Creative Reset: The Practice of Making with Audacity

Creative Reset: The Practice of Making with Audacity

Education Frame | Work News & Updates

What: Seven sewing classes in which you will make a dress and learn to adapt that basic dress pattern to work for different bodies and styles. 

When: Tuesday evenings, 7-8 PM, October 6, 13, 20, 27, November 3, 10, and 17, 2020

Where: Right in front of your very own sewing machine in the comfort of wherever you have room to make a dress. Yes, you need to provide your own sewing machine. We will help you learn to use it. Classes are held online.

How: Register here. Classes are $10 each, and you must sign up for all seven classes in order to finish your dress.

Why: Once, I tried to make a dress. I put a square pocket on the chest, and I sewed all four sides of that pocket to the bodice. It was not great. If only I’d had Ashley Horn Nott to help me.

Ashley would have had a plan for my inexperience, my ignorance, my besotted love for the fabric and my overconfidence in “figuring out” a sewing machine. The first time Ashley took on a costume-making project for a dance company, her sewing experience was straight lines and stuffing. Pillows. She knew she could sew a pillow cover, and the rest she had the audacity to make up.

And it worked! Today, Ashley has made costumes for most of the modern dance companies in Houston, including her own productions. Absolutely hundreds (possibly thousands?) of dresses and other costumes gorgeously crafted. Why did Ashley’s gamble worked and mine didn’t? I’m guessing that Ashley had more tenacity to match her audacity than I did. She also made the compelling decision to promise other people that she would complete her project. No one cared when I folded up my half-dress with its unusable patch of a pocket and never unfolded it again. Ashley had a commitment to people she cared about, people who were counting on those costumes, and that accountability motivated her through the “now I have to seam-rip the whole damn thing” moments.

Let us be that accountability for you. Maybe you’ve been saying that you want to sew your own clothes. Maybe you found the most amazing fabric. Maybe you found that fabric years ago and you’re ready to give it form. Maybe you are a dancer and you want to be able to make costumes for yourself and others. This is a chance to create beside a self-made professional. Grab your audacity and make it into a dress. Your dress.

 

How is making a dress a creative reset? Um, can I answer that tomorrow? It’s kind of a whole thing…

 

 

 

The Balanced Bath: A Prelude to Your Creative Reset Workshop

The Balanced Bath: A Prelude to Your Creative Reset Workshop

Frame | Work News & Updates

The week has just started, but Wednesday is coming. Humpday, right in the middle. What a perfect time to retreat from busy-ness. What a perfect time to try a Creative Reset.

 

You’re familiar with the Creative Reset series, right? It’s Frame Dance Productions’ offering of workshops to our community – in Houston and online – at a time when we all need quick responses to the uncertain and unfamiliar. And it would be nice to make these responses with a bit of grace, with awareness, with balance.

 

You know what will help? Water. Fortunately, Frame Dance has a workshop for that this Wednesday, September 16 at 7:30 PM. Know where it’s meeting? Wherever you want it to. Creative Reset is a series of learning and tool-building recalibrations, and our workshops are all about being stretched out and then coming from multiple directions to settle into ourselves.

 

This Wednesday, you’re going to work with water, first by yourself, and then in a workshop. You’re going to give your body and mind an evening of balance and flow. 

 

Note: the balanced bath is only a suggestion! It is not a part of the workshop or a prerequisite for Brooke Summers-Perry’s watercolor class. But it’s a pretty great compliment to the class and a chance to set aside a couple of hours for yourself in the middle of the week.

 

First, you’re going to clean your tub if it needs cleaned (which it will if it is like my tub which is also a shower and is shared by the people who live with me. These are not bath people). Nice and clean. No harsh ingredients in those cleaning supplies, no irritation to your lungs or your hands. All right. Now you’re going to take off your clothes, take off your day. Ahhh. You did your work and you did it well. Time to let it go. By all means, dry brush while you fill that tub. Light candles if that relaxes you. Take a nice stretch, arms up with a big inhale, and roll down on the exhale. Get out a clean towel, fresh from the laundry or linen closet, and set it next to your tub. Check the water. Warm it up or cool it down if necessary. It’s almost time to get in.

 

What does your body need right now? 

Magnesium in Epsom salts soothes sore muscles and softens skin.

Oatmeal treats sensitive skin, and even soothes irritation as severe as sunburn and hives.

Milk, coconut milk, and coconut oil all moisturize and have anti-inflammatory properties.

And then there are the ingredients that work – in part – by smelling w o n d e r f u l:

Ginger clears congestion and aids headaches (but can be irritating to sensitive skin).

Dried, fresh, or distilled to essential oil, lavender, rose, and eucalyptus benefit the skin and the spirit.

Just a bag or two of your favorite tea will turn your tub into a tiny oasis.* 

 

Now that you have prepared the water, get in slowly. Feel the difference that the water makes on your skin, on your muscles. Breathe. Cover yourself as deeply as you can, and feel the parts of you that float. Swish your body and feel how that changes the water and your body in the water. Now be still, and think of nothing.

 

When it is time, get out of the tub. Rinse your body if it needs rinsing. Thank the water, and anything you put in it, for serving you well. Pull that plug. Get dry. Get moisturized. Put on whatever you like to wear best right now; your favorite pajamas, a pretty sundress, overalls, a big fluffy robe. You are about to take an art class with Brooke Summers-Perry, and she does not care what you wear as long as it doesn’t impede your work. 

 

You are rested and focused and ready to meet the water again, but in a new way. Color it. Play with it. You are mostly water, remember. Our need for it is literal, and perhaps this is why we relate to it so well metaphorically. Get stirred up, settle, wave, float with it, push it, be moved by it, flow. It is in you and it is a tool. Use it.

*Ingredients suggested by the website helloglow.co. Go here for yummy bath recipes.

Dance in Quarantine: Responses and Resources

Dance in Quarantine: Responses and Resources

Education Frame | Work Links We Like News & Updates

I don’t need to tell you that we as a society have gone through massive and abrupt changes in recent months. I would like to take this opportunity to notice and celebrate the ways that dancers and choreographers – always nimble, always flexible – have created, discovered, expanded, adapted, worked and reworked formats for creating and sharing dance in this time of uncertainty. In the role of artist, dancers and choreographers both lead and reflect our responses to events and our shifting perspectives. The art of dance has held an important place in quarantine culture since it began, becoming uniquely popular as we stay home to stay safe. 

 

By the end of March, publications like the LA Times and Vanity Fair were reporting on online dance classes and dance parties, while industry journals like Dance Enthusiast had designated space for social distance dance content. Dance companies responded with choreography and editing that allowed dancers to dance alone together. On March 29, the Martha Graham Dance Company posted “Sharing the Light,” excerpts from Graham’s dance Acts of Light performed by company members in domestic and outdoor spaces. In format, “Sharing the Light” is reminiscent of the gorgeous dance films of Mitchell Rose, specifically 2016’s “Exquisite Corps” and 2019’s “And So Say All of Us,” where dancer-choreographers are connected by movement, music, and editing while dancing worlds apart. It is an adaptable format. For example, it is used adorably and with feeling by YouTubers Dylan Arredando in a series of Quarantine Movement Chain Letters, and Prischepov TV to present the Quarantango.

 

Dance educators were quick to adapt to virtual dance. Within days of cities declaring lockdown, studios big and small moved their classes online, and we all found the most Zoom-able corner of our house and turned it into a dance studio. Suddenly, anyone with an internet connection could study dance with the schools of Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham, Gibney Dance, and the aforementioned Martha Graham. Smaller local and regional studios without the resources of these legends have not had to navigate digital dance instruction alone. The wonderful people at the National Dance Education Organization began sharing resources for on-line dance education on March 24 and, as of today, have produced and shared fifteen free webinars on the subject. Luna Dance Institute in Berkeley, CA, hosts weekly practitioner exchanges that gather dance leadership from around the country to discuss concerns and solutions in virtual dance education. 

 

Our dance community has not missed a step (pun intended!) in it’s goal to provide quality dance training, and has even found exciting new possibilities in the online format. Student dancers are having a crash course in dance-for-camera as they consider framing, space, and editing as part of their “digital studio” skills. Pre-recorded classes give dancers a chance to look carefully, to slow down the movement, and to revisit it at will. Holding classes in the home allows the entire family to participate in dance education, and interacting with studios via social media provides a different, sometimes broader, sometimes deeper relationship between a dancer’s family and their instructors. The domestic/public spheres are being broken down and renegotiated, as are so many parts of the larger culture, offering new possibilities as old practices are eliminated or put on hold. We are learning together, and together we are remaking our world. That’s not hyperbole. That’s bodies, in motion, making choices.

Please share online dance resources – instructional and/or just fun to watch – in the comments. Show us part of your world!

Performance Anxiety with Matthew Cumbie

Performance Anxiety with Matthew Cumbie

Frame | Work Interviews

Introducing Performance Anxiety, stories from the artistic trenches

Framers, we support you as dancers, as performers, as creators, and as risk-takers.  Toward that end, we asked some of our favorite creatives to share their risk-taking and anxiety-producing experiences, to give us a peek at their process through whatever they personally have to push through or float through or let wash over them to achieve their goals of art-making and art-sharing. We hope you find encouragement and recognition in their words.

First to share is Matthew Cumbie, a collaborative dance artist living and working in Washington, DC, originally from Houston, and an experienced multigenerational dance leader from his time in Liz Lerman’s Dance Exchange. We are incredibly excited to welcome Matthew “home” this weekend as guest teacher at our MultiGen class on Saturday morning.  We are so excited to share Matthew’s considerable talents, in fact, that we are opening Saturday’s class to the public. Please contact Bobbie.Hackett@framedance.org to register.

Here is Matthew’s story.

About Performance Anxiety

I like to think that, by nature, I fall more on the introverted side of a spectrum. Which I find interesting, considering that my creative practice is rooted in working with people of all ages and backgrounds, and across ideas and disciplines. It takes a lot of energy and focus to step in front of a room and facilitate a process that will foster enough curiosity, generosity, and imagination to move the room, no matter the size; to perform- if you will- in such a way that will bring me and these ideas and people closer towards collaboration. 

 

This past fall, I was on residency in South Carolina, making a new work with the Moving Body Dance Company and teaching at the University of South Carolina. Before stepping into my first workshop, I sat down in an empty studio to breathe and collect my thoughts and energy. I was about to feel a rush I only find from collaboration, and the thrill of discovering things together. And I knew I needed this moment. It didn’t strike me until then, though, that this was my pre-performance practice. I sometimes imagine that the moment before stepping on stage, or starting a workshop, or leading a meeting- that this is what it must feel like to be launched out of a cannon or blasted into space. It’s exhilarating, terrifying, and kinetic. I have come to know that, wherever I am and whatever I am about to do, I need a moment to turn into myself before I share myself with others.

 

When I was asked to write something on performance anxiety, I immediately began to wonder what I would write about. The more I think about it now, the more I think that we can find examples of this in all parts of our life. Because isn’t this anxiety ultimately about sharing what we have with others, and doing the best we can with that? I’m reminded of one my favorite sayings by Liz Lerman: “The world is fragmented. I am not.” 

About Matthew

Matthew Cumbie (he/him/his) is a collaborative dancemaker and artist educator living in Washington, DC. His artistic research cultivates processes and experiences that are participatory and intergenerational, moving through known and unknown, and bring a poetic lens to a specifically queer experience. His choreography- considered “a blend of risk-taking with reliability, [and] a combination of uncertainty and wisdom,” by Kate Mattingly- weaves together a physical vocabulary of momentum and clarity, revelatory moments, and a belief in a body’s capacity to document and reflect back our lived experiences. 

 

He has danced in the companies of Christian von Howard, Keith Thompson|danceTactics Performance Group, jill sigman|thinkdance, Paloma McGregor|Angela’s Pulse, and Dance Exchange- an intergenerational dance organization founded by Liz Lerman- where he eventually became an Associate Artistic Director and the Director of Programs and Communications. Currently, he creates work with Annie Kloppenberg, Betsy Miller, and Tom Truss, and collaborates with a team of multidisciplinary artists through Matthew Cumbie Projects; Matthew also dances for Christopher K. Morgan & Artists. His work has been commissioned and supported by places like Dance Place, the Kennedy Center, and Harvard University, and by the National Endowment for the Arts, the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities, the Arcus Foundation, and the Somerville Arts Council. Originally from Houston, Texas, Matthew holds undergraduate degrees from Texas Lutheran University and Texas State University and an MFA in dance from Texas Woman’s University.

Photo Credits, top to bottom: Photo by Jesse Scroggins, featuring Darryl Pilate and Matthew in Growing Our Own Gardens: Reminiscin’ on Roots. Photo by Sarah Christine Nastoupil, featuring Matthew leading a workshop at the Texas Dance Improvisation Festival. Photo by Ben Carver, featuring Matthew and Thomas Dwyer in Dance Exchange’s “New Hampshire Ave: This Is a Place To…”

Let’s Talk About Women and Social Anxiety

Let’s Talk About Women and Social Anxiety

Frame | Work News & Updates

Considering Oh, I have to wash my hair In Terms of Cursorily Googled Research.

Yes, I am woman. Yes, I have (too much) experience with social anxiety. Yes, I am performing in Oh, I have to wash my hair this week. And yes, I did Google “women and social anxiety” to find authoritative sources for this blog post. Let’s talk about it. There is a place for comments, y’all. Use it.

 

First, let’s hear from a woman who has researched and experienced social anxiety. I found this personal and professional narrative on the website The Cut in an interview by Cari Romm with writer Andrea Petersen, science and health reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Peterson published the book On Edge: A Journey Through Anxiety and in it she writes that “there is no greater risk factor for anxiety disorders than being born female.” Petersen continues,”women are about twice as likely as men to develop [an anxiety disorder], and women’s illnesses generally last longer, have more severe symptoms, and are more disabling.” 

 

Lydia Hance, choreographer and Frame Dance Founder and Artistic Director, has identified a very real phenomenon. She has also identified one of the insidious patterns of social anxiety, one that hides in the veil of “nature” and gender. It is the idea that girls and women need to prioritize the feelings and opinions of others, and the idea that girls and women are under threat and need be fearful and suspicious to ensure their survival. In On Edge, Peterson discusses research on parenting that shows both mothers and fathers, with their language and their behavior, discourage daughters from physically risky play while encouraging sons to take risks, projecting their assurance that boys are capable of either accomplishing the difficult task or of accepting the hurt they might suffer. 

 

“So, while this kind of parenting might protect girls physically, the research suggests that it also contributes to this feeling of vulnerability, that the world is a dangerous place. Because the message that it sends to girls – encouraging them to be very cautious and always highlighting safety and danger – is that the world is a dangerous place and that they can’t cope on their own. And that feeling of vulnerability of course is a core belief of anxiety as well.”

 

In the program Oh, I have to wash my hair, look for the generational, parental encouragement – or insistence – for girls to accept social discomfort and fear. Do you see messages that female safety depends on external approval, which depends on their presentation, which is expected to be inoffensive, congenial, pleasant, acquiescent? Where are these messages in the show? Do you find them in your life? How dated or contemporary are these ideas? How are they encouraged or challenged in society?

 

Peterson talks about a sense of vulnerability that is primarily physical when it comes to parents and young children, but she points to the idea that this fear becomes generalized, and in social anxiety the belief that one is threatened with damage or destruction is no less real than the risk of falling off the monkey bars. But it is endlessly more ambiguous and subtle.

 

Stephan G Hoffman is director of the Social Anxiety Program at Boston University and he says, in an interview with Olga Khazan on theatlantic.com, that “people are social animals, and we have a strong desire to be part of a group and to be accepted by the group. Social anxiety is a result of the fear of a possibility that we will not be accepted by our peers. It’s the fear of negative evaluation by others, and that is [part of] a very fundamental, biological need to be liked.”  Angela Chen of the website theverge.com interviewed clinical psychologist Ellen Hendriksen and about her work with social anxiety and about her book How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety. Hendriksen, echoing Hoffman, says the “social anxiety is a perception that there is something embarrassing and deficient about us, and, unless we work hard to conceal or hide it, it will be revealed and we will be judged or rejected for it.”

 

What does this fear of “negative evaluation,” judgement, and rejection feel like for you? Are there certain kinds of environments or people where these feelings are stronger? How do you address these fears when you see or hear about them in other people, perhaps in your child? Can you identify these fears in any part of Oh, I have to wash my hair, perhaps in the music, a dance score or scene, or an individual gesture or action? 

 

Both Hendriksen and Hoffman describe socially anxious people as employing certain habits before, during, and after stressful situations. Says Hoffman, 

 

Initially, they will dread the event, going there, they will worry excessively about the upcoming social event. They will be predicting that the worst thing will come true. And they will be extremely worried for a long period of time. Once you bring them into the situation, when they have to face whatever social challenge there is, they will then often report that they have no control over their anxiety. They believe that a mishap would have disastrous, long-lasting, irreversible consequences. They will report that they are not in control of their body, of their anxiety response, that others will see how anxious they are, and then they will try to avoid, to get out of the situation and escape. Sometimes they try to use strategies that are more subtle, such as holding tight on a glass while they talk to someone so people don’t see them shake and tremble. They will maybe stare at the ground to avoid eye contact. After the event, they will often engage in post-event rumination. Even in ambiguous situations that weren’t that bad, they will interpret them in a negative way, and identify weaknesses that they showed. This establishes a vicious cycle, and the next time they have to go into a similar situation, they will expect things to be even worse.”

 

And Hendriksen:

 

“The vast majority of social anxiety is anticipatory. People who are socially anxious engage in ‘safety behaviors,’ which are simply behaviors that trying to help you tamp down anxiety in the moment. For example, if you’re at a party and feel anxious, you hover on the edge of the room or you scroll on your phone or you might rehearse what you plan to say beforehand to make sure it doesn’t sound stupid. These behaviors take up a lot of bandwidth. If you’re thinking about how you come across, and there is very little room left over to just be our authentic, friendly self.”

 

Did you notice anticipatory anxiety in the dances? Specific behaviors dancers used to convey their stress? Can you identify “safety behaviors” of your own, or that you’ve noticed in others? How about the bandwidth of calamitous thinking? Doesn’t the idea of all this wasted energy and unnecessary suffering just knock you over like a wave?

 

Ugh. Thanks, I guess, Lydia, for asking us to look at this morass.  

 

I will, though, leave you with a few notes of encouragement. First, notice the subtitle of Ellen Hendriksen’s book: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety. This sounds like a call to be gentle with ourselves (although I’ve barely touched here on perfectionism and all of the ways it lives in the feminine psyche and feeds social anxiety, it is all over Oh, I have to wash my hair). Hendriksen isn’t saying that we must Silence our Inner Critic and Destroy Social Anxiety, but that there is the possibility of shushing the voice of fear and taking a distanced, more objective posture toward the experience of social anxiety. Hendriksen advises that we continue to engage with anxiety-producing social situation, because if we give up then we give in to “the two most fundamental lies about social anxiety:” first, the idea that the “worst-case scenario is a foregone conclusion.” If you don’t go to the Met Gala because you know that you’ll fall on the stairs and no one will ever respect you again, then you can never go to the Met Gala and not fall on the stairs. “And the second is that ‘I can’t deal.’ When we avoid experiences, we don’t get the evidence to disprove those two lies of social anxiety. We don’t see our own capabilities.” If you don’t go to the Met Gala because you know that you’ll fall on the stairs and no one will ever respect you again, then you can never go to the Met Gala and not fall on the stairs, or, go to the Met Gala, fall on the stairs, and find that people still respect you, and are in fact concerned for your well-being. 

 

Hendriksen even finds a positive perspective on being a woman with social anxiety. “The one thing I always like to add is that social anxiety is a package deal, and it often comes bundled with strengths like high standards and empathy and being helpful and altruistic. People who have social anxiety are often good listeners and conscientious and they work hard to get along with fellow humans. And those are all really amazing strengths that won’t go away even as people work on their social anxiety.” (I might have to buy this book. Women With Social Anxiety Book Club, anyone?) 

 

If you have social anxiety, you are not alone. If you are a woman with social anxiety, you are surely not alone and you may notice that these identities are connected by myriad strands. You may also notice that you can make compelling, brilliant art out of these identities and ensuing experiences. You may also notice that Lydia Hance’s art about those identities also gives us subtle encouragements and embedded choices. As I see the show, she suggests that engaging with anxiety-producing presentations and situations is a choice, so we can either accept or reject the opportunities and messages we are given. I also see that we can become bristly and defensive in our engagements, or we can become soft and find a power in that vulnerability. Mostly, I see that we as women are in this together, and that, again, there is a kind of vulnerability that is actually empowering, and that we as women can give each other the gift of empowered vulnerability in our social interactions. 

 

What did you see?

From Lydia: A Reminder, an Invitation, and a Wee Announcement

From Lydia: A Reminder, an Invitation, and a Wee Announcement

Frame | Work News & Updates

Framers,

Last week I got sick, like stay in bed all weekend sick. PILES of Kleenex on the nightstand sick.  I had to cancel class for about thirty families. I usually prefer to just push through, because it seems silly for one person’s illness to inconvenience 30+. But with Frame Baby #2 baking (yes! Did you hear? She’s due in March), I was thinking of both of us and what we needed to heal.

That got me thinking. Why can it be so hard for us to have boundaries when it comes to our own health? It was easier for me to think of protecting the baby than protecting myself. I relished the feel better, stay in bed responses to my emails. Somehow, other people validating my choice to prioritize my health made it easier.

Before I knew how sick I was, I was outside running on the grass with Micah. We were playing “chase” as he calls it, you may know it as “tag.” At one point he stopped, pointed to his stomach, and said My tummy hurts! He body slammed into the grass and pushed up into the most beautiful upward dog I’ve ever seen. And I thought wow! How did he know to open up is abdomen like that when he got a cramp? He didn’t. His body did.

Our bodies know more than we realize.

The stressful “madness” of the holidays – shopping, planning, social obligations, eating rich food, and thick sweaters in overly heated Houston houses – can have the effect of a sickness creeping in on us. For this reason, I wanted to plan a series of workshops to give time and space for our bodies to lead us into reflection. Whatever the past year held for you, gratitude is a practice, and mindfully celebrating all we have to be thankful for has a deep, cellular impact on our bodies, our long-term health, and our fulfillment.

I truly hope that you join us for these workshops, because they were specifically designed for movers of all bodies and experience levels. Nervous? Bring a friend!

For a welcoming, instructional, and creative class:

I will be teaching two Intro to Modern Dance classes.

For reflection, peacefulness, and opportunities for expression:

Jhon Stronks and I will each lead a Candlelight Dancing class.

For a fun celebration and something tropical:

Jamie Williams will lead a Winter in Hawaii Hula class.

All of these classes are safe for beginners, and Frame Dance always gives dancers choices to make adaptations for any immobility or recovering injuries. Our instructors want to meet you and talk with you before class about any concerns you have.

Like I’ve realized, it’s hard to have boundaries for our own heath—physical, mental and spiritual. But, here I am saying to you feel better, come dance.

Hand to heart,

Lydia

Lydia’s Big Professional Announcement: Composer Competition Winners, 2019

Lydia’s Big Professional Announcement: Composer Competition Winners, 2019

Frame | Work News & Updates

 

Dear Framers,

Lydia here. Drum roll, please! 

 

I am thrilled to announce the winners of the 2019 Frame Dance Composer Competition, and eagerly anticipate the work that the company and I will do with them in the coming performance year. 

 

Frame Dance is dedicated to working with 100% new music in all of its productions and has held to this commitment since its inception. As a means to access outstanding new music, Frame Dance has held an annual competition for the past nine years to select music for its upcoming season. The winning composers’ music becomes the basis of a new original work at Frame Dance in film and/or live performance. This has given us opportunities to work with over 24 contemporary composers. Our commitment to new music benefits Houstonians by exposing the work of new composers to local audiences. This successful competition has attracted exciting composers from across the world to collaborate with Frame Dance. A list of past winners can be found here.

 

Let me give you a quick taste of what you’re in for this year. First, the panel consisted of Charles Peck (2017 winner), Daniel Harrison (2018 winner), and Patrick Moore (Axiom Quartet cellist and frequent collaborator with Frame Dance), and me. We reviewed about 200 pieces of music and chose four. That’s stiff competition, people. On the call for music we indicated that we were looking for at least one piece of music for cello (because of our upcoming collaboration with Patrick), and we selected:

 

-a surprising and engulfing electronic piece by Jake Sandridge,  

-a meticulously crafted dynamic trio for cello, violin, and piano by Jack Frerer, 

-a highly restrained and delicately suspenseful piano piece by Paul Kerekes, and 

-a heavenly and shadowy piece for cello and playback by Hannah Selin.

 

Learn more about them below. I look forward to creating new dances with their music this season. Frame Dance our performances are really like multiple concerts woven into one—dance, music, theater, visual art… are you on our email list and in the loop on our performance announcements? 

 

In Art,

Lydia

 

 

As a composer, sound artist, and performer of contemporary music, Jake Sandridge creates sound as a method of expressing themes of memory, transformation, nature, and comfort. He understands and experiences art as a unique space that allows for the suspension of disbelief where audience and performers can experiment with the juxtaposition of ideas that might originate from dissimilar places. Mr. Sandridge is a doctoral student in the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. 

 

Winning piece: Garden of our Own

 

Composer, violist and vocalist Hannah Selin juxtaposes acoustic instruments with electronic sounds, field recordings and recorded interviews to imagine new and unlikely sound-spaces. Her compositions range from solo instrumental and chamber music with and without electronics, to songs, music for dance, orchestral music and sound installations.

 

Winning piece: Hirondelle

 

 

Paul Kerekes is a composer/pianist based in New York City who often confronts and blurs the space between composition and performance. Omnivorous, he can often be found premiering pieces with his piano sextet Grand Band or his quasi-rock-band composer-performer-collective, Invisible Anatomy. As consummate collaborator, he plays well with others and feeds off the exchange of creative energy. 

 

Winning piece: Vantages

 

 

 

The “exuberant” and “delicious” (Boston Musical Intelligencer) music of Jack Frerer (b. 1995) has been performed across the US, Australia, Europe and Asia, and will performed this season by ensembles including the Nashville Symphony, the Arapahoe Philharmonic, the Albany Symphony’s “Dogs of Desire” ensemble, and the UT Austin Wind Ensemble, among others. Jack is the recipient of a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Morton Gould Composers Award from ASCAP, the Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composers Award, and the Brian Israel Prize from the Society for New Music.  He is a Tanglewood composition fellow for 2019, a composer for the New York City Ballet’s 2019 Choreographic Institute, and is currently Composer-in-Residence with the Arapahoe Philharmonic. Jack studied with John Corigliano and Robert Beaser at The Juilliard School, and was awarded a Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant upon graduation. 

 

Winning piece: Stutter Step

Making Dance Makers

Making Dance Makers

Education Frame | Work

Good Dance Makes Good People: Frame Dance Production’s Youth Ensemble

Mini Framers (ages 3.5-5), Little Framers (ages 5-7), and Junior Framers (ages 8-13) comprise the Frame Dance Youth Ensemble, a training and performing group for developing dance makers. 

Dance makers are artists who learn to communicate through dance. They learn to use dance as a way to understand themselves and the world around them. They learn to use that understanding to develop an idea, and they learn to use movement, space, lighting, costume, and music to present that idea to an audience. They learn to communicate through dance, and to do so with integrity and intention.

Dance makers learn skills in the studio that profoundly improve other areas of their lives. Youth Ensemble dancers develop body knowledge, both in the sense of knowing what their body can do and in their understanding of themselves and their world through the immediacy of physical action and reaction. Dancers develop an innate sense of physics through movement. Dance making builds students’ planning and decision-making skills in deep, considered ways as they create and learn choreography, and on the fly as they learn to dance improvisationally. For all ages (but with implications that change over time), physical communication helps dancers understand body boundaries. The communication skills of negotiation, connection, and articulation of ideas are routinely practiced in ensemble dance and move smoothly from the studio setting to any arena where your child works as part of a team. For all of these reasons and more, good dance makes good people, and both are found in abundance in the Frame Dance Youth Ensemble.  

Registration is (still) open! Mini Framers starts Wednesday, September 4 at 3:30 PM. Little Framers starts Thursday, September 5 at 4:15. Junior Framers have options that begin tomorrow, Tuesday, September 3 at 4:15. All classes meet at our studios on Shepherd at Westheimer. Please use the links above to register and for more class details.

See you amazing students in the studio!

 

Frame Dance Soirée: Our Hosts

Frame Dance Soirée: Our Hosts

Frame | Work

Frame Dance Company is made up of brilliant and passionate dancers, and our collaborating artists are pretty amazing, too. The following Framers and Friends have generously offered to serve as hosts at our annual FUNdraising Soirée. Meet them in their Framer statements and bios below and be impressed. Meet them in person at the Soirée and be inspired.

Jacquelyne Boe – Dance

Houston Press 100 Creatives; Dance Source Houston’s Artist in Residence Program; 2019-2020 Lawndale Studio Artist Program.

“A Framer is any human who associates with Frame Dance and wants to be a part of it. I’m a Framer because I believe in Frame Dance’s mission to empower Houstonians to communicate, inspire, and connect to the world and others through movement, community and artistic collaboration, and technology.”

See more of Jacquelyne dancing with Frame Dance and Hopestone Dance, and performing her own choreography. Jacquelyne teaches dance with Frame Dance, the Hope Project, and Houston Ballet. Find her here online: http://jjboe.com/

Braden Hunt – Theater  

Actor: Ensemble Theater, Main Street Theater, AD Players, Stages, Masquerade Theatre. Teaching Artist: AD Players

“I met Lydia Hance while doing a production with the late Horse Head Theatre Company in a production called The Sonic Life of a Giant Sea Tortoise by Toshiki Okada. The director, Philip Hays, wanted movement to inform the dialogue throughout and Lydia was hired as our movement coach. I was really inspired by the exercises Lydia guided us through and I continue to use them in my own training and in my teaching. I told Lydia that I wanted to work with her and continue to learn from her again.

“The next season Lydia was planning a piece that involved more narrative than she was accustomed to and invited me along to be in the show and help form the narrative. This show was called My Beloved and followed the lives of some high school students from the day of their senior prom to middle age. It was a brilliant blend of interactive theatre, narrative, and abstract exploration of the human struggle for connection. It’s been truly one of my favorite works to be a part of thus far in my career.

“Since then I’ve been lucky enough to dance with Frame Dance Company in Water Day Dances, Metro Dances, and Let’s Stay Home and Fight. I love to join the Multigen Dancers when I can and share in the community of valued authentic expression that Lydia has created.”

See Braden in Frame Dance Productions, and on stages across Houston. Find him teaching at AD Players Performing Arts Academy (https://www.adplayers.org/performing-arts-academy). Read more about Braden’s work here: https://www.broadwayworld.com/people/Braden-Hunt/

Laura Gutierrez – Dance

Dancer: Jonah Bokaer Choreography; William R. Kenan, Jr., Performing Arts Fellowship at Lincoln Center Education; Dance Magazine “25 to Watch.”

“This year I had the pleasure of working the the Junior Framers and though it was an intimate gathering on Mondays the impact they had on me was a refreshing one.

“Choreographically, I focused on spacial design and how their bodies would move through where they would be performing in addition to what they would be performing. It’s a combination of the two that makes dance so powerful and I wanted to share that with them.

“One thing that struck me was how there was a visible shift in their attitudes before and after class, every check in I’d ask how they were and since they were coming from school they were often sharing something from their day and their spirit and energies were low but by the end of class they were rejuvenated and it would always such a surprise to me to witness that outside of myself.

“I was reminded with this class how dance supports an individuals way of being in the world and also teaches students and teachers alike to be empathetic and communicative with others.”

Laura dances her own choreography on stages and art spaces nationwide. She taught Frame Dance Production’s Junior Framers Ensemble 2018-2019. Find Laura online at http://www.lauraegutierrez.com/

Ashley Horn – Dance

Ashley is a dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, costume designer, and artist from the Houston area. She is Frame Dance’s costume designer, set collaborator, and a founding dancer. She is also a teacher in the early childhood dance classes at Frame Dance. Find Ashley online at http://ashleyhorndance.com/

Jamie Williams

Jamie Williams – Dance

Jamie is a founding member of Aimed Dance, formerly Rednerrus Feil Dance Company.  She has performed with Psophonia Dance Company, and with local independent artists Laura Gutierrez, Brittany Thetford-Deveau, and Rebekah Chappell. Jamie currently serves as a dance professor and the dance program coordinator for San Jacinto College.

Emily Roy Sayre – Dance

Emily’s career has included being featured in 225 Magazine, The Advocate newspaper, and VoyageHouston’s Most Inspiring Stories. The choreographers and companies Emily has had the honor to work with include Uptown Dance Company, The Pilot Dance Project, Frame Dance Productions, Houston Grand Opera, Sean Curran, Julio Monge, Eric Sean Fogel, Christine Crest, Mina Estrada, and Jennifer Mabus. Emily also dapples in dance for camera work. You can find Emily online at https://emilyroysayre.com/

 

Callina Anderson – Theater

Callina is an actor with extensive theater experience in Houston, having performed with Ensemble Theater, Main Street Theater, Horse Head Theater, The MATCH, Mildred’s Umbrella, Boiling Point Players, Cone Man Running Productions, Alley Theater’s Houston Young Playwright Exchange, and as a regular actor with Interactive Theater. Callina collaborated with Frame Dance most recently in METRODances.

Alli Villines – Music, Theater

Alli is a Houston-based performer and voice teacher whom you may have seen in Horsehead Theatre Company’s 2018 production of We’re Gonna Die, or on The Christina and Alli Show, her weekly YouTube music show co-hosted with Christina Wells. Alli is a professional singer, ukulele player, voice teacher, and actor who has credits with the Alley Theatre, Houston Grand Opera, and Catastrophic Theatre Company. Alli performed with Frame Dance in METRODances. You can find Alli online at https://ukulalli.wordpress.com/

Patrick Moore – Music

Patrick Moore is Principal cellist with the Cypress Symphony and the Houston Latin American Philharmonic and is assistant principal cellist with the Opera in the Heights. An avid chamber music player, he is the cellist of the Axiom Quartet, and performs contemporary chamber music with the Aperio New Music Ensemble and the Foundation For Modern Music. Patrick maintains a private studio as adjunct faculty at the University of St.Thomas, and teaches with the University of St.Thomas’ Music Preparatory School where The Axiom Quartet is the string quartet in residence. In addition, Patrick teaches at Axiom Quartet’s annual String Quartet Camp and is on faculty at the American Festival for the Arts during the summer. Patrick and Axiom Quartet are long-time collaborators with Frame Dance Productions, including METRODances performances and premiering works by winners of the Frame Dance Composer Competition. Find Patrick online at http://www.moorecello.com/home

David Rivera – Film

David is Houston Ballet Audio/Video Content Manager. David’s films were screened in the Cozy and Silken portions of Frame x Frame, Frame Dance Production’s inaugural dance on film festival. 

Photo Credits: Jacquelyne Boe by Lynn Lane; Laura Gutierrez by Lynn Lane; Emily Roy Sayre by Toriel Borst; Callina Anderson by Pin Lim/Forrest Photography; Alli Villines by Tasha Gorel

Frame Dance Soirée: Our Organization

Frame Dance Soirée: Our Organization

Frame | Work Interviews News & Updates Uncategorized

The Soirée is Coming! Are you ready?

I’ve checked in with the Frame Dance Board and Manager to see how their Soirée plans are progressing. Let’s peek behind the curtain and check on our team: 

Jonathon Hance

Lydia Hance – Artistic and Executive Director

Jonathon Hance – Technology Director, Chairman of the Board

Supercouple

Hey, Framers! Will we see you at the Soirée?

Yes, you’ll see me (I hope) at the Soiree.

Yeah, that was pretty rhetorical, wasn’t it? In addition to hosting the whole shebang, are you hosting a table?

Jonathon and I are hosting a table.

What kind of hosts are you?

We are pretty big Frame Dance fans, so I’d have to saw we will be very enthusiastic. Sometimes people call us the Happy Hances.

I foresee sore-from-smiling cheeks on Friday. But that’s perfect. I hope that I suffer likewise. After all of the preparation and anticipation, what are you looking forward to at the Soiree?

I am looking forward to being in a room with so many people who are also passionate about art and Houston, and seeing how the audience reacts to some of the surprise elements in the dance two company members are performing…

Oooh! Way to tease the performance! I can’t wait to see these “surprise elements.” It’s so Frame.

So, Lydia, why are you a Framer?

I am a Framer because I have seen how collaboration ignites the creative spirit, and Frame Dance offers that opportunity to all. I am a Framer because I have seen people changed for the better– towards joy and healing– by the work that we do.

Total agreement. A la Soirée!

Bobbie Hackett – Program Manager, Certified Arts Leader!

Bobbie! First Soirée on the Frame Dance team. I know you’ve been busy with preparations for Thursday night. Will we see you there?

Most definitely!

Great! Are you hosting a table?

Nope, I’m doing the behind the scenes work. 😉

So you get to be the conductor/cat wrangler! How would you describe yourself in that role?

I’m an enthusiastic Frame Dance employee and supporter.

Perfect. We will definitely benefit from your enthusiasm and coordination. What are you looking forward to at your first Frame Dance Soirée?

I’m looking forward to the silent auction, honestly. We have a lot of amazing things to offer from so very cool and generous donors. I’m excited to see what people are most interested in.

We do have the best silent auction goodies. They are choice Houstonian cultural goods.

You’ve been with Frame Dance for about six months now and you’ve known us well for much longer. With that experience, why would you say you are you a Framer?

I’m a Framer because Frame Dance lets me do my best work while also challenging me and encouraging me to do the things I’m not so good at. Best job I’ve ever had!

Happy to hear it! I look forward to how effortless you make it all look at the Soirée.

Alina Slavik

Alina Slavik – Board Member, Honorary Italian

Hey, International Framer! Will we see you at the Soiree?

Obviously!  My favorite way to officially kick off summer.

Absolutely. Are you hosting a table?

Yes! Can’t wait to have our friends join us 🙂

So, what’s your goal as a host? What are you hoping for at the Soirée?

As a host, I love helping new Framers find what they love about Frame Dance, whether it’s our film festival, performances in unexpected places, or a class for their child.  As a guest, I always check out the fabulous silent auction offerings and visit the Dip Jar – the most gratifying fundraising invention ever!

Yes and yes! Anything else you’re looking forward to on Thursday night?

Hanging out with my fellow Framers to celebrate another successful year for Frame Dance.

Hasn’t it been an amazing year? And you would know, ‘cause this isn’t your first Soir-odeo! With all of your contributions to and experiences with Frame Dance, why would you say you are a Framer?

Opera singer Beverly Sills said it best: “Art is the signature of civilizations.”  And it should be part of our daily lives.

Truth. See you at the Dip Jar.

Kerri Lyons Neimeyer – Board Member, Blog Writer, Questioner and Answerer/Self

Hey, Kerri! Will we see you at the Soiree?

Well, Kerri, yes you will…in the mirror! (Ba-dum bum).

Are you hosting a table?

I am! I’m excited to have the opportunity to host as I’ve enjoyed myself as a guest at Frame Soirées in the past, and I wasn’t able to attend last year, which would have been my first Soirée as a board member.

What kind of guest/host are you?

Hilarious and grateful. And like a little extra nice-looking in a way that’s fun. That’s how I Soirée. Or, that’s what I’m aiming at, anyway.

What are you looking forward to at the Soirée?

The professional company performance. It just feels like it’s been too long since I’ve seen them do their thing, and they do it the best. Also seeing the whole gang – all of the ensembles and the other folks who love Frame Dance – celebrating our accomplishments together, looking forward to good things together.

Why are you a Framer?

Because Frame Dance recognizes how powerful dance can be in a person and in a community, and it recognizes the dancer/artist in everyone. Those ideas resound with me, profoundly.

Sounds harmonious and intense, Kerri.

It really can be, Kerri. And it’s intensely fulfilling. And I’m learning to find the ease in it, which is just golden. So, you know, win win. Up and up. See you at the Soirée.