S DANCE CHOOL OF
Issue 18 - 19
College of Fine Arts | Florida State University
magazine
Anjali Austin Interim Chair School of Dance Carla Peterson Director MANCC Scott Shamp Interim Dean College of Fine Arts Editor Dr. La Toya Davis-Craig Contributors Laura Paige Kyber Jessica Comas Designer Annalise Beebe Principal Photographers Meagan Helman (SOD) Chris Cameron (MANCC)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dance Magazine 2018-19
FSU SCHOOL OF DANCE Chair’s Letter...................................... 02 Year in Review.................................... 04 Dance in Paris.....................................10 FSU Friends of Dance: President’s Letter................................11 Take A Seat!........................................ 12 Friends of Dance Membership Enrollment Benefits......................... …13 Student Spotlight: Kieron Sargeant Returning Professionals Track.......…15 ALUMNI UPDATES FSU Alum Named Dean of the University of Florida College of the Arts............................................ 16 FSU School of Dance Alumni Event Welcome Back.......................... 18 FACULTY UPDATES School of Dance’s Tiffany Rhynard Honored for Documentary Film........ 20 Visiting Guest Artists: Marjani Forté-Sanders........................21 Ann Carlson......................................... 22 New Faculty: Caleb Mitchell..................................... 26 In Memory........................................... 28 Belman Family Endows Fund to memorialize Dance Professor Rodger Belman...................................29 MAGGIE ALLESEE NATIONAL CENTER FOR CHOREOGRAPHY Year in Review.....................................30
School of Dance Montgomery Hall 130 Collegiate Loop Florida State University Tallahassee, FL 32306-2120 Office: 850.644.1023
dance.fsu.edu
Increased Funding Brings Exciting New Initiatives to MANCC......................................... …36 Season Preview................................... 38 2018-2019 Scholarships.................. …39 Cricket Mannheimer Receives the First Nancy Smith Fichter Award...…39
Joséphine’s Letter Fall 2018, I am passing the baton of service as Chair of the School of Dance to Professor Anjali Austin so I may concentrate on my teaching and artistic research. Serving as Chair of the School of Dance has been a great honor and I am proud of our collective achievements truly satisfied with the progress we have made. In 2017-18 our Faculty had 4 books published, 6 contributions to book chapters, 8 refereed or invited published journal articles, 16 scripts or screenplays, 37 original choreographic works, 6 original music compositions, 14 films, and 6 faculty performed. The past three years we celebrated four retirements and the lives of Rodger Belman and Jon Nalon while hiring five full-time faculty and two full- time administrative team members.We revised the MFA to be more responsive to the changing landscape of dance, initiated the combined 5-year BFA/MA degree program, reinstated the MA in American Dance Studies and successfully completed the seven-year cycle QER state review. Successful recruitment campaigns across the state of Florida, our regional southern states, and across the globe and increased study abroad activities have diversified our student population and their educational opportunities. Thanks to Provost McRorie, will soon see new carpets and draperies throughout Montgomery Hall. We replaced an aging piano with a Steinway concert grand. Dance Science and Dance Technology have doubled their faculty. Friends of Dance continue behind the scenes with innovative fundraising activities; funding our participation in the American College Dance Festival, awarding $21,000 in student scholarships, and expanding Friends of Dance membership. Please join me in welcoming Professor Anjali Austin as Interim Chairperson of the School of Dance. Be well, be happy, dance, make art and do it with Love!
Joséphine A. Garibaldi Chair, FSU School of Dance
Workshop for
YOUNG DANCERS
Florida State University
School of Dance College of Fine Arts
featuring master classes with Suzanne Farrell & FSU Dance Faculty
Register
February 2-3, 2019
TODAY dance.fsu.edu/programs-2/youth-programs/
Ages 10-18 (intermediate-advanced)
Save the Date | FSU Summer Dance Intensive AUDITION CLASS
SUMMER DANCE INTENSIVE
Sunday, February 3, 2019 9:00 am - 11:30 am
Session 1 - June 10 - 14, 2019 Session 2 - June 16 - 29, 2019
Sponsored by: FRIENDS OF
dance
Anjali’s Letter As fall semester 2018 approached I found myself preparing for a new role – School of Dance’s Interim Chairperson. Humbled by the prospect of this position, I retraced my path to here. My relationship with FSU’s Department of Dance began as a dual enrolled teenager. Twice a week I would leave James S. Rickards High School to attend ballet classes in Montgomery Gym. It is here where I first met and danced for Dance Theatre of Harlem’s Founder and Artistic Director Emeritus, Arthur Mitchell. Twenty years later this is where I returned to teach Ballet’s technique and traditions. Since then our Dance community has grown to become the School of Dance, and been graced with a renovated Montgomery Hall which boasts spacious studios, theatres, technology and conditioning labs, and the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC). These accomplishments were made possible only through the vision, tenacity and leadership of SoD’s previous Chairpersons. My reflections on the rich history and legacy of these storied halls inspire me and are a reminder of the responsibilities inherent in the work. I am grateful for this opportunity to invest in the institution that has given me so much. School of Dance students, staff, faculty and supporters I offer this warm welcome to 2018-2019 and am thrilled to be on this journey with you. Honored to serve…
Anjali Austin Interim Chair, FSU School of Dance
Live an exciting fall semester in New York City with FSU in NYC! Enjoy a fully credited arts program that mixes scholarship and direct interactions with renowned artists, dancers, and leaders in the field, interweaving academics and real world experiences. While studying and networking, students try out the city and assess how they fit in. FSU in NYC integrates structured academic seminars with real experiential practices, three performances a week, a choreographic/arts lab, and an internship program with carefully selected arts organizations. FSU in NYC makes it possible to face the future with confidence and connections.
OPEN TO NON-FSU STUDENTS & ALL STUDENTS IN THE ARTS!
Discover more about FSU in NYC at:
dance.fsu.edu
School of Dance
Fall Semester in NYC
YEAR IN REVIEW
Florida State University School of Dance Days of Dance featured undergraduate and graduate student choreography ranging from neoclassical ballet to contemporary modern to AfroCarribean dance forms.
The “Enchanter�, a sculpture that portrays Rudolph Nureyev, was gifted to the School of Dance by nationally acclaimed artist and sculpture, Sandy Proctor.
Suzanne Farrell and the Suzanne Farrell Ballet concluded a residency at FSU with a Fall concert to benefit the School of Dance in the Nancy Smith Fichter Dance Theatre. Farrell, was Founder and Artistic Director of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, a resident company at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Ms. Farrell, a Francis Eppes Professor of Dance at Florida State, returned in the Spring to teach dance majors in the School of Dance; and to teach youth ages 10-18 at the Workshop for Young Dancers.
18 dancers and 2 faculty from the School of Dance, sponsored by Friends of Dance, attended the 2018 Southeast Conference for the American College Dance Association at Coker College. Students Sydney Parker’s work Do(O)med and Ashley Pierre-Louis’ work Mine were both selected by the adjudication panel for the gala concert. Pierre-Louis’ work was also selected as 2nd alternate for the National Conference in Washington, DC.
18 School of Dance Alums, Faculty, Staff and students attended this year’s Urban Bush Women’s (UBW) Summer Leadership Institute (SLI) in Tempe, AZ. The SLI is a 10-day intensive that builds the global network of community arts practitioners by connecting dance professionals and communitybased artists in a learning experience that leverages the arts as a vehicle for social activism and civic engagement. School of Dance Faculty and alum, Jawole Zollar is UBW’s Founder and Artistic Director.
The School of Dance hosts an annual Summer Dance Intensive for students 14-18 years old. Under the direction of Dr. La Toya Davis-Craig, this year a total of 48 students participated from 1-3 weeks in classes ranging from ballet, pointe, contemporary, jazz, salsa, West African, contact improvisation techniques, as well as conditioning and repertory classes. Students stayed in Bryan Hall and participated in additional planned activities such as a beach day at St. George Island, bowling, and touring the FSU campus. The culminating event was an informal showing in the Nancy Smith Fichter Dance Theatre.
In the fall, the School of Dance welcomed Alumna Millicent Johnnie as a Visiting Guest Artist and Faculty. Johnnie has an extensive commercial and stage career both nationally and internationally. The students had the opportunity to work with Johnnie on her restaging of Bamboula: Musicians’ Brew, a work originally commissioned by Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble through the NEFA National Dance Project.
Chris Ortiz presented his MA Capstone Project, Phoenix/In the Cypher, as a site-enhanced live dance performance at an abandoned building that he and his crew converted into an arts space. The space was brought to life through graffiti art on the walls, fashion, DJing and choreorgraphed and improvised B-Boying and MCing.
Dance in Paris This year the Dance in Paris returned after a two-year hiatus. Eleven School of Dance undergraduate and graduate students participated in the four week study abroad program. Students were immersed in studies of art and culture with visits to museums and historical sites such as Château de Versailles, Montmarte and Sacré-Cœur, Musee D’Osay, Palais Garnier, The Pompidou and more. Unique to this program is the opportunity for students to continue their dance studies at local Paris studios. Classes ranged from Graham, Jazz, Ballet, Floor Barre, Pilates, Yoga, and various contemporary techniques. Elle Nielsen (MA, 2019) on her time in Paris: “What a true honor and blessing it has been to be apart of the 2018 Florida State University Dance in Paris study abroad program! As a graduate student, I was able to deepen the creative space and scholarship of my thesis research by the myriad of historical reference sources and concepts aided by the direction of this program. This program has enabled students to build the confidence to take on the the multiple conflicts of traveling abroad and master them. Our program advisors, Anjali Austin and Kehinde Ishangi are undoubtedly dynamic women who took the task of leadership to a whole new level with grace, poise, and compassion for the student’s keen interests.”
Emily Alderman (BFA, 2021) says: “As a Florida State University student, coming to Paris was an eye opening experience. I participated in this program at the end of my freshman year. Paris is so rich in culture and art. The Dance in Paris program can really show you a hint of what the real world is made of, from traveling on the metro, taking classes you choose and discover, and supporting the arts through museums and shows. Studying history and dance technique in this city is a privilege for a hopeful up and coming dancer/ choreographer. Many of the history lectures and museum visits have given me time to think and evaluate how choreographies could be developed and inspired. Every project my peers and I have been involved in have required us to reach into our creative minds and present things we didn’t think we were capable of. This has changed how we approach and display our projects and selves. Paris deems itself as a center for the arts, and I truly believe so. The amount of dance classes available for adults and pre-professionals has given the Dance in Paris program attendees opportunities to practice their craft in a new light and language.Florida State University’s Dance in Paris study abroad program is great way to gain an experience for future careers.
FSU FRIENDS OF DANCE
President’s Letter What a year our 30th anniversary year turned out to be and I can’t wait to see what this energetic group of dance supporters can accomplish in our 31st! There were so many wonderful moments this year, but I would like to highlight a couple of them as well as share some of the exciting opportunities planned for 2018-19. In our 30th year, we were celebrating the successes of our collective past while still introducing a number of new programs for members as well as the dancers and faculty. We started the year with a campaign to boost interest and sales for the “Full House Project”. Two of our Board members, Joyce Fausone and Debra Lachter, took on the challenge to reenergize the seat sales with their ambitious two year Take A Seat Campaign. They wanted to focus on encouraging alumni and those close to the school to purchase a seat and to no surprise our alumni stepped up. Many now have a permanent reminder of their days in Nancy Smith Fichter Auditorium and we have all enjoyed hearing the lovely stories those purchasing seats shared with the ladies. I am sure that this second and last year of the Take A Seat Campaign will be just as successful. FOD and the School of Dance owe these two a great deal of thanks for taking this on and exceeding their goal for the first year. You can find out more about the campaign in the related article. Nancy Smith Fichter taught us to above all, “To do it with love”, and this has always been reflected in the Friends of Dance and the individuals she selected as her first board and continues still today. In our 30th anniversary year, it only seemed right to create a volunteer award in her honor. This award not only carries Nancy’s name, but she participated in the development and selection of the first recipient. Nancy herself presented the inaugural award
and we thanked her for having the foresight to recognize the importance of a strong volunteer organization for a thriving School of Dance. You can read more about the award and the recipient in the article found in this issue. The Friends of Dance went through a few minor structural changes as well this year. We are now known as the Friends of Dance Council to reflect an alliance with other volunteer organizations across campus. We also said goodbye to a number of faculty that were truly loved and got to know new faculty who bring a new richness in diversity to our dance school. Change is inevitable but we continue to truly appreciate and value our school and membership and look forward to good things to come. This academic year is going to be very busy with some new events to watch for. We will once again, with the Allies for Art, be hosting The Paint Around in March. This is an exquisite event that brings the best of movement and painting together to create an evening everyone enjoys. We are also introducing an Adopt A Dancer program so that students who are new to FSU and especially Tallahassee can be sure they have a friendly face and someone to give them support while they are away from home. FOD Council members will select a dancer or two to support from the dancers interested in participating. We hope it gives them a little extra love during those difficult first months away from home. I sincerely hope all of our parents, faculty, and dance enthusiasts in the community will consider taking an active role in the Friends of Dance this year. We have a lot to accomplish but we can do great things together! Respectfully,
Laurie Molina Friends of Dance President 2018
TAKE A SEAT! Take A Seat! is a two-year campaign for the Full House Project which was created in 1996 to sell commemorative seats in the Nancy Smith Fichter Dance Theatre. Approximately one third of the seats were sold. In celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Friends of Dance, Debra Lachter and Joyce Fausone initiated the Take A Seat! campaign to sell the remaining seats in the house. Debra and Joyce reached out to potential donors and alumni last November. The results have been overwhelming. As of June, 18 new donors have purchased “chairs” and 23 alumni raising over $14,000 for dance scholarships! NEW donors are listed below. ALL donors - past and new - will be listed in next year’s School of Dance annual Year in Review magazine. Thanks to everyone who has supported the Full House Project and Take A Seat! We look forward to celebrating the end of the campaign with a special event to thank all of our donors and give them an opportunity to sit in their seat for a special presentation. As we enter the second year of the campaign, please consider helping us reach our goal. To purchase a seat on-line or download the brochure, visit dance.fsu.edu and click on the “Giving” tab. If you have any questions, please contact Joyce Fausone at jfausone@fsu.edu. You may also mail in the tear-out form found on the next page of this magazine.
TAKE A SEAT! New Donors for 2017 -2018 New Donors
Alumni Donors
Nancy Carroll Abbey & Stuart G. Abbey Mary McHaney Bebout Mary Elizabeth Casteel Gloria Hunt Deison Howard Kessler & Anne Van Meter Debra & David Lachter Meredith McKinney & Elsa L. McKinney Laurie & Santiago Molina Jeannie Pierce Sharyn Heilland Shields Mazelynn Sabine Valde-Hansen Robert L. Ward Andrew Welch
Patricia Knowles (BA, 1964/MA, 1966) Caroline Drummond Loupe (BS, 1967) Carol Lewis Griffin (MMD, 1970) Debra Arch Myers (BM, 1974) Sharon L. Vasquez (BFA, 1974/MFA, 1976) Lisa F. Frantz (BFA, 1976) Letitia Jones West (BFA, 1976) Sandra S. Delapp (BFA, 1979) Karla T. Owen (BFA, 1979) Michelle M. Sterchi (BFA, 1979) Jawole Will Jo Zollar (MFA, 1979) Cathy Hess Wright (BFA, 1980) Karen J. Silver (BFA, 1980) Linda Chiaverini (BFA, 1983) Teri L. Coker & Gaines Taylor (MFA, 1993) Cindy Levin Folger (MFA, 1993) Kathy Dunn Hamrick (MFA, 1994) Jenn Fenn (MFA, 1995) In loving memory of Delano & Ed Fenn Sonia Ann Deville & Cody James Fusilier (BFA, 1997) Rachel S. Hunter (MFA, 2012) Gianna Mercandetti (BFA 2013/MFA 2018) Kaitlyn Christensen Sacco (MFA, 2014) Heather Boni (MFA, 2017)
Purchased in Memory of Evelyn Alison James Harold and Dorothy Bell Rodger L. Belman Dorothy Clifford Jon Nalon
A note from the co-chairs of TAKE A SEAT! I have enjoyed reconnecting with the alumni from the School of Dance. Exchanging e-mails and phone conversations have reminded me of my own experiences under Nancy Smith Fichter and how important it is to stay connected. I’m looking forward to helping with an alumni event in the near future. Thank you alums for your support! Joyce Bell Fausone (MFA, 1974) Retired Faculty SOD – 2004-2016
Sincere thanks to all our individual donors both within the Tallahassee community and beyond. Dance has always held a special place in my heart. What could be more rewarding than helping raise funds for student scholarships for the School of Dance? As a Board Member and Past President I am grateful for the response to our campaign and hopeful we will reach our goal for a “full house”. Debra Lachter (BS, 1991)
FRIENDS OF
dance
2018-19 membership Select Benefits
(please visit tickets.fsu.edu for full listing of benefits)
All Membership Levels • • • •
Advanced ticket purchase opportunities and waived $1-$5 subscription ticket delivery fee Invitation to visiting MANCC Artists entry points Name and recognition in concert program and annual FSU Dance Yearbook Invitation to Member Receptions following select performances
Impresario, Producer, Principal • • • •
Special Reserved Parking for Performances and Receptions Annual membership and recognition in College of Fine Arts Dean’s Society Inclusion in the Dean’s Society and exclusive tours of CFA programs Opportunity to observe School of Dance classes and workshops
Impresario $1000+ • •
Six Tickets to Days of Dance AND An Evening of Dance Two VIP Tickets to Paint Around Benefit Gala & Auction
Producer $500 - $999 • •
Four Tickets to Days of Dance AND An Evening of Dance Two Tickets to Paint Around Benefit Gala & Auction
Principal $250 - $499 •
Two Tickets to Days of Dance AND An Evening of Dance
Soloist $150 - $249 •
One Ticket to Days of Dance AND An Evening of Dance
Corps $50 - $149 •
Receives “All Membership Levels” privileges as listed above
Student $25 •
One Ticket to Days of Dance OR An Evening of Dance
dance TAKE A SEAT! FRIENDS OF
benefits
join today
Fill out your membership form online at tickets.fsu.edu or fill out the form below.
Name(s):
City:
Name(s):
Phone:
Address:
Email:
to appear on program
State:
Zip:
For School of Dance news, College of Fine Arts monthly newsletter and MANCC entry-points.
REMINDER: IF YOU CHECK THE BOX FOR A FULL TAX DEDUCTION, TICKETS ARE NOT INCLUDED IN YOUR MEMBERSHIP.
Full Tax Deduction
Membership Level
Please circle your preferred ticket delivery method:
Impresario $1,000 Producer $500 Principal $250 Soloist $125 Corps $50 * Please indicate the number of tickets you’d like for each performance. Tickets outside of your included membership benefits will incur an additional fee.
An Evening of Dance
Days of Dance
Program A: APR 19-20, & 27, 2018
Program B: APR 20, & 26-27, 2018
¨ FRI 11/2 (7:30PM) ¨ SAT 11/3 (7:30PM)*
¨ FRI 4/19 (7:30PM) ¨ SAT 4/20 (2:00PM) ¨ SAT 4/27 (7:30PM)*
¨ SAT 4/20 (7:30PM) ¨ FRI 4/26 (7:30PM) ¨ SAT 4/27 (2:00PM)
NOV 2 & 3, 2018
*
Mail Email/Mobile/Print at Home Will-Call: Advanced Will Call: At Event
A reception for Friends of Dance members & performers will follow this concert.
Purchase Summary
Payment Method
Membership Level: $_______________________
Check made to FSU/Fine Arts Ticket Office
Additional Donation: $_____________________
Discover MasterCard Visa Amex Your donation minus the market value of the subscription series tickets equals your tax deductible donation. The market value of one Days of Dance Ticket is $15. The market value of one Evening of Dance ticket is $18. The market value of one student ticket is $12. The non-gift portion for one ticket to the Paint Around Benefit Gala & Auction is $30. The non-gift portion for one student scholarship to the Workshop for Young Dancers is $50. The FSU Foundation is a 501(c)3 charitable organization and gifts made to it are tax deductible to the extent allowed by the law. To view state nonprofit disclosures, visit foundation.fsu.edu/NonprofitDisclosures.
Extra Tickets: $_______________________
Total: $___________________ FOD will cover the ticket delivery fees. Take advantage of this benefit by purchasing your tickets now!
Mail form and payment to:
Name:
FSU/Fine Arts Ticket Office 540 W Call Street P.O. Box 3061160 Tallahassee, FL 32306-1160
as it appears on card
Card #:
Exp. Date:
CVC:
Signature:
To become a member online:
Visit tickets.fsu.edu and select Friends of Dance from the Memberships tab.
TAKE A SEAT!
A TWO-YEAR CAMPAIGN FOR THE FULL HOUSE PROJECT Payment Check payable to FSU Foundation/School of Dance Discover MasterCard Visa Amex
Name of Donor: Address: City:
State:
Zip:
Card #:
Phone:
Signature:
E-mail:
Return Form to:
Are you an FSU alumnus?
Yes
No
No. of Chairs purchased:
Cost Per Chair:
x $400.00
CVC:
Online:
Florida State University
Visit dance.fsu.edu
TAKE A SEAT!
Click on the giving dropdown menu and select
School of Dance
Name(s) to be placed on the Seat Plate - up to two lines:
130 Collegiate Loop
Tallahassee, Florida 32306-2120 850.645.2449 | dance.fsu.edu SEAT PLATE
Total Amount Enclosed:
Exp. Date:
20 characters per line.
FULL HOUSE PROJECT. Designation: F05780
PLAQUE PLATE FOR LOBBY Name(s) Only
Student Spotlight: Kieron Sargeant (MFA, 2019) Returning Professional Kieron says the following about his experience so far: “I am Kieron Sargeant, 32, proud Trinbagonian and lover of the arts. As a Masters of Fine Arts Candidate on the Returning Professional track, the University has assisted in my artistic development in several ways. Firstly, information. FSU is known to be an institution that takes pride in developmental research. Here I was able to engage in active research to support my area of interest. The resources available to aid students are second to none. I was also afforded numerous opportunities that built me holistically as an emerging artist in field. My time here at FSU has been indeed fulfilling. I was able to contribute while learning. I continue to be supported by a faculty that believes in my potential and encourages my pursuit without reservation. The experience at this institution continues to build me as a person and contributes to my professional development.�
The MFA returning professional track allows career dance artists to design a curriculum that will enhance and augment current skills, deepen existing knowledge, and provide opportunities for exploring new areas of interest. Considerations given for acceptance into this track includes substantial professional dance career at the national or international level; demonstrated choreographic and/or restaging experience with established dance repertory; demonstrated maturity and commitment to the field of dance; and ongoing engagement and currency in the field of dance. Students who are designated Returning Professionals by the faculty have some latitude in shaping their curriculum with faculty approval. Kieron Sargeant, a current Returning Professional, has been able to maintain his professional choreographic and teaching trajectory in the field while pursuing his degree. During his first academic year, Kieron traveled to Mexico as an invited Artist in Residence for Danza Extrema XIII Festival Internacional to conduct master classes on Trinidad and Tobago Folk dances; to Abuja and Niger State, Nigeria as a Choreographic Fellow awarded by a partnership between Festival of African and Caribbean Culture (FESTACC), The Nigerian Dance Guild, and Ijovudu Dance International; to Senegal, to complete a dance internship with Jant-Bi and Ecole des Sables, Toubab Dialaw, Senegal; received an acceptance to present scholarly papers at both the Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) 2018 conference and the Preaching as Performance Conference in Alberta, Canada; and choreographed a work that was presented during the School of Dance’s Days of Dance concert.
ALU MN I
UPDATES
FSU Alum Named Dean of the University of Florida College of the Arts Onye P. Ozuzu, former dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Columbia College Chicago, has been named dean of the University of Florida College of the Arts. Ozuzu earned her Master of Fine Arts in dance and choreography and Bachelor of Arts in English literature at Florida State University. A dance administrator, performing artist, choreographer, educator and researcher, Ozuzu has served as dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Columbia College Chicago since 2015 and was previously the chairperson of the department of dance. Prior to her Columbia appointment, she was associate chair and director of dance in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she was integral to a seven-year overhaul of the departmental mission and curriculum. As a dancer, Ozuzu’s work has focused on the body as technology and explored the intersectionality between many movement forms from tennis to ballet, West African dance to Hatha Yoga, and freestyle House to salsa among others. Her choreography has been performed both nationally and internationally in places such as Manhattan, New Orleans, Senegal and Cuba. Her most recent work, Project Tool, has focused on the interrelationships between body, task and tool through the process of building wood-sprung dance floors. Project Tool is a 2018 Joyce Award and a 2016 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist recipient as well as a National Performance Network Creation Fund Project.
Harper Addison (MFA, 2013) is the Founder and Director of the Iteration Project and an Adjunct Instructor at Walter State Community College in Knoxville, TX. She has appeared with Robert Moses’ KIN, Copious Dance Theater, The Gamut Dance Company, and The Ailey American Dance Theatre. Most recently she has set work for GO! Contemporary Dance Works, Tennessee Children’s Dance Ensemble, and Circle Modern Dance. In April 2017, she was featured in Dance Magazine. Annette Barcelona (MFA, 2016) is a ballet teacher at the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts. She was awarded a School District VAPA Foundation Grant in the amount of $2500 to attend the American Ballet Theatre’s National Training Curriculum Intensive at the Segerstrom Arts Center ABT William Gillespie School in Orange County, CA. Annette has completed her American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum - PrePrimary through Level 3. Her new ballet, Fractured Path was adjudicated and selected by Ballet Yuma to be performed at the Regional Dance America Pacific Festival in Spokane, Washington. Mary Rebekah Bartos (BFA, 2016) works at the Tallahassee Ballet as the Community Outreach Coordinator. She attended the National Dance Institute’s Teaching Artist Training Intensive in NYC and was appointed to the role of Assistant to the Artistic Director. Bartos is a proud member of the Civic Ballet of Volusia County. Kaityln Christensen (MFA, 2014) works for the South Georgia Ballet as a Dance Teacher, Rehearsal
Coach, Administrative Assistant, and Marketing Assistant. She obtained her Progressive Ballet Technqiue certification in 2018 and is also Zena Rommett Floor Barre certified. Kaitlyn performed in Between Walls at the 621 Gallery Annex and FAMU in Tallahassee, FL this past fall and spring; and will participate in the Forge Summer Dance Intensive Choreographic Residency at Slippery Rock University this summer. Joshua Dutton-Reaver (BFA, 2011) has had the amazing opportunity to continue to collaborate with world-renowned immersive theater makers, Third Rail Projects, reaching his fifth year in the company. Recently, he had the pleasure in creating and performing in -a 9-week sold out run at the Lincoln Center Theater’s LCT3 in the work Ghost Light (a New York Times Critic’s Pick). He has also performed over 800 shows of the BESSIE award winning immersive hit Then She Fell, performing the roles of White Rabbit and Lewis Carroll. In 2017, Joshua had the pleasure in performing Residue in Becky Radway Dance Projects, a site specific dance work set on over 15 feet tall scaffolding filling a Brooklyn warehouse. Joshua was also named the Associate Manager of Marketing and Communications for Third Rail Projects, heading the creation of the marketing/communication needs for the company for all its endeavors. Rebecca Krumel (MFA, 2016) is the Director of Ballet at Artistry Dance Alliance, and faculty and choreographer at Wildwood Ballet. Rebecca obtained her GYROTONIC® Method Level I Trainer Certification in March 2017, performed Ircamar Garcia’s work Between Walls at Gallery
FSU School of Dance Alumni Event: Welcome Back October 31-November 3, 2018 Reconnect. Inspire. Share. Activities Include: Alumni Forum Informal Alumni Dance Showcase Master Classes Alumni Social
621, spring 2017, and at the African Caribbean Festival at FAMU in the Fall of 2017. Rebecca presented her works Maestros at USF New Grounds Festival, and Now We See at the University of South Carolina’s Contemporary Dance Showcase in Spring 2016. Bhumi B. Patel (MA, ADS 2014) founded pateldanceworks, a queer, feminist dance company. Bhumi was selected as a 2018 Fellow with the Emerging Arts Professionals and as a Lead Artist with SAFEhouse Arts in San Francisco. She is currently the Program Coordinator with Hope Mohr Dance, Administrative Assistant for Nancy Karp and Dancers, and teaches with the Youth Program at Shawl Anderson Dance Center. Bhumi creates choreographic work for both stage and screen and is a performer at Chris Black Dance and Cat Call Choir. Bhumi earned her MFA degree from Mills College in May 2017. She premiered her work Black Holes as part of SAFEhouse Arts Resident Artists Workshop. Jocelyn Perez (MFA, 2016) is a dance instructor at the Broadway Kids Studio. She teaches after-school programs, choreographs for the competition team, and musical theater productions. Perez worked as a collaborator on the dance film Querencia which has been selected for dance film festivals, such as Next Dance Cinema, Seattle, WA; ScreenDance Miami Festival, Miami, FL; Life in Motion: A Colorado Dance Film Festival, Denver, CO; Utah Dance Festival, Orem, UT; Opine Dance Film Festival, Atlanta, GA; Frame + Form: Screen Dance Festival, Asheville, NC; ScreenDance Festival, Stockholm, Sweden; and Lights Dance Festival, Toronto, Canada. She
Please visit dance.fsu.edu/ programs/events for more information and to complete registration.
performed at Miami Light Project’s Here & Now 2017 with BC Dance Co, and the Network Performing Arts Production Workshop 2017 in collaboration with Jana Bitterova, was a guest artist at FIU’s Master Dance Class Series 2017, as well as a selected choreographer for iMEE’s blank|SLATE September 2017 session. Sharon Carelock Sibley (MFA, 2015) is the production coordinator at Core Dance. She served as a collaborator in a year long performance project called sunday morning at 7, and a film After the Reign, directed by Jennifer TarraziScully and edited by Dustin Glasco and Robert Epps. Sharon choreographed a new work, WEiRd on the Agnes Scott College Dancers, which premiered November 10-11, 2017. Amanda Sieradzki (MFA, 2017) Founder and Artistic Director of Poetica, an ongoing experiment in unearthing and sharing immersive narratives. The company was accepted to perform in Breaking New Ground: New Dance at the Decatur Arts Festival. She is a writer of featured content for Atlanta’s online arts organization ArtATL and Tallahassee Council on Culture & Arts. This year she has performed in Saultopaul, Chickamuaga, GA; at Emory University’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts; in Bonni Bigler’s work Bouquet: A Medley of Contemporary Dance at 7 Stages Theatre; and has served as a counselor for the Three Weeks School at the American Dance Festival. Amanda also presented her paper “Miss Heard: Does Contemporary Concert Dance Fear the Big, Bad Beat?” at the Popular Culture Association’s 2018 National Conference in
FACULTY UPDATES
School of Dance’s Tiffany Rhynard Honored for Documentary Film School of Dance Assistant Professor, Tiffany Rhynard, received recognition at The Television Academy Honors on May 31, 2018 for her documentary film, Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural America. Her film is one of seven programs to be awarded a Television Academy Honor for leveraging the dynamic power of television to inspire social change. Forbidden’s run on LogoTV over the past nine months garnered the attention for this award. The 2018 honorees were selected from a record number of submissions and represent some of the most meaningful and relevant series, programs and documentaries of the past year, including: Andi Mack, Daughters of Destiny, Forbidden: Undocumented & Queer in Rural America, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, LA 92, One Day at a Time, and 13 Reasons Why.
Tiffany has created numerous works for stage and screen. Rhynard’s choreography, dance films, and documentaries have been presented nationwide and internationally. In previous years, Rhynard’s award winning documentary, Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural America, was honored with the Social Justice Film Award from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Freedom Award from Outfest Film Festival. She premiered her feature-length documentary, Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural America, on LogoTV in September. Available through educational distributors Kanopy and Pradga, the film also enjoyed a limited run on American Airlines. Rhynard collaborated with School of Dance alum, Trent D. Williams Jr., on the film Black Stains, a short dance documentary addressing systemic racial profiling by the police. It premiered at ScreenDance Miami in January where it received the Jury Award. Throughout the spring, Black Stains screened at film festivals in NYC, Los Angeles, and Seattle. New projects include a historical preservation film with renowned choreographer, filmmaker, and SOD alum, Millicent Johnnie (BFA, 2002; MFA, 2006) along with FSU professor Anjali Austin. Rhynard received a First Year Assistant Professor award to pursue research this summer on the intersection of interactive digital media and social justice issues.
Image from Rhynard’s documentary film, “Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural America”.
Image from Rhynard’s and School of Dance alumni Trent Williams (MFA, 2012) Black Stains.
VISITING GUEST ARTIST
Marjani Forté-Saunders School of Dance will welcome Marjani Forté-Saunders in the Spring of 2019. Marjani is a choreographer & performer based in NYC and also Northwest Pasadena, CA where she is Co-Director of the Alkebulan Cultural Center, and previously co-founded LOVE|Forté A COLLECTIVE with Nia Love. She traveled as a performer with Urban Bush Women for 5 yrs. She is one of twenty-one Black Womyn and Gender NonConforming artists curated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, now operating as the collective Skeleton Architecture, to receive the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance. Forté-Saunders is also an Inaugural recipient of the UBW Choreographic Center Fellowship and a 2014 Princess Grace Choreography Fellowship awardee, and also is the first residency artist as part of the pilot partnership between MANCC and UBW’s Choreographic Center Initiative. Her work has been presented widely across New York City and was incubated in residencies at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Movement Research, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Danspace Project/St Mark’s Church, Gibney Dance, Queensborough College, and, most recently, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Extended Life Residency. Forté-Saunders’ work continues to tour internationally and works in collaboration with communities.
Living Legacy Artist Ann Carlson is an interdisciplinary artist who borrows from the disciplines of dance, performance, theater, as well as visual, conceptual and social art practices. Her work takes the form of solo dance performance, site-specific projects, ensemble dance and theatrical works, and performance/video. She also often works within a series format, creating performance structures over a period of years that adapt and tour multiple sites.
Ann Carlson working with School of Dance students during MANCC residency.
VISITING GUEST ARTIST
Jen Atkins completed a successful book tour in January, celebrating the release of her new monograph, New Orleans Carnival Balls: The Secret Side of Mardi Gras, 1870-1920 (LSU Press, 2017), which was followed by the publication of a two-volume anthology, Perspectives on American Dance: The Twentieth Century and The New Millennium (UPF, 2018), co-edited with colleagues Dr. Sally Sommer and Dr. Tricia Young. The anthologies include contributions from colleague Dr. Hannah Schwadron and ADS alumni. Jen also co-chaired another successful Popular Culture/ American Culture Association national conference with Celeste Landeros in Indianapolis, IN, where Jen organized a panel of local artists who spoke about creating work in collaboration with, response, and/ or resistance to the city itself through an array of artistic mediums, such as movement, visual art, and poetry. While in Indy, Jen presented her own research: “From Street to Stage: Choreographic Strategies for Performing Dance Legacies in Bamboula: Musicians’ Brew,” which investigates the multilayered historical legacies embodied in Millicent Johnnie’s work for Cleo Parker Robinson Dance’s 45th Anniversary Season. Anjali Austin returned to SOD after a twosemester sabbatical. She continued her creative research by choreographing a new work for Evening of Dance titled, katallasso. Anjali also began her appointment as Director of the School of Dance’s four-week study abroad Dance in Paris program. This year eleven Dance majors participated in dance technique classes, attended specialized lectures and presentations, and visited historical sites. In July Ms. Austin began her service as President of CORPS de Ballet
Ann Carlson International, Inc. and looks forward to hosting the organization’s 21st annual conference at Florida State University in July 2019. Ansje Burdick oversaw 14 artist residencies and three site visits this past season. She also implemented the third year of The Andrew W. Mellon (AWMF) three-year grant that supported multi-year residencies, embedded writers, a flexible fund for artist needs, and research associate salary. She secured a first-time grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation to support parent artists, and assisted in obtaining a National Endowment for the Arts grant to continue MANCC Forward Dialogues, a laboratory to support emerging artists. She also worked closely with the director to successfully request a three-year renewal and expansion of funds from the AWMF, and an FSU CRC planning grant. Additionally, she mentored dance students Alex Lance (BFA, 2018) to complete an evaluation of MANCC’s digital media, and Emily Kaniuka (MA, 2018) to forward plans for a Southern Route Network pilot initiative and possible 2019 MANCC Forum. She represented MANCC at the Alliance of Artists Communities conference in Denver, Colorado this past fall. Chris Cameron documented the creative process of 11 artists in 14 residencies, and three site visits (two artists’ planning visits and the newly established National Center for Choreography/ Akron’s ED/AD) over the course of MANCC’s 2017-2018 season. His video documentation of Alice Sheppard’s fall 2017 residency to develop DESCENT has been selected for The Other Film Festival, the first and foremost disability
Carlson is the recipient of over thirty commissions and numerous awards for her artistic work. Her awards include: a 2016 Creative Capital Award, a 2015 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award in Contemporary Dance, a 2015 National Dance Project Award, a 2014 Multi-Art Production Fund Grant, a USA Artist Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and a Fellowship from the Foundation for Contemporary Art. She was an Artist Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies Fellowship/Harvard University and received three awards from the National Choreographic Initiative; a Doris Duke Award for New Work;
the first Cal/Arts Alpert Award in Choreography, and a prestigious three-year choreographic fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
film festival in Australia, with November 2018 screenings. Chris’ work continues to expand MANCC’s singular archive of photo, audio, and video materials. See mancc.org for published videos and photos of this year’s hosted artists.
in collaboration with alum Millicent Johnnie (BFA, 2002; MFA, 2006) that engaged the FSU, FAMU, and Tallahassee arts community. This year, La Toya traveled to Osogbo, Nigeria; New Orleans, LA; and Havana, Cuba collecting oral stories and conducting research on how spirituality, dancing and drumming intertwine in African Traditional Religions throughout the African Diaspora. La Toya served as Chair of the Scholarship committee; Liasion between the Friends of Dance and the School of Dance; and coordinator of special projects, through which provided programming for over 250 youth between the ages of 10 and 18 (Suzanne Farrell Workshop for Young Dancers, Summer Intensive Workshop Audition Classes, and the FSU School of Dance Summer Intensive Workshops).
Doug Corbin enjoyed an enriching sabbatical year. In the fall, he was a guest artist at University of North Texas in Dallas, then on to Jacob’s Pillow, to participate in Urban Bush Women’s super inspiring Choreographic Center Initiative convening. In Glasgow, he was a guest at the Scottish Conservatoire, one of a few schools offering a Masters degree in dance accompaniment. After a mutually stimulating visit, he and several Scottish Conservatoire faculty travelled to Accademia Nazionale di Danza in Rome for the “il Corpo nel Suono” conference. Spring featured work at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City, with choreographer Marguerite Hemmings. Closer to home, he enjoyed a two week residency working with the New York Dance Project and the Santa Fe Dance Theatre, with alums Sarah Harkness Sebastien and Alora Haynes. Summer highlights include a teaching residency in Havana (Cuba!) and his tenth season at the American Dance Festival. La Toya Davis-Craig in her second year with the School of Dance created and taught two new courses, Dancing the African Diaspora and Grant Writing for the Performing Arts. Continuing her research on using the arts as a means to build community, she presented “Community Participation and Arts Management Education” at the Southern Arts Leadership Educators Conference in Atlanta, GA. and in the Fall initiated a 7 part community engagement series, “Building Communities: Breaking Barriers”,
Ann Carlson has completed a series of four residencies with MANCC and has worked with School of Dance students in various capacities throughout her residencies. She will return to Tallahassee in the Fall as a Visiting Guest Artist to restage her canonical work Flag on SOD students to be presented in the annual An Evening of Dance Concert on November 2-3, 2018.
Joséphine A. Garibaldi was awarded a $20,000 Arts & Humanities Program Enhancement Grant (AHPEG) from the FSU Council on Research and Creativity in support of Phase II of Laptop Performance Laboratory/Modular Play (LPL/ MP). For over a year, LPL/MP collaborators from across the globe worked throuigh Google Hangout sessions to develop intermedial content for a three-week artist residency in Montgomery Hall and the Black Box Theatre culminating in the performance installation Virtually Real: the isolated connection community. A section of the work, Clusterflock Ritual, was premiered at Classic City Fringe Festival in October 2017. During Spring 2018, Professor Garibaldi was joined by co-artistic director of Callous Physical Theatre (CPT), Paul Zmolek, in Riga, Latvia for the Nordic University Winter Conference Practicing Communities: Transformative Societal Strategies of Artistic Research to present “LPL/MP revisited
Nika Sourakov in Catharsis II by Tim Glenn Photo by Savannah Lee Sickmon
Tim Glenn visited the Fine Arts Center, Greenville, SC, where he created Catharsis II, a new multimedia work that was later restaged for Days of Dance at FSU. He offered FSU’s first Screendance Composition course in collaboration with Dan Smith and attended the International Screendance Festival and Workshop hosted by the University of Utah. Glenn and Smith implemented a Student Technology Fee Award to support field recording, and Glenn worked with Assistant Professor Tiffany Rhynard and the Dance Technology Committee to secure funding for new School of Dance computers. Tim was contracted to edit a documentary based on “Tracing Modern Dance: A Reconstruction Residency for Paul Taylor’s Lost, Tracer,” a residency he documented in conjunction with UNC Charlotte and the Paul Taylor Dance Foundation. Glenn looks forward to a long-awaited sabbatical during fall of 2018, which will include choreographic residencies, writing, and a dance film project.
or (re)activating the consequence of exquisite corpse”. July 2018, Garibaldi & Zmolek were in residence at Buinho Creative Hub, Messejana, Portugal to create Passeio Demorado (Slow Walk) through the cobbled streets of Messejana. Ilana Goldman completed her third short dance film, InterState, serving as performer, choreographer, editor, and co-director, along with Gabriel Williams. InterState screened at ScreenDance Festival Sweden in Stockholm; 3rd Braga International Video Dance Festival in Portugal; St. Petersburg International Film Festival in Russia; LA Dance Shorts Festival in Los Angeles; Front and Main Film Festival in Temecula, CA (Audience Choice Award); Benicia Film Festival in California; and EnCore Dance on Film 2018 in Atlanta. It was a finalist in the Alternative Film Festival in Toronto. As part of a mentorship program with choreographer Doug Varone, she choreographed a duet, Give & Take, danced by Gabriel Williams (MFA, 2017) and Amanda Ayo (BFA, 2017), which was performed at Gibney Dance in New York City. Her dance Facile Manipulations was performed on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center by Bowen McCauley Dance, a professional contemporary dance company based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. She performed a duet Nice Ladies at 621 Gallery in Tallahassee, created in collaboration with FSU School of Dance professor Hannah Schwadron and presented papers on community engagement at the National Dance Education Organization’s annual conference in San Antonio, TX and at the World Dance Alliance’s Global Summit in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. She taught a Dance on Film class and ballet technique at Perry-Mansfield and choreographed a work for their pre-professional students. Kehinde Ishangi completed her first year as Assistant Professor and was awarded a Dean Travel Grant as well as a FYAP to pursue her summer research “Exploring Biomechanics and Functional Anatomy through Dunham Technique.” Ishangi was invited to become apart of the the international faculty of the Franklin Method and is currently considered “faculty-in-training.” In addition to presenting, performing, and teaching master classes at the American College Dance Association (ACDA), Ishangi presented “SelfCare as Political Warfare” at the Florida State University’s Social Justice Symposium: Activism in the Academy; Set a new work, Not My Enemy on KM Dance Project in New Orleans, LA; and
Re-imagining phrase from Donna Uchizono’s Thin Air for the first opening section for the Joyce premiere. Photo by Julieta Cervantes
performed Boschimanne: living curiosities with KM Dance Project at Women In Dance Leadership Conference in NYC. Dr. Hannah Schwadron published her first book, The Case of the Sexy Jewess: Dance, Gender, and Jewish Joke-work in US Pop and had the pleasure of presenting performative iterations of the book at various venues. She also published four peerreviewed academic articles; an original invited chapter was included in Perspectives on American Dance; and a collaborative video dance interview “In Transit”, was published in Liminalities. Hannah’s dance film Between I and Thou (2017), funded by FSU’s COFRS award, showed at four short film festivals; and she was able to share her first dance film, Klasse (2016) at the FSU Museum of Fine Arts as part of an exhibition on women heroes of the Holocaust. Professional creative activities provided opportunity for Hannah to travel to Barcelona, Spain; Hamburg, Germany; and Buenos Aires, Argentina. She created an interdisciplinary course for called Choreographies of the Global City, which looked at the embodied politics of place. This summer, Hannah facilitated her fifth year of Field Studies, an annual dance research lab in New York City and attended Urban Bush Women’s Summer Leadership Institute.
Stuart Singer and Reid Bartelme in Gwen Welliver’s ‘Couple Riding’ (2018). Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung Works & Process at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s Peter B. Lewis Theater. Photo by Robert Altman
Alayna Lee spent her first year with MANCC supporting 14 residencies and 3 site visits, which included production, pre-premier, and postpremiere residencies. She also spent this past semester teaching in the School of Dance NonMajor Program as an adjunct professor of Dance Appreciation and working on her own focused research surrounding the myths, archetypes, and stereotypes of “The Southern Woman.” Carla Peterson continued to serve as chief strategist, fundraiser and residency curator, inviting artists who reflect diverse artistic practices, identities and geographies. She attended national industry conferences, and served on boards (Movement Research, Mount Tremper Arts), a steering committee (the “Bessies”), and funding and presentation panels, including, among others, the Alliance of Artists’ Communities panel, “Program Agility and the Changing Landscape of Performance” in Denver, CO. Peterson secured renewed funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to continue and enhance existing residency and embedded writers programs, and to pilot new ones - commissioning writings on dance and performance, and pairing
Hannah Schwadron presenting a new work at Field Studies 2017, NYC
archivists with artists in residence. This grant also covers salary for the Research Associate Additional grants include an NEA to implement MANCC Forward Dialogues and an FSU CRC Planning Grant to explore hosting a national convening. Internally, she served on two College and University search committees and on the School of Dance’s P & T Committee. Russell Sandifer traveled to Washington, D.C. in December to light the final performances of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center Opera House. He had designed for the company for seventeen years. Dan Smith’s composition, “Toccata and Nocturne for Vibraphone and Electronics,” was premiered in the fall of 2017 by The Tallahassee Ballet in tandem with choreography by Julie Opiel (MFA, 2019). The piece was commissioned by The Stevens Consortium, a collection of 30 nationally renowned percussionists whose mission is to fund new percussion works from emerging composers. Dan was solo pianist for The Suzanne Farrell Ballet’s performance of Chaconne (Balanchine), and he performed alongside mezzo-soprano, Sahoko Timpone, for Tiffany Rhynard’s dance, At Close Range, which premiered at Evening of Dance. In December, he performed a holiday concert with Mary Wilson of The Supremes and Sinfonia Gulf Coast. During the spring of 2018, Dan served as music director for a new choreographic work by SOD faculty Gwen Welliver called
Welliver Variation, which was commissioned and performed by Martha Graham Dance Company. Sally R. Sommer Ph.D. directed and taught a wonderful fall semester, “FSU in NYC” and finished three major publications: “La danza vernácula americana: La contribución afroamericana de 1700 a 1940” in Historia de la danza en el siglo XX, published by Mahali Press in Valencia, Spain; she co-edited with Jen Atkins and Tricia Young the two-volume anthology Perspectives on American Dance: The Twentieth Century and The New Millennium (March 2018). As a member of the New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies) she saw about 125 dance performances from which 2017 winners were selected. A members of the Advisory Board of “Career Transitions for Dancers” /Actors’ Fund (AF), she is also designing a special workshop. She lectured at Bard College, Dance 1960s: NYC, and is developing curriculum on Italian Cuisine and Culture. She also did work for the Guggenheim Foundation, and other private foundations. Her film, Check Your Body at the Door, continues to be shown at House Dance festivals in Europe and in South America. Donna Uchizono has been commissioned by The Joyce Theater in New York City to create an evening-length work for the Quadrille series curated by Lar Lubovitch to premiere in Fall, 2018. Donna Uchizono Company (DUC) received the
NEW FACULTY Caleb Mitchell was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan where he started his serious early ballet training at the age of 16 under Rose Marie Floyd. After graduating cum laude in 1998 with a BFA in dance from the University of Arizona, Caleb joined the Houston Ballet under Ben Stevenson, O.B.E.-emeritus and later Stanton Welch, artistic director. During his tenure with Houston Ballet (19982007), Mr. Mitchell performed many featured roles in works by George Balanchine, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Sir Frederick Ashton, Ben Stevenson, O.B.E., Glen Tetley, William Forsythe, Paul Taylor, Christopher Bruce, Ronald Hynd, Lila York, Natalie
Weir, Julia Adams, Trey McIntyre, Stanton Welch, James Kudelka, and David Parsons. In 2007, Caleb was awarded a Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship (Helen Russell Scholar) at the University Of California-Irvine. In June 2009, Mr. Mitchell received a MFA in dance, and soon after became full-time dance faculty at Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi where he received tenure (2009-2016). Mr. Mitchell has guest choreographic and teaching engagements with METdance, Ballet 5:8, The Link School of the Arts, Vivid Ballet, Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet, Cirque du Soliel: Elvis, Brigham Young Univeristy, Texas Ballet
Inaugural Dance Advancement Fund, a Plehn Arts award, a four-week company residence at Long Island University- Brooklyn in March and May, 2018 and a New York State Council on the Arts in support of DUC’s 2018 home season at The Joyce Theater. In April, Uchizono sat on the Rasmuson Foundation panel for Individual Artist Awards in Anchorage Alaska. She is continuing to broker strategic planning and discussion with Rasmuson and the Anchorage dance community to support and strengthen the visibility and presence of dance in Alaska. Originally slated for 2016, Uchizono, dancers and collaborators are excited and honored to finally immerse themselves in the MANCC residency at FSU in July, 2018 for a new work to premiere at The Chocolate Factory, NY in 2019. Gwen Welliver finished her third year as Assistant Professor in the School of Dance at Florida State University. Highlights include two choreographic commissions: The Welliver Variation co-commissioned by Opening Nights and the Martha Graham Company; Couple Riding, new work featured in Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung’s Works & Process at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s Peter B. Lewis Theater. These works were supported in part by the FSU Office of Research COFRS award, the Center for Performance Research’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Artist in Residence program, and a cocommission from Opening Nights and The Martha Graham Dance Company. Welliver continues her
Theater Professional Division, University of California Irvine’s Etude Ensemble (Donald McKayle--Artistic Director), the Masterworks Festival, Belhaven University, Santa Monica College, Houston Ballet 2, Southern Methodist University, and others. In the fall semester of 2016, he joined Santa Monica College Dance Department (Santa Monica, California) as full-time Associate Professor of Dance. Proudly, as of August 2018, this will be Mr. Mitchell’s first semester as full time Assistant Professor at the Florida State University School of Dance.
service on the Artist Advisory Committee for New York Foundation for the Arts, the governing body for the NYFA Artist Fellowship Program. In May she was awarded a 2017-2018 FSU University Graduate Teaching Award. Tom Welsh was on sabbatical in 2017-18 to work on a textbook to teach dancers how to read, conduct, and use empirical research. He also worked with Stephanie Rivas (MA, 2018) on her research on targeted cross-training for dancers; served on Ashley Fryer’s (PhD, 2018) sport psychology with dancers doctoral committee; collaborated with Brooklyn Draper (Utah) on a study of leg-length discrepancy in dancers; and continued to meet bi-weekly (via Skype) with FSU Professors Jon Bailey (Psychology) and Bruce Thyer (Social Work) to mentor students conducting within-subject research in a variety of fields. Tom, Kaitlin Morgan (BFA, 2016), and Jatin Ambegaonkar (George Mason U) presented a research methods forum at the IADMS conference in Houston. Tom also teamed-up with Gabriel William (MFA, 2017), Sarah Wilcoxon (MFA, 2016), Veoletta Range (MFA, 2015), Loren Davidson (2012), and Ariel Trazskos (BFA, 2014) to present a strategy for building a culture of wellness in dance. In June, Tom and Alyssa Velazquez (BFA, 2017) will present two papers at the Performing Arts Medicine Association conference. Tom will teach for the FSU Summer Dance Intensive and looks forward to returning to FSU in the Fall.
Ilana Goldman in her short dance film InterState.” Photo by Gabriel Williams
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar served as producer and dramaturg to a new work conceived by Jawole and created by Urban Bush Women’s (UBW) Associate Artistic Directors, Chanon Judson and Samantha Speis. UBW premiered this audienceengaged work Hair & Other Stories in New Orleans in January 2017. The work has gone on to successfully tour throughout the United States. Touring with the work are 2017 MFA alumni, Cheri Stokes as Company Manager and Ross Daniel as Assistant Stage Manager. Alvin Ailey Dance Theater restaged Zollar’s nationally acclaimed work Shelter and premiered it at City Center in New York City as a part of Ailey’s 2017 season. She received the Bessie Lifetime Achievement Award and returned to the stage as performer for the first time in 15 years and continued her performance career in Los Angeles with MacArthur award recipient Taylor Mac as a part of his 24 Decades of American Popular Music.
IN MEMORY Jolie Long Carlton (MFA, 1990), passed away on May 1st, while surrounded by loving family at her home in Gainesville, Georgia. Besides being treasured as one of the kindest persons you could ever hope to meet, she will always be remembered as a longtime professor and chair of the Department of Dance of Brenau University, where she taught modern and jazz technique, tap, improvisation, choreography and Pilates classes. She also served as the Director of the Brenau Dance Ensemble for many years. Jolie graduated Cum Laude from Mary Washington College earning a B.A. in dance, and an M.F.A. in Choreography and Performance from FSU. She taught at the Gainesville School of Ballet and was a faculty member for the Virginia Governor’s School for the Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Richmond for 12 years. In May 2009, Jolie received Brenau University’s Ann Austin Johnston Outstanding Faculty Award, Brenau’s highest teaching honor. Jolie was also active with the American College Dance Association where she served two terms as a member of the board.
Belman Family Endows Fund to Memorialize Dance Professor Rodger Belman Rodger’s passion and commitment to his profession took him to many places around the world. He taught and performed in China, Korea, and the UK. He was also a faculty member of American Dance Festival (ADF). His choreography has been presented in venues all across the United States. The most recent, a collaboration with artist Trevor Bell, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University. Bell’s multi-panel 125-foot painting Southern Light was installed in its entirety, accompanied by Rodger’s choreographic work, performed by his associates from the FSU School of Dance. Prior to his teaching career, Rodger danced with Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians in New York. He also performed with the dance companies of Twyla Tharp, Rachel Lampert, Mark Taylor, Joy Kellman, and Kristin Jackson. Rodger was a beautiful person with a kind, loving soul, who gave more than he took.
Rodger Belman, Assistant Professor of Dance and Choreography since 2013, passed away in October of 2017 after a courageous battle with cancer. To celebrate Rodger’s life and to continue to share his love and passion with others, an endowment was created through the generosity of his family, friends, and FSU. The principal of an endowed fund is never spent. Instead, the principal is invested, and the earnings are used to fulfill the purpose(s) for which the fund was created. The Rodger Belman Fund in Dance will be used to support the activities of FSU Dance faculty and students engaged in dance making practice that embraces collaboration, nontraditional spaces, and/or working across disciplines within the community. To make an online gift to the Belman Fund (F07961), or any other area in the School of Dance, visit dance.fsu.edu, click on Giving, and search for the fund name under “Other Designations.” Or make your check payable to “FSU Foundation” with your preferred fund name and mail to:
Students Maximo Olivera (BFA, 2019) and Sydney Parker (BFA, 2019) perform at the Opening Reception of Bell & Belman.
Jessica Comas, Director of Development College of Fine Arts Florida State University PO Box 3061170 Tallahassee, FL 32306-1170
YEAR IN REVIEW
MANCC
Alice Sheppard (NY) Visiting Artist DESCENT August 25 - September 5, 2017
Kota Yamazaki (NY/Japan) Visiting Artist Darkness Odyssey, Part 2: I or Hallucination November 8 - 22, 2017
Alice Sheppard came to MANCC to develop her work DESCENT, an evening-length duet set atop a complex ramp system that recasts Rodin’s Venus and Andromeda as an interracial, lesbian couple. Dancers Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson continued to push the limits of their training, and Michael Maag, disabled lighting and video artist, focused on the creation of a multi-sensory experience that reveals the power of disability in dance. The residency marked the first time the ramp had been fully broken down at one site and reinstalled at another.
Inspired by the work of French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and butoh pioneer Tatsumi Hijikata’s “dance of darkness,” Japanese artist Kota Yamazaki and his collaborators came to MANCC to develop Part 2 of his Darkness Odyssey trilogy. While at MANCC, Yamazaki worked on setting the movement vocabulary, and finalized a scenic design that involved covering the stage floor in reflective silver material, which interplayed with a lighting design by Thomas Dunn. Moriah Evans, Editor-in-Chief of the Movement Research Journal, joined as a part of the Mellon-funded Embedded Writers Initiative.
Two writers, Dr. Carrie Sandahl, Chair of the Program on Disability Art, Culture, and Humanities at University of Illinois, Chicago, and Jerron Herman, a dance artist, writer, and performer with New York City-based Heidi Latsky Dance Company, joined the residency to further the discourse on disability in dance. The artists offered several open rehearsals followed by discussions during the residency. DESCENT premiered on September 29, 2017 at the Britt Festival in Medford, Oregon. Herman and Sandahl’s visit was supported by the Mellonfunded Embedded Writers Initiative.
Darkness Odyssey Part 2: I or Hallucination premiered to critical acclaim at the Baryshnikov Arts Center on December 13-15, 2017. Yamazaki will return to MANCC in Spring 2019 to develop Part 3 of his Darkness Odyssey trilogy. This residency was supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Students experiment with Rosie Herrera in rehearsal, using their cell phones as theatrical lighting.
David Neumann (NY) Returning Choreographic Fellow Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed November 25 - December 3, 2017 // June 24 July 7, 2018
Ralph Lemon (NY) Living Legacy Artist Saturnalia January 1 - 8, 2018
David Neumann completed the final two of three residencies for his latest work inspired by his participation as the first performing artist-inresidence in 2016 at the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). For this new work, Neumann attempts to bring the unfathomable scales of time and space into the theater and onto bodies with his mix of dance, science, and theater-making methodologies.
Ralph Lemon returned to MANCC with choreographer/dancer, Darrell Jones to work on his new project Saturnalia (working title). Lemon and Jones revisited and expanded upon earlier works and the ideas circulating within them including 4walls, which was developed, in part, at MANCC and premiered in 2012 at The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (EMPAC), Troy, NY. As a live-dance/film work, 4walls grew out of two other earlier Lemon works, Wall/hole and the 2010 awardwinning How Can You Stay in The House and Not Go Anywhere?, also developed, in part, at MANCC.
Neumann brought an intergenerational cast of dancers including Sara Rudner, Professor of Dance at Sarah Lawrence College and former muse of Twyla Tharpe; Jodi Melnick, a renowned choreographer in her own right; and Victoria Roberts-Wierzbowski, as well as theater artist, Marcella Murray. He also engaged in ongoing conversation with Dr. Jeremiah Murphy, Assistant Professor in FSU’s Department of Physics, at various phases of the works’ development. These residencies were supported, in part, by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Inspired by the pre-christian tradition of slaves and masters trading roles during the pagan agricultural celebration, Saturnalia, Lemon and Jones envisioned this enlightened notion of power structures in our contemporary context. Dramaturg Katherine Profeta, who has worked with Lemon on his various projects since 1997, joined them for the last two days of the residency.
Jeanine Durning (NY) Visiting Artist dark matter, selfish portrait January 16 - 23, 2018 // May 30 - June 16, 2018
Rosie Herrera (FL) Returning Choreographic Fellow Make Believe January 25 - February 8, 2018
Drawing inspiration from William James’s philosophy of radical empiricism, which emphasizes the role of a subject’s experience in defining reality, and the work of Samuel Beckett, Jeanine Durning came to MANCC for two residencies to develop her a solo work, dark matter, selfish portrait, a meta-contemplation on the act of creating a performed ritual of selftransformation and otherness. Durning initially researched the history of self-portraiture in art and performance, and explored notions of (self)/ consciousness and reflexivity.
Rosie Herrera, known as “the Pina Bausch of South Beach,” brought a large collaborative team to MANCC, including dramaturg David Brick, CoDirector of Headlong Dance Institute, to develop her latest evening-length dance theater work, Make Believe, which explores magic, celebrity worship, and romantic love through the lens of ritual and religious spectacle.
During her time at MANCC, Durning met with FSU’s Dr. Stanley Gontarski, Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English, whose research interests include European Modernism and performance theory, and who has published several books on the work of Samuel Beckett. Durning will return to MANCC in Winter 2019 to complete the third of three residencies in support of this project. These residencies were supported, in part, by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Alice Sheppard in rehearsal for DESCENT in September 2017.
At MANCC Herrera experimented with several design elements for the work. In a section that comments on romantic life mediated through digital platforms, dancers experimented using the glow of their cell phones as theatrical lighting. FSU School of Dance students were invited to participate in this experiment, as Herrera tried the idea with an expanded cast. This sparked another idea for a potential community engagement element of the work, in which local community members are invited to join the performance. Make Believe premiered in July 2018 at the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina.
Ann Carlson (CA) Living Legacy Artist Dumbo Redacted February 11 - 24, 2018
Rosy Simas (MN) Partnership Project: McKnight Artist Fellow Weave February 25 - March 5 // April 14 - 20, 2018
Living Legacy artist Ann Carlson returned to MANCC with dramaturg Melanie Joseph for the final residency in a series of three supporting the development of her solo project, Dumbo Redacted, in which she will also perform. The first residency supported the development of her ensemble work, Elizabeth, the dance, as well.
Rosy Simas’ (Seneca, Heron Clan) work unites cultural ideas and images with scientific theories to build narratives that are both literal and metaphoric. While at MANCC, Simas developed Weave, a work that honors the interwoven and interdependent nature of our world, by crafting stories though her embodied lens as a Native feminist movement and imagemaker. For many Indigenous peoples, weaving is a way of life in which cultural stories and tribal knowledge are conveyed. Simas engages with Native people in every community where her work is created and presented; here she met with Dr. John Lowe and Dr. Melessa Kelley (FSU’s Center for Indigenous Nursing Research for Health Equity), and Susan Anderson and Roy Stanley (local indigenous rights activists). Simas and her collaborators were joined by Heid E. Erdrich and Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán as part of MANCC’s Embedded Writers Initiative.
Carlson is an interdisciplinary artist who borrows techniques from dance, performance, theater, and visual and conceptual art. Dumbo Redacted builds upon her celebrated “Animals” series, and is informed by the movement and mythologies surrounding earth’s largest land mammal, the elephant. MANCC acknowledges the need for deeper, more sustained support to allow artists to research their ideas in and out of the studio, from concept to movement, to production and design. Carlson is one such artist receiving this sustained support. This residency was supported, in part, by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
These residencies were supported, in part, by a partnership with McKnight Choreography Fellowships, funded by The McKnight Foundation and administered by The Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts.
MANCC By Numbers:
In the last year MANCC has increased the value of the creative process in dance by engaging and supporting...
11 lead artists 68 artistic collaborators 14 residencies 3 site visits 17 engagements with scholars 10 work-in-progress showings
11 open studios 8 engagements with community groups 12 embedded Writers-in-Residence 98 School of Dance students had access to exclusive studio viewings, talks, and artistic mentorship
Jumatatu Poe (PA) Visiting Artist Let ‘im Move You: This is a Formation Site Visit: October 12 - 15, 2017 // Residency: March 4 - 17, 2018 Jumatatu Poe prepared for a residency with his entire creative team by coming for a 2-day site visit, which laid the groundwork for interactions in the Tallahassee community with the full cast. His series, Let ‘im Move You, draws from J-Sette, a dance form with origins in southern drill teams and made popular on majorette lines at historically Black universities and on independent squads in the gay African American club scene. Poe held a series of workshops with members of the FAMU Diamond Dance team, which practices J-Sette, and attended their Homecoming Weekend performances. The performance cast consists of two groups of dancers - one from Dallas trained in club aesthetics, and one from Philadelphia trained in contemporary Africanist dance forms. Both groups perform at an intersection of masculine and feminine embodiments. As a part of MANCC’s Embedded Writers Initiative, the group was joined by two scholars, Dr. Jasmine Johnson (Brown University) and noted cultural theorist Dr. Thomas DeFrantz (Duke University). The Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia will produce the premiere of Let ‘im Move You: This is a Formation in February 2019.
Jumatatu Poe and writer Jasmine Johnson attend FAMU’s Homecoming football game to watch performances by the FAMU Diamond Dance team, as part of a MANCC pre-residency site-visit.
Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener (NY) with Claudia La Rocco (CA) Visiting Artists Desire Lines: translation March 18 - 31, 2018
Juliana F. May (NY) Visiting Artist Folk Incest May 12 - 24, 2018
After working together as dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and then seven years of collaborative performance and research, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener came to MANCC to develop their new work, Desire Lines: translation. “Desire Lines” are alternate, unofficial routes or social trails in nature and landscape architecture. Mitchell and Riener apply this phenomenon to an improvisation practice that maps individual and collective action.
Juliana F. May came to MANCC to develop her work, Folk Incest, a piece that explores uncomfortable subjects to expose compulsivity as a mechanism for both coping and adaptation, May is interested in looking at unconscious motivation and defensiveness in an effort to lament, re-perform, and admonish various systems of oppression that silence and make bodies invisible.
Mitchell and Riener opened the doors of their rehearsal process to the public in four Open Studio sessions, sharing their improvisational practice in both traditional studio settings, as well as outdoor spaces throughout FSU’s campus. Writer Claudia La Rocco joined Mitchell and Riener in an effort to spin constellations of ideas around this ephemeral work, allowing individual viewers various avenues into these performances through such materials as interviews, essays, poems, drawings, and archival videos.
Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre in rehearsal for Make Believe in February 2018.
While at MANCC, May met with FSU’s Dr. Robin Truth Goodman, scholar of feminist literature, and Sarah Jahnke, Manager of the Costume Shop in the School of Theater, to discuss the aesthetics of feminism found in time periods throughout history. As a part of MANCC’s Embedded Writers Initiative, May and her collaborators were joined in residence by Rennie McDougall who is a dance artist and a recent graduate of NYU’s master’s program in cultural reporting and criticism. Folk Incest will premiere at Abrons Art Center October 9-20, 2018.
Mellon-funded, Returning Choreographic Fellow, Ann Carlson in rehearsal for Dumbo Redacted.
Increased Funding Brings Exciting New Initiatives to MANCC Each year, the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) hosts 10-15 nationally significant artists for 1-3 week periods, to create new dance works. Housed within FSU’s School of Dance, artists are provided with the creative and scholarly resources needed to develop some of the fields’ most innovative works of contemporary performance. As one of the nation’s only residency sites for contemporary choreography located within a research university, MANCC is one-of-a kind in its holistic approach to supporting dance artists, providing a number of programs for artists with diverse practices who are at varying stages of their careers and phases of their projects. The upcoming 2018-19 season marks fifteen years since MANCC’s founding, and new and renewed grant-supported initiatives will kick off this landmark anniversary. After the successful implementation of its pilot program, MANCC Forward Dialogues (MFD), in 2017, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has awarded a second round of funding to implement the program in the upcoming year.
As part of MANCC’s mission to raise the value of the creative process in dance, the MFD program is a laboratory designed to support and catalyze the ideas of emergent movement-based artists by providing access to a stimulating environment that encourages experimentation, exploration, and life-long learning. With this renewed funding MANCC will facilitate the program for a second time in the Spring of 2019. MFD will continue to support emerging choreographers as they partner with another creative artist of their choice (in dance or another field) to establish or push further a generative artistic relationship. The lab, facilitated by leaders in the field of dance and performance, will be a 14day, process-oriented immersion that develops, examines, and allows for the articulation of the participants’ nascent choreographic voices. MANCC has also been awarded funding from the Sustainable Arts Foundation (SAF), which supports artists with children. For many parents the financial, emotional, and logistical demands of raising a family make attending a traditional artist residency program impossible. SAF provides funding to allow residency programs,
like MANCC, to make their programs more accessible to parent artists. MANCC will use these funds to assist artists with costs relating to child-care during their time in Tallahassee, including everything from car-seat rentals to hiring a sitter. MANCC is also incredibly pleased to announce renewed funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This generous grant is distributed over a three-year period and supports several existing and new initiatives. Acknowledging the need for deeper, more sustained support allowing artists to research their ideas in and out of the studio, from concept to movement, to production and design, MANCC will utilize Mellon funds to make multi-year, multi-residency commitments to support vanguard artists at each phase in the development of their work. To this end, three to four artists will be selected for this extended commitment, and will develop a project at MANCC over the course of several residencies. In partnership with Urban Bush Women’s (UBW) Choreographic Fellowship Program, Mellon funds will also be used to support residencies for female-identifying choreographers of color. In addition, MANCC’s archive of process videos will be activated in two archival residencies, in
which an artist will work in partnership with an archivist to revisit materials produced at MANCC. This funding will also provide continued support of the Embedded Writers Initiative, which pairs writers with artists to support the thoughtful articulation of the creative process, finished work, and oeuvre in the public realm. The writers initiative embraces a long-term goal of creating strong, contextualized materials for the artist and their audiences to help foster a deeper engagement and conversation with challenging ideas made manifest in contemporary work. To add to this program, writers will now be commissioned to publish essays on their experiences with the artists’ creative processes at MANCC. Finally, the Mellon grant will continue to fund MANCC’s part-time Research Associate position, which uniquely supports residencies by connecting artists to both academic resources on campus and civic resources within the Tallahassee community. MANCC looks forward to its upcoming season of residencies. More information about public work-in-progress showings is available by subscribing to the mailing list at www.mancc. org.
MANCC Forward Dialogues participant Maya Jordan (LA, CA) shares a work-in-progress with her cohort of emerging artists.
Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography//
2018-19 Season Preview It is with great excitement that MANCC looks forward to the 2018-19 Season of Artists in Residence. This year, with increased funding support, our season will include 10 artists in residence plus 16 emerging artists in a laboratory structure representing the diversity of artistic practices across the United States. We will also build upon our current initiatives including our embedded writers program, raising the value of the creative process in dance. The following is a sampling of what to expect in the coming season.
Donna Uchizono (FL/NY)
July 2018 Iron Jane and March Under an Empty reign Visiting Artist
Marjani Forte-Saunders (CA/NY)
Neil Greenberg (NY)
October/November 2018 To the Things Themselves! Visiting Artist
Kathy Westwater (NY)
January 2019 Rambler, Worlds Worlds A Part Visiting Artist
Ginger Krebs (IL)
February 2019 Escapes and Reversals Visiting Artist
Jeanine Durning (NY)
February 2018 dark matter, selfish portrait Returning Choreographic Fellow
Kota Yamazaki (Japan/NY)
March 2019 Darkness Odyssey, Part 3: Non-Opera, Becoming Returning Choreographic Fellow
Charles O. Anderson (TX)
August/September 2018 Memoirs of a...Unicorn A pilot partnership with Urban Bush Women’s Choreographic Fellows
April 2019 Recurrent Unrest Visiting Artist
Milka Djordjevich (CA) April/May 2019 CORPS Visiting Artist
MANCC Forward Dialogues 2
Embedded Writers Program
Residencies and commissioned writings on the creative process in dance
May 2019 Emerging Choreographers Laboratory
MANCC looks forward to engaging students and faculty with our diverse line-up of artists. Please visit mancc.org for the latest news about our upcoming season. THE ANDREW W.
MELLON FOUNDATION
Dancers, Joanna Kotze and Mina Nishimura, performs in an informal showing of Kota Yamazaki’s ‘Darkness Odyssey, Part 2: I or Hallucination’ in November 2017.
2018-2019 Scholarships Dance Alumni Scholarship Kieron Sargeant FSU Friends of Dance Scholarships Academic Year Fatima Andere Taylor Ballard Gabrielle Barnes Kentoria Earle Maria Garcia Mara Goebelbecker Catalina Good Ben Howard Ellen Kilby Joseph McDonald Mary Katherine Murphy Summer Eboné Amos Kameron Chatman Casey Copeland Melissa Cobblah Gutierrez Olivia Hopkins
Alexandra Jean-Baptiste Felisha Ortega de la Paz Nikole Pittman Sarah Rose Imranda Ward Men’s Jeovanni Bonilla Maximo Oliveira Howell L. Ferguson & Sharon Maxwell-Ferguson Scholarship Eboné Amos Aigars Larionovs Ashley Pierre-Louis Nellie Bond Dickinson & Mary B. Settle Scholarship Janet Cesarotti Bryanna Dean Marissa Fernandez Katelyn Hamilton Katherine Johnson Sydney Parker Nicole Pittman
Nika Sourakov Anyssa Tucker Aileen Booth Shaw Modern Dance Scholarship Ashley Pierre-Louis FSU Men’s Performance Scholarship Shea Best Conrad Channell Markeith Douse Shakeil Jones Aigars Larionovs Wilson-Delores Auzenne Assistantship Eboné Amos Nancy Smith Fichter Holly Stone Legacy Fellowship Leah Cauley
SPOTLIGHT ON GIVING
Cricket Mannheimer Receives the first Nancy Smith Fichter Award The Nancy Smith Fichter/Friends of Dance Award was created this year in celebration of the organization’s 30th Anniversary and to honor its founder, Nancy Smith Fichter who served as the Chairperson for the School of Dance at Florida State University for 33 years. The award was created to recognize a Friends of Dance volunteer for their lifetime dedication, leadership and support of both the School of Dance and Friends of Dance. Nancy Smith Fichter and Friends of Dance President, Laurie Molina presented the award at the Days of Dance performance on April 21, 2018 to Cricket Mannheimer. In presenting the award, Dr. Fichter said, “Cricket is a wonderful
example of servant leadership from the heart.” Cricket earned a B.F.A. in Dance and an M.A. in Art Education from FSU and was a founder and served many years as President of Friends of Dance. She was pivotal in establishing many on-going programs and fund-raising efforts, including student scholarships, the Full House Project, Young Dancer Workshops. Cricket has been a ballet instructor at the Tallahassee Dance Academy for 33 years, was named one of Tallahassee’s 25 Women You Need to Know, and was a Spotlight Teacher in Dance Studio Magazine.
Florida State University 236 Fine Arts Building 540 W. Call Street Tallahassee, Florida 32304
FSU School of Dance Montgomery Hall 130 Collegiate Loop Florida State University Tallahassee, FL 32306-2120 Office: 850.644.1023
On Cover: Sara Eckman Photo by Jamison Unkrich
dance.fsu.edu
Florida State University
School of Dance College of Fine Arts
SEASON CALENDAR An Evening of Dance November 2 & 3
MFA Concerts January 19 February 1 & 2 March 1 & 2
Days of Dance April 19 & 20 April 26 & 27