Motion State Arts presents
BETSY MILLER DANCE PROJECTS’
AMERICAN / WOMAN
November 4, 2023 . 7pm
wilbury theatre GROUP . Providence, RI
A evening of performances exploring, through a dancer’s lens, what it means to be a woman in America today.
Featuring solos and duets created by Betsy Miller (MA) in collaboration with Northeast-based dance artists: Shura Baryshnikov (RI); Rachel Boggia (CT); Ali Kenner Brodsky (MA); Alexandra James (ME); Ani Javian (NJ); Kellie Ann Lynch (CT); and Lida Winfield (VT).
Interwoven between the live performances will be two short dance films, created with artists Maya Goree (AR) and Jamie Arnold (MT). The weekend will include a post-performance discussion and public classes.
Watch a preview of american / woman
People say the dance field is dominated by women. It isn’t. It is populated by women. The field of professional concert dance does not empower women, understand women, or celebrate women. In so many ways, it reflects the systemic patriarchies of our nation: in issues of labor distribution, opportunities for advancement and recognition, and even bodily autonomy. —Betsy Miller
american / woman endeavors to platform the artistry of women dancers from every state in the U.S. It reveals and celebrates the essence of each of these artists: women-identifying dancers from different backgrounds, at different junctures in their lives and careers.
Motion State Arts is thrilled to have the opportunity to present a Northeast-focused iteration of this extensive ongoing project.
More about american / woman & the artists
COME TAKE CLASS!
$20/class; $35/2 classes; $50/3 classes.
Email motionstatearts@gmail.com to register in advance & ensure your spot.
Saturday, November 4, 10–11:30am: Lida Winfield—Imagine a Future: Dance Improvisation as a Pathway to Social Change
Using improvisation, we’ll explore different ways of composing in the moment. With dance as a tool, we’ll practice transferable skills: creative problem-solving, risk-taking, community-building, confidence, trust, listening skills and leadership. Dance can be a pathway to fostering individual self-expression, self-inquiry, feelings of worth, inclusion, empathy and creativity. We’ll use kinesthetic learning and emotional intelligence to explore the impact that dance can have on us beyond the dance studio.
Sunday, November 5, 10–11:30am: Betsy Miller—Rituals for Resilience
In this restorative movement improvisation workshop, participants are welcomed to come as they are. I will share a three-part practice as a vehicle for self-care, creative expression, and community consciousness. Using a spacious framework built for listening and discovery, we'll allow our intuition and imagination to guide us into transforming the space within us, between us, and beyond. Rituals for Resilience was developed in collaboration with Maryland-based dance artist Kendra Portier as part of the american / woman project, which seeks to platform women dance artists throughout the US and to disrupt traditional power dynamics in the dancer/choreographer relationship through a dancer-centered approach to creative practice.
Sunday, November 5, 12–1:30pm: Alexandra James—Contemporary Dance Practice
Together we’ll ask, how do we challenge and deepen the physical and thoughtful range of the body to investigate the capacity of our creativity? We’ll source material from personal practice and choreographed phrase work to refine tools and deepen investigation, while drawing from sensation, tone, curiosity and rhythm.
ARTIST BIOS
Born and raised in rural Ohio, Betsy Miller is a dance artist, educator, and facilitator now based in Salem, Massachusetts. Her choreography blends improvisational practice, ritual, athleticism, and theatricality through collaborative practices. She has performed with Lostwax Multimedia Dance and Fusionworks, and has recently appeared in works by Kathleen Hermesdorf, Heidi Henderson, Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp, Audrey MacLean and Rachel Boggia, and in collaborations with Matthew Cumbie, Lida Winfield, and Shawn Hove. Miller was a 2023 and 2017 Bates Dance Festival Artist in Residence, 2019 Next Steps for Boston Dance Awardee, and a 2016 Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Choreography Fellow. Currently serving as Associate Professor of Dance at Salem State University, Miller has been on faculty at Providence College, Connecticut College, Dean College, and AS220 (Providence, RI), and regularly teaches and performs as a guest artist throughout New England and beyond. She holds an MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University and a BA in Dance from Connecticut College.
Shura Baryshnikov is a Rhode Island-based multimodal artist who works broadly across dance, theatre, and opera. Recent performance, choreography, and directorial credits include projects with Hartford Stage Company, Emmanuel Music, FirstWorks, Trinity Repertory Company, Boston Lyric Opera, Khambatta Dance Company, Urbanity Dance, Odyssey Opera, and The Gamm Theatre, among others. Shura is a founding member of the Contact Improvisation research and performance ensemble SetGo and was co-director of the contemporary dance project Doppelgänger Dance Collective. Currently, Shura is engaged in a long-term collaborative project with cellist and composer Adrienne Taylor. Since 2017, Shura has served as Head of Physical Theatre for the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Programs in Acting and Directing in the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies at Brown University. She is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association, the American Guild of Musical Artists, and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
Rachel Boggia currently serves as an Associate Professor of Dance at Connecticut College. Her research interests include making multidisciplinary and mediated performance; performing in collaborative creations, improvisation, dance documentary/experimental dance documentation. Further, her research interests include cross-disciplinary collaboration with theater, the sciences and humanities; video editing; dance technique pedagogy; embodiment in on-line education and performance as research. Formerly, Rachel was Associate Professor of Dance and Acting Director of Dance. She also taught and performed at Wesleyan University, Dickinson College and The Ohio State University.
Ali Kenner Brodsky makes gesturally rich and emotionally driven dance-theater works and dance films. Her work makes space for you to become absorbed in a world of reflection, remembering, and connection. She received a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Choreography Fellowship and was honored to be a part of NEFA'S NE Regional Dance Development Initiative 2021/22. She was a 2019 artist-in-residence (Croft: Ground for Art), 2018/19 Catalysts artist (Dance Complex), 2016 Emerging Choreographer in Residence (Bates Dance Festival), 2014 recipient of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Choreography Fellowship, and a 2003/04 artist-in-residence at Joyce SoHo. With David Henry, Lila Hurwitz and Andy Russ, Ali co-founded Motion State Arts, which presents innovative dance-films and live performances from local, national and international artists. A Rhode Island native, she makes her home in Dartmouth, MA with her husband, two children and five chickens.
Alexandra James is a Southern Maine-born maker, mover and mother. As an independent artist, she’s engaged with improvisation and interdisciplinary investigation, the interrogation of pedagogy and craft, seeking liberation through the integrity of embodied knowledge and the sharing of practice. In addition to her role as Bates Dance Festival Director of Training Programs, Alexandra is an artistic director of a youth Hip Hop company. Her work has been presented in Chicago, New York and South Africa, with a teaching practice that carries her nationally. She earned her BFA from the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago in 2009.
Ani Javian is a movement artist whose research is grounded in her ideas about humans as story-tellers, story-holders, and story-makers. Her choreography has been presented in New York, Los Angeles, Columbus, Paris, Yerevan, and Bangkok. She has received funding from a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, Mid Atlantic Arts, Dance New Jersey, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and in 2016 she received an Individual Excellence Award in Choreography from the Ohio Arts Council. As a performer, Ani has worked with Joanna Kotze, Paige Phillips, Molly Lieber, and Gladys Bailin, among others. She is a board member of the American College Dance Association and Lieber and Smith, Inc. Ani holds an MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University and a BA in Dance and English from Connecticut College. She is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts in New Jersey.
Kellie Ann Lynch lives in Connecticut (Wappinger and Quinnipiac land) and is co-founder and Co-Artistic Director of Elm City Dance Collective in New Haven. She has been teaching, choreographing, performing and dreaming for ECDC since its inception in 2008. She spent many years collaborating and performing with Adele Myers and Dancers and David Dorfman Dance. Other companies Kellie has been seen performing and touring with include Kate Weare Company and Doug Elkins Choreography, etc. As a freelance dance artist, she has had the opportunity to work with incredible independent choreographers along the East Coast, many of which are located right here in New England. Kellie has received artist fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and Connecticut Office of the Arts; and her work has been commissioned, produced and performed throughout the Northeast including at Bates Dance Festival as an Emerging Choreographer. In 2014, Kellie was recognized as an influential choreographer by the Arts Council of Greater New Haven through an "Arts Award"; and in 2019, ECDC received an "Arts Award" for the organization's work in New Haven. In addition to making and performing dances, Kellie is a somatic educator. She maintains a private teaching practice in New Haven and recently became certified in the Feldenkrais Method. Kellie has a BA in Dance from Rhode Island College and an MFA in Dance from Smith College.
Lida Winfield is an innovative and accomplished artist and educator, who has created original work merging storytelling, dance and visual art. As an artist, educator and keynote presenter, she has performed and taught nationally and internationally in traditional and non-traditional environments from Bates Dance Festival to MindMingle in Malviya Nagar, New Delhi. Lida studied at The School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and in 2011 earned a Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College in VT, with a focus on the transformative power of the expressive arts.. Her work has received support from Vermont Arts Council, New England Foundation for the Arts and the National Performance Network and has been commissioned by The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Middlebury Performing Arts Series, The Yard, and Jacob’s Pillow. Lida is currently the Chair of the Dance Department at Middlebury College.
Maya Goree (AR) started dancing in her hometown of Lansing, MI, with Diane Newman at Happendance. Maya continued dancing in college at Washington University in St. Louis where she double-majored in marketing and dance. While there, Maya had the opportunity to study from Donald McKayle, David Dorfman, Bebe Miller, Gus Solomons, Jr., and others. She also started working in arts management through a work-study program at Edison Theater. During college, Maya spent her summers studying dance at The Ailey School, Bates Dance Festival and Skidmore College. After graduating from Washington University in 2005, Maya moved to NYC where she performed in the works of choreographers including Betsy Miller, Taisha Paggett, Sarah Kermensky, and Isabella Bruno. Maya also worked in arts administration and management at The Pearl Theatre, The Joyce Theater, Dance Theater Workshop and H-Art Management. In 2009, Maya decided to explore other areas of professional development and enrolled in Fordham Law School. She graduated in 2012 with honors and went on to practice law at Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, LLP. Maya and her husband, Johnathan Goree, left New York in 2013 and ultimately settled in Little Rock, AR, where they currently reside. They have two boys, Jeremiah and Jonas. Maya danced with Teebo Dans under the direction of Stephanie Thibeault from 2017 to 2018. Currently, Maya is an estate planning attorney at Cross, Gunter, Witherspoon & Galchus, P.C.
Jamie Arnold (NC) was born and raised in Warwick, RI. She grew up dancing at Carolyn Dutra Dance Studio. She later graduated from Rhode Island College in 2011 with a BA in dance. Jamie performed professionally with many local east coast choreographers for five years after college. Most recently she was a company member with Bare Bait Dance Company in Missoula, MT. Jamie currently teaches dance full time at a public middle school in Apex, NC. She is absolutely thrilled to be part of Betsy Miller's repertoire!
Motion State Arts thanks New England Foundation for the Arts’ New England States Touring (NEST) grant; Providence Marriott Downtown; The Wilbury Theatre Group; and many generous individual donors for their support of this project.
Image: Kellie Ann Lynch, by Ivan Singer