Modern Movement Festival 2013
Modern Movement Festival 2013
is a celebration of Modern Dance in contemporary culture. Join us for a series of Modern Dance technique classes with Daniel McCusker, a concert featuring work by McCusker, Heidi Henderson, Melody Ruffin Ward, and Kathryn McNamara, and a breakfast chat with the artists about their work and where it fits in with contemporary culture. Express yourself at our barefoot boogie and get to know the movers and shakers in our dance community!
Contact Stephanie Turner for more info: (860) 377-3778
Contact Stephanie via email
is a celebration of Modern Dance in contemporary culture. Join us for a series of Modern Dance technique classes with Daniel McCusker, a concert featuring work by McCusker, Heidi Henderson, Melody Ruffin Ward, and Kathryn McNamara, and a breakfast chat with the artists about their work and where it fits in with contemporary culture. Express yourself at our barefoot boogie and get to know the movers and shakers in our dance community!
Contact Stephanie Turner for more info: (860) 377-3778
Contact Stephanie via email
April 26-28 @95 Empire
Modern Movement Festival Concerts
April 27 at 8PM
April 28 at 2PM
April 27 at 8PM
April 28 at 2PM
Featured Teaching Artists
Daniel McCusker
His Work: “Daniel McCusker’s long-limbed geometrical dances fairly burst with heart.… That’s because their rigorous structure, their edgy dynamics, and their idiosyncratic gestures permit them to show rather than tell their stories, as the best novelists do. … [His] creations… are abstract, nearly pristine. Their emotional content, drawn from some of the grand themes -– loss, love, hope –- arise from how the dancers use McCusker’s shapes and traffic to communicate with one another.”
— Thea Singer, Boston Globe, 2003
His Class: Daniel McCusker teaches a hybrid modern technique class that emphasizes basic technique, spatial fluency and alignment. Dancing is the focus of his class. Material ranges from the pedestrian to the lyrical with movement phrases that go to the floor and into the air.
danielmccuskerdanceprojects.org
Heidi Henderson
Her Work: Heidi Henderson, choreographer for elephant JANE dance, a pick up company in RI, is a four time recipient of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Choreography Fellowship. elephant JANE dance has performed at the South Bank Centre in London, in New York City, at Jacob's Pillow Inside/Out Festival, at The International Festival of Dance in Taegu, Korea, at the Bates Dance Festival, and around New England. Heidi has danced in the companies of Bebe Miller, Nina Wiener, Peter Schmitz, Sondra Loring, and Paula Josa-Jones. Heidi is a contributing editor at Contact Quarterly, a vehicle for moving ideas. Heidi received her BA from Colby College and her MFA from Smith College and is an Associate Professor of dance at Connecticut College. She has been teaching at the Bates Dance Festival for many years.
Her Class: Heidi’s modern technique class prioritizes: paying attention deeply on a cellular level, find an efficient sense of center and then losing it, reveling in the specificity of complex sequencing, dancing large loopy phrases, and feeling joy.
elephantjanedance.com
Take Heidi's class on Saturday, April 27 from 9:30-11:30 @95 Empire
Melody Ruffin Ward
Her Work:
Video of the Turning House Project
Video of Distilled Verse No.5
Her Class:
Video of the Bell House
Take Melody's class on Friday, April 26 from 6:00-7:30 @95 Empire
Daniel McCusker
His Work: “Daniel McCusker’s long-limbed geometrical dances fairly burst with heart.… That’s because their rigorous structure, their edgy dynamics, and their idiosyncratic gestures permit them to show rather than tell their stories, as the best novelists do. … [His] creations… are abstract, nearly pristine. Their emotional content, drawn from some of the grand themes -– loss, love, hope –- arise from how the dancers use McCusker’s shapes and traffic to communicate with one another.”
— Thea Singer, Boston Globe, 2003
His Class: Daniel McCusker teaches a hybrid modern technique class that emphasizes basic technique, spatial fluency and alignment. Dancing is the focus of his class. Material ranges from the pedestrian to the lyrical with movement phrases that go to the floor and into the air.
danielmccuskerdanceprojects.org
Take class with Danny through our master class series! (click for more info)
Kathryn McNamara
Her Work: In life we face many perceived limitations; I am interested in setting some limitations (and some implements) on two bodies and figuring how they interact and react within the confines. At times this offers them progress and at times failure (which both have gifts within). It has been fun to realize how I accept and then totally want to obliterate these structures.
Her Class: ...an invigorating mix of work, connection, fluidity and poise. This class has a strong focus on dance conditioning and evolves to explore the body's full range of potential.
We can exist in a place that we work to our full potential without placing unnecessary demand on our bodies and psyche. This is simply finding true joy in the physicality and allowing for the work to unfold in rhythm, space and sensation. This is dance.
Take Katie's class on Saturday, April 27 from 1:30-3:30 @95 Empire