MOVERS & SHAPERS: A DANCE PODCAST

MOVERS & SHAPERS:
Podcast No.24 – Kat Wildish

Release Date: May 17, 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 KAT WILDISH:  MASTER BALLET INSTRUCTOR

Kat Wildish is one of those rare ballerinas who appeared with both New York City Ballet (under founder George Balanchine) and American Ballet Theatre (under artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov), as well as with such companies as Zurich Ballet, Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and The Eglevsky Ballet (under Edward Villella). A teacher with 40 years’ experience, she is an expert in ballet’s great pedagogical traditions: Balanchine technique, Vaganova, and Cechetti. She is also an ABT® Certified Teacher, in Primary through Level 7/Partnering of the ABT® National Training Curriculum. She has mentored teachers for the Dance Educators of America and as a member of the U.S. Faculty of Education of the United Kingdom’s Royal Academy of Dance. She is currently on the faculty of The Joffrey School and leads open classes at Peridance Capezio Center, Ballet Arts, Gibney Dance, and Ripley-Grier. She has been a guest teacher both internationally (Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and, most recently, Italy) and in states ranging from Florida to Alaska. She also teaches privately and coaches dancers for competitions like the Youth America Grand Prix. In February 2014 Wildish was on the cover of Dance Teacher magazine. Under the rubric “Kat Wildish Presents,” she masterminded the Performing in NY Showcases (three times a year, six performances) for passionate students and larger companies (six dancers and up) eager for stage experience and exposure. Just recently she introduced the Performing in NY Spotlight Series (twice a year, four performances) for soloists and smaller groups.  She also produces the Festival of Dance Schools.  To study with Kat is to be the beneficiary of superlative technical training, a lifetime of accumulated ballet lore, and a generous, elegant spirit. She prepares her students not only to dance beautifully, but to live with grace.

MORE ON KAT WILDISH

• Kat Wildish Website

PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS

Louisville Ballet

Pace School of the Performing Arts

Harkness Center for Dance Injuries

Melissa Hayden

New York City Ballet

George Balanchine

Peter Martins

American Ballet Theater

Lincoln Kirstein

Eglevsky Ballet 

Metropolitan Opera 

Maurice Béjart

William Forsythe

Zurich Ballet

Mikhail Baryshnikov 

Broadway Dance Center

The Ailey Extension

Peridance

Gibney Dance

Harlem School of the Arts

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

Photo: Julie Lemberg

MOVERS & SHAPERS:
Podcast No.23 – Tiffany Mills

Release Date: May 3, 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 TIFFANY MILLS:  CHOREOGRAPHER, DANCER

Tiffany Mills moved to NYC in 1995, and formed the Brooklyn-based Tiffany Mills Company in 2000. Her work centers on human relationships, is grounded in partnering and improvisation, and is fueled by collaboration across mediums. The company will be presented by La MaMa in their La MaMa Moves! Festival May 12-15, 2016. In 2012-13, the company was selected to participate in the inaugural session of BAM’s Professional Development Program, which culminated in a NYC Season at BAM Fisher. The company’s collaborative work has been performed in NYC and nationally: PICA’s TBA Festival (OR), Wexner Center (OH), Contemporary Dance Theater/NPN (OH), Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Residency (MA), Dance Place (DC), Guggenheim Museum Works & Process, Duke on 42 Street, Symphony Space, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, Dancing in the Streets, Joyce SoHo, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Danspace Project’s City/Dans Series, DTW, PS 122, Movement Research at Judson Church, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, HERE, and in Russia, Italy, Mexico and Canada. Awards and residencies: NYU’s Tisch Summer Dance Festival Residency (15), CUNY Dance Initiative Residencies (14-15), BAM/PDP (12-13), Joyce’s Mellon Anchor Tenant Program (11-present), Baryshnikov Arts Center Residency (10), Dance New Amsterdam Residency (10), Joyce Residency (07-08), Field Residency (08), LMCC Swing Space Residency (08-09, 12), Bogliasco/Jerome Robbins Foundation Fellowships (Italy 07), Help Desk (05-06), HERE’s Artist Residency (02-03), Dance/NYC Artistic Advisory Board (02-03), ACDFA Adjudicator (04, 07, 16), TPAC/LMCC Space Grant (05-06), University of Oregon Alumni Award & Boekhelheide Creativity Award (05 & 06), Bates Dance Festival Emerging Choreographer Award (98). Funding includes: Asian Cultural Council, Evelyn Sharp Foundation, Harkness Foundation (via HERE), Mertz Gilmore Foundation (via La MaMa), Fund for Creative Communities, DCA, BAC/JPMC, BAC/DCA, BAC/NYSCA, BAC/Destination Brooklyn, Bossak/Heilbron, Sorin Charitable Trust, Puffin Foundation, MCAF, Meet the Composer, American Music Center, and New Music USA. Current and past teaching: Tisch Summer Festival Residency, Gibney Dance Center, Dance New Amsterdam, Trisha Brown Studio, The Playground, Earthdance (MA), Velocity (WA), Conduit (OR), plus festivals and universities nationally/internationally. Additionally, the Tiffany Mills Company holds an annual Summer Partnering Intensive, now in its 11^th year. Mills hails from Oregon (BA in Dance from University of Oregon, MFA in Choreography from Ohio State University).

MORE ON TIFFANY MILLS

• TIFFANY MILLS COMPANY

• LA MAMA (Performances May 12-15)

PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS

University of Oregon – Dance

Ohio State University – Dance

Vickie Blaine

Trisha Brown

Larry Keigwin

Miguel Gutierrez

DTW/NYLA

Bessie Schonberg

Ursula Payne 

Susan Van Pelt Petry

David Parsons

Guggenheim Museum Performance

John Zorn

Wexner Center for the Arts

TBA Festival at PICA

Bebe Miller

Doug Varone

Klein Technique/Barbara Mahler

“Tomorrow’s Legs”

Danspace Project

“Berries and Bulls”

BAC Residency Program

BAM professional development program

“After the Feast” Collaborators

Gibney Dance

ACDA

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

MOVERS & SHAPERS:
Podcast No.22 – WENDY OSSERMAN

Release Date: April 19, 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 WENDY OSSERMAN:  CHOREOGRAPHER AND DANCER

Wendy Osserman has always taken the politically personally with humor that is the flip side of anxiety. Her work reflects the inner worlds of the dancers and herself as well as the larger world. She has been performing and choreographing since the early 1960s. She formed Wendy Osserman Dance Company in 1976 after appearing as a soloist with Kei Takei, Frances Alenikoff and Valerie Bettis. For four decades, the company has toured and performed in New York City in varied venues including the Delacorte Theater with the New York Dance Festival in 1979, Symphony Space, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace at St. Mark’s Church, Joyce Soho and Theater for the New City. Her many works include thirteen evening-length pieces, over fifteen commissioned works and two dance festivals produced on the island of Paros, Greece. Osserman was featured in Dancing Divas at La MaMa and in Women in Dance at 92Y: History in the Making Anniversary Special.

Wendy Osserman Dance Company (WODC) has toured nationally and internationally. The company’s mission is to collaborate with artists in all media on the creation of performances and workshops with and for all ages. It seeks to develop new vocabularies and to utilize alternative spaces for performance. WODC has collaborated with celebrated Czech singer, musician and composer Iva Bittova; composer/musician Skip La Plante; Jordan McLean, Victor Lewis, and David Simons, among many others and visual artists including Sanya Kantarovsky, Annie Sailer, Sarah Olson, Ken Laser and Charles Hinman. Site specific work has been commissioned by The Chelsea Art Museum 2006-‘11, Friends of the Hudson River Park and Community Environmental Center, Solar One. The company has been presented throughout NYC by the Vision Festival at Symphony Space, the 92nd Street Y, Dixon Place, Theatre Within at the Beacon Theater for 10^th Anniversary of John Lennon Tribute, Luminatra at Baryshnikov Art Center, Joyce Soho, Dancenow/NYC/DancemOpolitan at Joe’s Pub, and Dancenow/NYC/TheFestival.

MORE ON WENDY OSSERMAN

• WENDY OSSERMAN DANCE COMPANY

• THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY (Performances April 20-23)

PODCAST INTERVIEW LINKS

92nd Street YMCA

Ballet Russes

Bonnie Bird

West Side Story

Martha Graham School

Noguchi “Embattled Garden” Sets

Limon Technique

Betty Jones

Daniel Nagrin and Helen Tamiris

Valerie Bettis

Eliot Feld

Donald McKayle

Smith College

Martha Myers

Labanotation

Alice Condadina

Parthenon

Robert Ellis Dunn

The Yard

Kei Takei

NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study

Iva Bittova

Chelsea Art Museum

Theater for the New City

Helen Simoneau

Authentic Movement, Nancy Zendora

Mark Morris – Dance for Parkinson’s Disease

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

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