Hi, I’m Lydia Hance, Founder and Artistic Director of Frame Dance Productions.
I think dance is one of the most human things we do — and one of the most narrowly offered.
I believe dance can do more, reach more, and belong to more people than the field often makes room for. For sixteen years, we’ve been building the practices, partnerships, and programs that make that possible — and we’ve done it with care, with rigor, and with the kind of trust that families and artists can feel from the first day.
Our teaching staff is part of what makes that trust real. Every teacher at Frame Dance is a working professional artist with decades of experience — choreographers, performers, scholars, and educators who have spent their lives inside the form. Your child, or you, will learn from people who have done the work.
Whoever you are — a parent looking for a class for your child, a dancer wondering where you fit, someone who hasn’t moved like this in years, someone who simply got curious — there is a place for you here.
I’m so glad you found us. Welcome.
— Lydia
PROFESSIONAL BIO
Lydia Hance is a choreographer, curator, and arts leader based in Houston. Her practice moves freely across stage, site, and screen, animated by a curiosity about where dance belongs, who it’s for, and what it can hold. Over the past sixteen years, she has made work in unexpected places — the Galveston pier, the METRO light rail, the backs of U-Haul trucks, downtown tunnels, parks, museums, warehouses, and most recently the gardens at MFAH Rienzi, where she restaged Merce Cunningham’s 50 Looks for thirty dancers. Dance Magazine has called her “a master of making dances in concert with a specific environment.”
Her choreographic work is deeply interdisciplinary, and she has been a longtime champion of new music composers. She has choreographed for institutions outside the modern dance world, including a continuing relationship with the Alley Theatre, as well as Horse Head Theatre and Roanoke Ballet Theatre. She has taught at Washington & Lee University, Rice University, Texas Tech University, and Houston Community College, and her work has been funded by city, state, and national foundations.
Education is a through-line of Frame Dance’s broader practice. With colleague Ashley Horn, she developed the Little Framers Curriculum for early childhood, now implemented at Frame Dance, Community Preschools, and the Houston Area Women’s Center. The company recently launched the Frame Dance Teacher Certification and Frame Dance Classrooms, expanding the reach of its pedagogical work. Through an ongoing partnership with Care Partners, Frame Dance teaches and performs with adults living with memory loss — work that has shaped how the company thinks about who dance is for.
Her curatorial work centers on the Frame x Frame Film Festival, now in its ninth year, and the annual experimental performance series Mise en Scène. Her screen dances have been selected by festivals including the American Dance Festival, Lady Filmmakers Festival, Fuselage Dance Film Festival, and the 3 Minute Film Festival. She has served on the artistic advisory boards of Fresh Arts and DiverseWorks and has curated for the Third Coast Dance Film Festival, Dance Alabama Film Festival, and EnCore Dance on Film Festival.
A graduate of SMU with degrees in Dance Performance and English Literature, Lydia trained at the Taylor School, Graham School, Tisch School of the Arts, Limón Institute, and SMU, and has performed nationally and internationally with professional dance companies. She is originally from the California Bay Area.