Let Go, an exhibit commissioned by the Park Avenue Armory. Harper was awarded a two-year choreographic fellowship with Urban Bush Women, providing support toward her latest dance-theater work An Unapologetic Body, still currently in development.

Her recent engagements include choreographing a video shoot of  Wendy Whelan and Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s new collaboration via Sozo Artists, Inc., choreography and participation in a Planned Parenthood video campaign, a collaboration with Nona Hendryx, Carrie Mae Weems, and Niegel Smith in Refrigerated Dreams at the Public Theater, Pentacle’s Dance Series at the Rubin Museum, and touring in Bregenz, Austria, for Bregenzer Frühling. She will also present work in WOMEN/CREATE! – A Festival of Dance at New York Live Arts June 11th-16th, 2019.

Francesca Harper is committed to works rooted in artistic expression, empowerment, and social awareness. She is grateful for the daily opportunity to do what she loves and is passionate about inspiring others to live their dreams.