Archive: Dance Writing, Reviews, and Podcasts

Join ARENA DANCES for our weekly Studio Stories Podcast, where each week we reminisce on Twin Cities dance history with a new special guest. This week, we sat down with Megan Mayer to learn about her journey.

Megan Mayer is an award-winning Minneapolis-based artist working with choreography, dance, experimental video and photography. She obsesses over transposition, minimalism, mimicry, tenderness, wry humor, loneliness, social anxiety, fake bad timing and exacting musicality. By exposing tiny emotional undercurrents concerning the body, she constructs a unique perspective of what dance can be: virtuosity in vulnerability and victory in gesture.

Visit http://www.arena-dances.org to listen, or check it out wherever you get your podcasts!

Join ARENA DANCES for our weekly Studio Stories Podcast, where each week we reminisce on Twin Cities dance history with a new special guest. This week, we sat down with Chris Schlichting to learn about his journey.

Chris Schlichting is a Minnesota-based choreographer, performer and dance enthusiast who believes in a flexible definition of dance. His choreography expresses itself as a tensile inclusion of dichotomies. Relying on the formality of structural investigation and the emotion of earnest expression, his dances evoke the grandiosity of spectacle and the delicacy of intimate moments. Chris develops dances outside the constraints of thematic and conceptual frameworks, allowing the choreographic process to develop focus through physical intuition and sensory awareness.

Visit http://www.arena-dances.org to listen, or check it out wherever you get your podcasts!

Join ARENA DANCES for our weekly Studio Stories Podcast, where each week we reminisce on Twin Cities dance history with a new special guest. This week, we sat down with Lou Fancher to learn about her journey.

Lou Fancher is a San Francisco Bay Area writer. Her work has been published by WIRED.com, Diablo Magazine, Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times, InDance, East Bay Express, Oakland Magazine, SF Weekly, and others.  She is a children’s book author, designer and illustrator, with over 50 books in print. Also a choreographer, ballet master and teacher, she coaches professional ballet and contemporary dance companies in the U. S. and Canada.

Visit http://www.arena-dances.org to listen, or check it out wherever you get your podcasts!

Join ARENA DANCES for our weekly Studio Stories Podcast, where each week we reminisce on Twin Cities dance history with a new special guest. This week, we sat down with Dustin Haug to learn about his journey.

Dustin Haug grew up in southern Minnesota and attended St. Olaf College. Although he was very active in the dance department and spent a good deal of time studying chemistry, he earned a BA in Visual Art in 2000. He moved to Seattle, WA after graduation and began working with KT Niehoff’s lingo dance theater in 2002, before moving back to the Twin Cities in 2007. Locally, he has shown his own work at The Walker Art Center’s Choreographer’s Evening, Zenon’s Dance Zone, Choreographer’s Evening at the Ritz, Bryant Lake Bowl, and SPCPA’s Evening of Dance. He has also had the pleasure of working with numerous local choreographers such as Body Cartography Project, Rosy Simas Danse, Patrick Scully, Maggie Bergeron and Dancers, and Chris Schlichting. Dustin joined Mathew Janczewski’s ARENA DANCES in 2013 to help create and perform the evening-length work The Main Street Project. He has taught modern dance and contact improvisation at Zenon Dance School since 2008; dance, chemistry, and physics at St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists from 2008-present.

Visit http://www.arena-dances.org to listen, or check it out wherever you get your podcasts!

Join ARENA DANCES for our weekly Studio Stories Podcast, where each week we reminisce on Twin Cities dance history with a new special guest. This week, we sat down with Lori Mercil to learn about her journey. 

In addition to earning a BFA in Dance from the U of MT, Lori earned summer scholarships for further study at the Martha Graham School in NYC, and Repertory Dance Theater in Salt Lake City, and has taught and/or performed ballet, jazz, modern, and creative movement in Montana, Oregon, Japan, and the Twin Cities. Locally, Lori has taught jazz, modern, ballet, hip hop, and creative movement at various locations, including Ballare Teatro, Elev8, Zenon, and Young Dance. Lori currently dances with the Christopher Watson Dance Company, and MotionArt, and has danced with Becky Heist, Hauser Dance, Karla Grotting, Link Vostok , Marciano Silva dos Santos, Marylee Hardenbergh, Off-Leash Area, and Una Setia. Lori has shown her own work at Hauser Dance, Kinetic Kitchen, Dances at the Lakes, and Solstice River, and is currently co-producer/choreographer for Global Water Dances, Minneapolis, and 16 Feet (an annual choreographers’ showcase).

Visit http://www.arena-dances.org to listen, or check it out wherever you get your podcasts!

Stories are among our most potent tools. We need to unearth old stories that live in a place and begin to create new ones. We are story makers, not just storytellers. All stories are connected, new ones woven from the threads of the old.  – Robin Wall Kimmerer, paraphrased

Join ARENA DANCES for our weekly Studio Stories Podcast, where each week we reminisce on Twin Cities dance history with a new special guest. This week, we sat down with E.E. Balcos to learn about his journey. 

E.E. Balcos is a  Filipino-American and is originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He began formal training with modern dance pioneer Hanya Holm while also engaging in the practice of contact improvisation. A successful performer and choreographer for over 35 years, he danced with numerous independent Minneapolis choreographers, as well as works by numerous nationally recognized choreographers and dance artists. E.E. was the Artistic Director and choreographer for his company E.E.MOTION from 2007-2013. This year (2021), he will be performing a new solo, Tales from the Wizard, choreographed by Bill Evans. His current endeavors apply somatic approaches to choreography, dance performance, interdisciplinary collaborations, physical resilience, and teaching.

Visit http://www.arena-dances.org to listen, or check it out wherever you get your podcasts!

Stories are among our most potent tools. We need to unearth old stories that live in a place and begin to create new ones. We are story makers, not just storytellers. All stories are connected, new ones woven from the threads of the old. – Robin Wall Kimmerer, paraphrased

Join ARENA DANCES for our weekly Studio Stories Podcast, where each week we reminisce on Twin Cities dance history with a new special guest. This week, we sat down with Helen Hatch to learn about her journey. 

Helen Hatch is the founder and artistic director of contemporary dance company Hatch Dance. A Minnesota native, Helen graduated cum laude from the Ailey/Fordham BFA program. From 2011-2017, Helen was a member of Minnesota Dance Theatre, performing a diverse repertory in addition to creating her own work. She has been commissioned by a number of organizations and artists, including JUNTOS Collective, Aveda Corporation, McKnight Fellowship winner Penelope Freeh, The Southern Theater, and more. 

Visit http://www.arena-dances.org to listen, or check it out wherever you get your podcasts!

After an exciting, thought-provoking four seasons, Studio Stories will return on August 5 for Season 5 of this unique podcast. We have an amazing line-up of artists on board to share their Twin Cities dance history and reminisce on the arcs of their careers. Kicking off the new season next week will be Helen Hatch!

Studio Stories will continue to air weekly on Thursdays at noon, with host Mathew Janczewski. It is available on all major podcasting platforms, including Apple, Spotify, Deezer, Pocket Casts, and more. You can also listen right on our website at http://www.arena-dances.org/studio-stories-reminiscing-on-twin-cites-dance-history/! 

ARENA DANCES weekly podcast shares a mini series featuring artists that will premiere new work at our CANDY BOX Dance Festival July 12-16! This Thursday, tune in to our conversation with Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder of HIJACK!

HIJACK is the Minneapolis-based choreographic collaboration of Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder. HIJACK is the confluence and clash of two independent compositional/kinesthetic impulses. Their dances embrace juxtaposition. Their dances house unlikely intimates and question “who is the enemy?” Over the last 28 years they have created over 100 dances and performed in venues ranging from proscenium to barely-legal. 

HIJACK performs this Thursday and Friday at the CANDY BOX Dance Festival – tickets available at https://www.arena-dances.org/candybox2021-live-dance-festival/

Visit http://www.arena-dances.org to listen, or check it out wherever you get your podcasts!

ARENA DANCES’ weekly podcast shares a mini series featuring artists that will premiere new work at our CANDY BOX Dance Festival July 12-16! This Thursday, tune in to our conversation with Pedro Pablo of Viva la Pepa and next Tuesday, listen to HIJACK!

Pedro Pablo
July 8 at Noon
Pedro Pablo (they/them) is a Venezuelan-raised, Minneapolis-based queer dancer / performance maker, and founder/director of Viva la Pepa (www.vivalapepa.org), a collective of multi-generational queer performers in the Twin Cities. Their works are fueled by the overlapping values of Latinx and Queer cultures: melodrama, passion, decadence, and sensuality.

HIJACK
July 13 at Noon
HIJACK is the Minneapolis-based choreographic collaboration of Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder. HIJACK is the confluence and clash of two independent compositional/kinesthetic impulses. Their dances embrace juxtaposition. Their dances house unlikely intimates and question “who is the enemy?” Over the last 28 years they have created over 100 dances and performed in venues ranging from proscenium to barely-legal.

Visit http://www.arena-dances.org to listen, or check it out wherever you get your podcasts!