Dance Discourse Project
The Dance Discourse Project is a far reaching, far ranging, and ambitious project that aims to articulate in a cohesive and coherent way, from the participants themselves, what is happening in contemporary dance in the Bay Area and beyond. This on-going series of artist-driven discussions is organized by Mary Armentrout and co-produced by Dancers’ Group and CounterPULSE.
Call for Proposals
Deadline: 5pm on Thurs, Sept 1st, 2011
As you may know, the Dance Discourse Project is an artist-driven series of discussions about topics in the Bay Area dance scene. Organized by Mary Armentrout and Jessica Robinson Love, and presented by Dancers’ Group and CounterPULSE, DDP takes place roughly three times a year and has been happening since 2007. While we love running this project, we also love making the dialogue as broad as we possibly can, so we are now asking if YOU would like to step forward and curate a Dance Discourse Project of your own. We know there are many interesting, articulate, hard-thinking dance artists in the Bay Area and we invite you to create a Dance Discourse Project that interests you.
Here is what we ask:
1. Tell us about your proposed DDP – what’s the topic, what’s the format, who are your potential panelists (one page max).
2. Tell us about your past experiences attending DDP, and what were the program’s pluses and minuses
3. Tell us a bit about yourself (artistic background and practice, teaching or facilitating experience, etc.)
And here is what we offer:
1. We will select one proposal and present it sometime during the 2011-12 season.
2. We will help support your vision while also sharing what we think has been successful about the DDPs so far, so that your event remains part of the family of DDP events.
Please submit your proposal via email to Mary Armentrout, ma@maryarmentroutdancetheater.com, by 5pm on Thursday, September 1st. We hope to have a decision by October 1st. We also welcome questions before the deadline.
Past Discussions
Dance Discourse Project #10
Are we trapped in a static presenting model?
February 24, 2011
Much of contemporary dance in the Bay Area continues to be presented Thursday through Saturday at 8pm in traditional venues, following in the patterns of many other performance art forms. Distance is often created between Contemporary Dance and popular culture, and the pervading opinion is that to be considered legitimate, a work must have certain presentational aspects, be associated with certain venues, subscribe to particular codes of relating to audience, etc. Is this path to legitimacy still relevant, and is it helping/hurting the form?
Listen to Are we trapped in a static presenting model?
Dance Discourse Project #9
Dance and Somatics in the Bay Area – What’s the Connection?
October 18, 2010
In Dance Discourse Project #9 we will look at ways somatic practices have historically been intertwined with dance in the Bay Area, and investigate some of the new ways of combining them that people are currently exploring. Moderator Mary Armentrout is joined by Carol Swann, director of Moving on Center, Augusta Moore, Ballet Teacher and Feldenkrais Practitioner, and Cathie Caraker, BMC Practitioner and Contact Improv Teacher, in this hybrid form DDP – part panel discussion, part world café break-it-out – bring your bodies, your minds, your questions and your experiences.
Listen to Dance and Somatics in the Bay Area
Dance Discourse Project #8
Dance in Pop Culture:
How Do YouTube & “So You Think You Can Dance” Both Help and Hinder?
March 11, 2010
Join us as we delve into the popping of contemporary dance – the effects of YouTube, “So You Think You Can Dance” and other mass media stratagems on making dance today. We will create a hybrid discussion, part panel talk with Eric Kupers, Monique Jenkinson and other special guests, part world cafe with YOU, as we investigate how these new tools and opportunities are influencing how we make dances in today’s world.
Listen to Dance in Pop Culture
Dance Discourse Project #7
Dancing Diaspora
October 15, 2009
Presented by CounterPULSE, World Arts West/ San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and Dancers’ Group
A lively discussion occurred tackling some of the questions and ideas posed by Performing Diaspora. What is the role of innovation in traditional performance? What makes the Bay Area unique as a home for ethnic dance? How can we work together to broaden support for a new generation of traditional dancers? Local artists, audience members and presenters will engage in an open and participatory conversation.
Dance Discourse Project #6
Dancing in the World: Excavating Site Specific Dance in the Bay Area
April 23, 2009
The Bay Area has a long and storied history of site specific dance exploration, and is continually coming up with new forms of innovation. DDP moderators Mary Armentrout and Jessica Robinson discuss features of this rich terrain with Bay Area legend Anna Halprin, Joanna Haigood, and Erin Mei-ling Stuart.
Listen to Dancing in the World
Dance Discourse Project #5
Writing about dance: Where are we now and where are we going?
February 19, 2009
Do you believe dance writers and critical and informed reviews of dance are near extinction? Is it only now, as we stand to lose these precious perspectives that we begin to understand their worth in the greater community? Dance Discourse Project co-curators Mary Armentrout and Jessica Robinson talk with dance writers Rita Felciano, Keith Hennessy, Rachel Howard and Ann Murphy about their craft, their relation to the field at large, and the questions and ethical concerns that dance reviewing faces as the internet dominates the dissemination of information. The panel will address the changing role of newspapers and the inevitable shifts in how the public views, consumes, and communicates about dance.
Blog entry response and talk back
Dance Discourse Project #4
Media, Technology and Performance
September 25, 2008
Mary Armentrout and Jessica Robinson talk with Sara Kraft, David Szlasa, and Lisa Wymore and Sheldon Smith of Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts. The Bay Area is a global leader in technological innovation. DDP4 explores how Bay Area artists’ work integrates media and performance in unique ways, creating hybrid forms, manipulating, mutating, and extending the technologies being created in our own backyard.
Dance Discourse Project #3
Dancers Debate the Body Politic
May 7th, 2008
Jessica Robinson talks with Jo Kreiter, Ledoh, Sara Shelton Mann and Miguel Gutierrez. In this third installment of a lively series of discussions about topics in Bay Area dance, moderator Jessica Robinson, of CounterPULSE, invites Jo Kreiter, Ledoh, Sara Shelton Mann and Miguel Gutierrez to discuss the multiple layers of the political in their work, how bodies are politicized through movement, and how activism plays a unique role in the Bay Area dance scene. This special installment, presented at Project Artaud Theater, is co-presented by CounterPULSE, Dancers’ Group, and ODC Theater, as part of its festival “For the Record: Dancers Debate the Body Politic.”
Dance Discourse Project #2
Investigating the Post-Multicultural Landscape
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Sherwood Chen and Mary Armentrout talk with Danny Kalanduyan, Teela Shine Ross, Prumsodun Ok, and Joti Singh. In this second installment of an ongoing series, co-curators Sherwood Chen of ACTA (The Alliance for California Traditional Arts) and DDP organizer and local choreographer Mary Armentrout invite these four local dance artists into a lively discussion of the multi-faceted complexities of Bay Area work that utilizes culturally specific dance forms, including innovation and experimentation by tradition-based artists, and cultural and intercultural contexts linked to performativity and identity. Co-presented by CounterPULSE, Dancers’ Group, and ACTA.
Dance Discource Project #1
Bay Area Dance: Who Are We Now?
November 8, 2007
Mary Armentrout talks with Keith Hennessy, Jez Kuono`ono Lee, Laura Elaine Ellis, and paige starling sorvillo. In this first installment of a ongoing series of artist-curated discussions about specific topics in the Bay Area contemporary dance scene, organizer Mary Armentrout invites these four local dance artists to bring video of short works by Bay Area artists that they feel represent what’s happening here now. We will watch these works and use them as a springboard into a discussion of what’s going on in Bay Area dance now, and how we, as dance artists, articulate to ourselves what we are up to. Hopefully we will not arrive at any simple conclusions by the end of the evening. Please feel free to bring your questions and burning issues. Co-presented by CounterPULSE and Dancers’ Group.
