Hear From The Framers

Interviews

Hey Framers!

Ms. Catalina Molnari told us one of her favorite local spots in Houston. The Jade Garden Classical Chinese Medicine. If you’ve had a stressful day/ week, this tranquil abode offers soothing teas and healing services including chiropractic, massage, bodywork, re-connective healing and yoga. These holistic classes infuse 2,000 year old traditional medicine methods that help their weary visitors reduce their stress and boost their energy levels.

Frame Dance’s Catalina says it’s a great place to simply relax with a fresh cup of herbal tea after a satisfying session in her martial arts class. Instead of heading home right after work and suffering through Houston traffic, try The Jade Garden Classical Chinese Medicine in the Heights. It must be a great place because Catalina told Frame Dance if she’s not at work or home it’s she’s at The Jade Garden.

 

Click on the picture to find out more!

 

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Frame Dance Productions’ Beginner Adult Workshop According to a Non-Dancing Framer

Education

 

Still not sure about attending the Beginner Adult Workshop?

 

I understand how intimidating it can be to go to a dance class and feel completely overwhelmed. You feel awkward and even slow at times, but this isn’t your typical dance class-it’s better. We weren’t just learning simplified dance moves. This class allows us to forget the mundane calculating world and just lets us enjoy being creative for a day. One of the best things about this workshop is the fact we are not only getting in shape through dance and yoga but we also get the opportunity to expand our creative minds. That’s not something most dance classes teach. That’s why I say this workshop is better. It offers a variety of things that people normally don’t find in typical dance classes.

I’m not a professional dancer so I was very thankful our first session wasn’t dancing at all. We simply walked about the room to loosen up. I could do that! We then learned about the various parts of our feet and I honestly had no idea how complex the human foot was! I found out we have outer, middle and inner parts to our heels, arches, pads and even toes. It felt great stretching each part of my foot. I felt each individual toe move as we walked and it really relieved stress in our backs as well. I enjoyed the first session. It was a great break ice breaker to get me ready for Jackie’s intro to modern dance class.

It was nice having one of the Framers teaching us about basic modern dance steps and exercises instead of having a third party teaching it. It made me feel more connected to the Frame Dance team by seeing how they dance/train and use simple body movements to create beautiful dance routines for different shows. I especially liked the fact we spent so much time lying on the floor doing stretching exercises. Who wouldn’t love that if they went to a dance class?

I loved learning new easy ways to stay in shape that didn’t involve spending a lot of money on equipment. That’s one of the other great things about this workshop! We can learn new skills that require no experience and no special gear. Jackie taught us very basic, what felt like ballet moves. Now don’t worry you’re not expected to perform Swan Lake by the end of the class. They were very simple and we did them several times. It wasn’t like other classes where they show a move and they see if you can get it by the second example. Jackie would put on fun music and we would travel across the room. The moves were kind of a mixer of ballet and basic waltzing moves. I know it sounds intimidating when putting them together but they were very easy to pick up.

After Jackie’s intro to modern dance session, it was time to move onto yoga! Yoga mats out and ready to go! The yoga portion of the workshop was very rewarding physically and mentally. As much as I enjoy doing yoga at home, I wasn’t the most coordinated person in the class, but I had fun. I felt skinnier the more we did it! Definitely worth it! I liked the idea of having a session that everyone was used to. I looked forward to that particular session because it was something I already knew and felt comfortable doing. Plus, everyone got to take a short “nap” in the dark dance studio as a part of yoga. Now that should definitely make you want to go to the workshop. Great idea Frame Dance!

After a great lunch at the Vietnamese restaurant across street, we teamed up with another Framer-Alex, who taught us fun creative exercises that expanded our imaginations during the creative writing portion of the workshop. As I stated before, these workshops aren’t typical. I thought we would just sit around, write in our journals and that was it. Nope! Alex had us walk around the room in any direction we desired and would play word association games. We were still being physically active while being mentally tested.

But my favorite part about the creative writing tutorial was plastering colorful sticky notes all over the dance studio with words or phrases of inspiration. But he took it a step further and made us add onto each others’ work and in the end producing a very original short stanza or poem. That was just amazing to see different people with different levels of written creativity come together and create this beautiful and coherent piece of art. It was amazing to see!

The final part was just fun. I don’t know how to describe it in any other way. Lydia Hance, one of the co-founders of Frame Dance, taught us how to take the words/ phrases we produced from the creative writing class and portray them through dance moves. We basically just built on what we learned from Alex but instead of writing, we used our bodies to convey a story.

We had four people in the final session and we each came up with a different dance move. It was incredible how many stories we could tell just by using four dance moves. Sometimes the story would be about controlling one another like puppets on strings or opening someone’s eyes to the beauty of life. All from four dance moves. Amazing. The best part was it was all from our own creativity. No one was telling us how our part should be or how our part fits into the story. We simply told stories.

All in all, this adult workshop is a wonderful idea for anyone looking to get into shape but not wanting to spend the money on a gym. It’s educational, productive and yet relaxing. This class offers the chance to expand creative minds and stay in shape in fun ways. Tap into your artistic side for a day before heading back to the black, white and gray world of responsibility and math. The Framers did a great job in coordinating a friendly and unique workshop. And it’s only $60 for the whole day! Cheap and easy! What more could you ask for? I hope to see all of you on October 25th at the MET Dance Studio. Until then, keep dancing.

 

Click on the picture and register today!

Frame Dance - Multi-Gen Class - Discovery Green Water Promo -  Photographer Lynn Lane-65.jpg

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Frame Dance Events

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#Houseeit

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Do You Have TunnMysterious tunnel to the lightel Vision?

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Find out every Monday and Wednesday at Noon

in the Downtown Tunnels of Houston

beginning October 5th

 

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8 Lessons for Dancers in Higher Education

MFA Mondays

MFA right

 8 Lessons for Dancers in Higher Education

by Sarah Wildes Arnett

1. Dance is not a terminal field, even though the MFA is. Most dancers (and performers in general) know and accept this as truth – dancers are students their entire lives. There is always a way to improve and become better as our bodies change and as the field evolves. I accepted this long before making the decision to go back to school. What I did not realize until much later was that this applies to my creative work as well. As I went into my thesis work and now, as a professional and in setting choreography on my students, I started the process of reworking old choreography. I’ve now taken what was originally a sextet and translated it into a duet (which works much better that way) that has been reworked at least five times on different dancers, each time finding out new information about the piece. The piece has evolved from a general exploration of rhythms and patterns to being about a simple relationship to death and the afterlife. I’m pretty sure it’s not perfect yet.

2. It’s ok to beat a dead horse (figuratively). Not every piece has to be a masterpiece and you don’t have to make work about something new and different every time. Some things are worth investigating again and again. Just because you tried something once doesn’t mean you are done and that you cannot do it again.

3. Age is just a number. I went to school with people from all walks of life, including those in my MFA program and the undergraduates working on their BFA and BA degrees. I truly believe that there are things to be learned from each other, no matter what the age as everyone brings in their own experiences and ideas. One of the best collaborators I ever worked with in graduate school (and best friends I’ve ever made) was an undergraduate student, Megen Burgess. We still work together and talk weekly about dancing ideas even though we live 9 hours away from each other.

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4. Not every rehearsal has to be in a studio. Megen and I created an entire duet (and mind you, a very physically challenging duet) without managing to spend but maybe a total of 4 hours dancing. Sometimes you just need to have rehearsal at El Carreton. Sometimes you just have to draw a dance.

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5. Write everything down. I cannot tell you the number of brilliant ideas (and I mean brilliant – I should be Trisha Brown by now) that I have forgotten because I didn’t write them down. Continue reading

MFA Monday: Surprises of Grad School

MFA Mondays

MFA rightBiggest Surprises of Grad School

 by Amanda Diorio

 

I would make friends

I thought when I went back to school to get my MFA that I would be entering an uptight academic environment.  I was so preoccupied with the idea of school and relocating my life that I forgot I would be entering a community of like-minded peers. In undergrad, even among dance majors, I was considered the “dance nerd,”   In grad school I was surrounded by not only dancers but specifically  “dance nerds,” people who wanted to explore, dissect and reveal as much about the art as I did.  This community turned out to be a vital support group throughout the process of completing my degree.  Having others to bitch to, socialize, laugh, and share my fledgling art with became essential for my survival during this stressful time.  These bonds were not only a lifeline during the process but created many long lasting friendships and an excellent network that stands strong long after graduation.

 

The teacher/student relationship has evolved

When you enter a graduate program you have already passed a test in the eyes of the faculty.  You have already completed one major academic step and have decided to continue onto another. There are fewer grad students for them to keep track of and you yourself are probably a much better student.  For me this reduced a lot of the intimidationI felt with my undergraduate professors.  Continue reading

MFA Monday!

MFA Mondays

MFA rightI’ve been thinking a lot about what the MFA degree means for artists in our country right now. We’re living in a world so heavily driven by capitalism that any artist struggles with the effects of commercialism and mass production values. Is it really valuable to obtain a degree in the fine arts right now? Obviously, my answer is yes but it is worth recognizing the issues and struggles artists deal with on a daily basis. I’m going to approach this from the ways I’ve dealt with financing my own art, but please feel free to comment and add any advice you may have.

“Fine” art doesn’t necessarily (or hardly ever) generate a lot of cash 858671_563107497041148_2128003440_o-1[1]flow. Artists aren’t usually creating in order to fund an end result, we are looking for an outlet of expression. Some artists are very interested in words of our critics and ticket sales, and some are not. It just depends on what kind of work you are making and why you’re making the work. Certainly the MFA program will give you a good bit of help in both of those directions. The feedback I received from my peers and professors in my choreography classes pretty much spanned the entire spectrum, ranging from questions of how the eyes were directed to asking questions directly to the dance, not me the choreographer (thank you Larry Lavender!) I found that considering my work through these multiple lenses was extremely valuable and gave me much more information about what kind of artist I am.

However you do view your art, if you can find a position at a University that supports creative work as research, you will probably find that funding opportunities are available for travel to conferences, festivals, performances, or wherever it is you decide to take your art. Of course, value is placed on adjudicated works, so when you are competing against other faculty for travel grants, it is important to consider. If full-time faculty work isn’t your cup of tea, it is possible to receive grant money, but it is becoming increasingly more difficult. Individual artists are mostly ineligible to receive grants from most agencies nowadays, you must be affiliated with a nonprofit corporation and an element of community outreach is becoming almost a requirement, with a few exceptions. This is great news for our youth and our communities as it strengthens our audiences and community appreciation for what we do, though it adds one more thing that gets in the way of just making the art. For anyone considering the MFA (or any artists in the field) I would highly recommend taking coursework in arts administration, particularly covering grant writing and non-profits. It was a course I have used time and again in working to fund my own travels and productions since I’ve left school.

For those artists that do depend on ticket sales and contributions (commercial or otherwise) the issue of creating art that is “accepted” is a very real one. The internet has made things so readily available that people can make a few clicks and have world class dancers right in front of them for free. Television has commercialized dance in a way that is boosting support for dance in a positive way, but also in a way that is confusing and misleading for many. In competitive shows like So You Think You Can Dance, audiences see brilliant dancers perform short dances (2-3 minutes) that tell entire stories on high production budgets and they can understand them! It’s not really SYTYCD’s fault – its commercialism as a whole. We get blasted everyday the same – ads, music, tv shows. Its simplified and you understand exactly what you’re supposed to. This makes things incredibly difficult for the abstract artists who aren’t always making art specifically “about” something, thus causing problems when we do get people in seats and they expect to see what they saw on television. I’m not saying there isn’t merit to what the choreographers and dancers do on SYTYCD, because they truly are amazing at creating captivating, well performed, well rehearsed dances in one week for two minutes. It is making our jobs a little more difficult to feel that we have the freedom to say what we want to say in more time and with much less money.


Sarah Wildes Arnett is Founder/Artistic Director of SWADanceCollective and Assistant Professor of  Dance at Valdosta State University in Georgia. She received a Master of Fine Arts in Dance Choreography at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2012 and a Bachelor of Arts in  American Studies from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Sarah’s interests are interdisciplinary as she enjoys integrating her talents  in film-making, photography and music composition into her choreography while also expanding boundaries of genre and style. She continues to perform professionally with various companies and artists in the southeast. Most recently, she has performed and shown work at the MAD Festival (Atlanta), Alabama Dance Festival (Birmingham), NC Dance Alliance Annual Event (Greensboro) and RE:Vision by Forward Motion Theatre (NYC). http://www.swadanceco.com/

Free Events Thursday

Free Events Thursday

Glass Blowing Houston: Make your own Pumpkin

September 14, 2014 – October 26, 2014 (Every Sunday) from 12:00-4:00 pm

Three Dimensional Visions
17442 FM 2920 Rd, Tomball, TX 77377

Every Sunday from September 14th to October 26th we will be teaching how to make glass pumpkins (<3-4 inches in diameter). Each person gets to choose their colors, apply the color and help blow the piece. It takes about 30-45 minutes per person and your pumpkin is available for pick up starting the next business day. There is limited space so everyone must make a reservation, cost is $29 per pumpkin. You can select the time and date on our Calendar and pay for your ticket. There is one ticket per time slot so spots are limited, sign up early. If you don’t want to make your own Pumpkin you can come select one from our Pumpkin Patch. Visit our Calendar to find out the dates and times for the Pumpkin Patch events!

Price: FREE!!! Pre-made Pumpkin prices start at $25.

 

Farmers Market at MainStreet

August 24, 2014 (Recurring monthly on the 4th Sunday) from 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM

18750 Interstate 45, Spring, TX 77373

The Market runs every 2nd and 4th Sunday of the Month •The Market features local, organic, and sustainable produce, honey, oils, and dairy •Grant Wilson, Owner of Gramen Dairy Farms, will be offering a free seminar of the benefits of raw milk, in the Conference Center at 11:00am •All MainStreet America members will receive a 10% discount on all purchases •Don’t forget to bring your coolers and reusable bags •Free parking and public restrooms available •Market will run rain or shine

Price: $15 (Check their website for more details at http://www.mainstreetamerica.com/)

 

Fall Festival & Market

September 26, 2014 – September 27, 2014 from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm

CT Church
9701 Almeda Genoa Rd., Pasadena, TX 77075

Fall Festival & Market (Sponsored by CT Church, 9701 Almeda Genoa Rd., Houston, TX 77075) Friday & Saturday, September 26th & 27th (Friday 12pm-8pm, Saturday 9am-3pm) Outdoor Kid Zone with inflatables & fun games for the kids Food booths Live entertainment Silent auction Shopping booths Lil Tikes Parade.

Price: FREE!!!

 

CraftTexas 2014

September 26, 2014 – December 24, 2014 (Recurring daily)

Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM; Sunday, 12:00 – 5:00 PM

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft

This fall, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft presents “CraftTexas 2014,” the eighth in a series of biennial juried exhibitions showcasing the best in Texas-made contemporary craft. Featuring 49 works by 44 Texas artists, the exhibition includes everything from sculpture, jewelry, textiles, installations, and furniture to concepts that include vernacular architecture, formal elements of design, and man’s relationship to nature. The “CraftTexas” series, which is hugely popular with visitors, provides artists the unique opportunity to have their work seen by three established jurors and included in an exhibition that seeks to broaden the understanding of contemporary craft. The show features exceptional work in clay, fiber, glass, metal, wood and mixed media.

Price: FREE!!!

 

A.I. Lack Series Guest Recital

September 28, 2014 at 2:30pm

Dudley Recital Hall
University of Houston 120 Fine Arts Building, Houston, TX 77004

Gayle Martin, piano Works by Schumann/Liszt, Shatin, Prokofiev, Schubert.

Price: FREE!!!

 

AURA Contemporary Ensemble

September 29, 2014 at 7:30pm

Moores Opera House
120 School of Music, Houston, TX 77004

Rob Smith, director Michelle Perrin Blair, assistant director Dan Gelok, alto saxophone Michael Horvit, composer Phillip Elder, composer Synthesis: Works by Elder, Horvit, Joyce, Lash.

Price: $12

 

Eat Well Wednesday

Eat Well Wednesday Uncategorized

246 Healthy Recipes (That Won*t Break the Bank) Check out more pics like this! Visit: http://foodloverz.net/Easy And Simple Healthy Recipes -  I've been trying to find a great 'green smoothie'. This one sounds delicious

 

Frozen Bananas 

2 bananas

1/4 to 1/3c chocolate chips

1/4 to 1/3c peanut butter

Unsweetened coconut flakes

Set out a large plate with wax paper on it. Cut up the bananas. Heat the peanut butter and chocolate chips on high for minute. stir until smooth. Dip the banana pieces in the mixture. Lay on the wax paper. Use the remaining mixture to spoon over the tops sprinkle the unsweetened coconut flakes on top. Freeze for about an hour until hardened.

 

FROZEN BANANA BITES  . 2 bananas 1/4 to 1/3c chocolate chips 1/4 to 1/3c peanut butter Unsweetened coconut flakes  Set out a large plate with wax paper on it. Cut up the bananas. Heat the peanut butter and chocolate chips on high for minute. stir until smooth. Dip the banana pieces in the mixture. Lay on the wax paper. use the remaining mixture to spoon over the tops sprinkle the unsweetened coconut flakes on top. Freeze for about an hour until hardened.

 

 

Southwest Black Bean Salad

 

15.5 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained

9 oz cooked corn, fresh or frozen (thawed if frozen)

1 medium tomato, chopped

1/3 cup red onion, chopped

1 scallion, chopped

1 1/2 – 2 limes, juice of

salt and fresh pepper

1 medium avocado, diced

Combine items in a large bowl. Squeeze fresh lime juice to taste. Marinate in the refrigerator 30 minutes.

South west black bean salad with avocado  http://thegardeningcook.com/best-healthy-recipes/best-healthy-recipes-page-2/

 

MFA Monday

MFA Mondays

MFA right

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These past several weeks we have had the pleasure of being escorted through a fabulous series of MFA Mondays by Megan Yankee and two of her colleagues Erin Law,  Amanda McCorkle and Gabrielle Aufiero.  What a pleasure it has been.  If you’re just now tuning in, I encourage you to go back through and catch up.

A lot has happened here at Frame Dance, and today I want to fill you in on all things #framer.  First, I’d like to introduce you to our next writer, Lauren Ashlee Small, who will begin her MFA Monday series next week. Her perspective will be new, as she is preparing to begin her MFA program in the Fall.


Lauren Ashlee SmallLauren Ashlee Small
is originally from Springfield, IL. Her training began at Springfield Dance and the Springfield Ballet Company and continued in college where she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance at Belhaven University. Lauren went on to study in The Ailey School’s professional division as a recipient of The Oprah Winfrey Foundation Scholarship and to perform with Amalgamate Dance Company and Dance Into Deliverance. Her choreography has been featured at The Ailey School, Belhaven University, American College Dance Festival, Undertoe Dance Festival at the 92nd Street Y, the New York Jazz Choreography Project, and in Amalgamate’s 7th Annual Artist Series. Lauren has interned with Free Arts of Arizona and Amalgamate Dance Company and was a guest artist at the 2012 Teen Arts Performance Camp in Washington, DC and Emmanuel Ballet Academy’s 2014 summer intensive in Juarez, Mexico.

 

lydia with littlesSecond, we announced on Friday, that we are starting a program called Little Framers.  It is a children’s dance ensemble that will work with the company this year.  Ages 7-9. Registration is open, and space is VERY limited.  More info is here.