Archive: Dance Writing, Reviews, and Podcasts

Join ARENA this Thursday, June 30 for a re-air of Studio Stories: Reminiscing Twin Cities Dance History with Kevin Jones – Season 4, Episode 48.

Mr. Jones is the Interim Director and Production Manager for The O’Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University.

Kevin Jones has worked behind the scenes of the Twin City professional dance and theater community for over 40 years. He was resident lighting designer and production manager for Minnesota Dance Theatre for over a decade and JamesSewell Ballet for 20+ years.

Tune in this Thursday, June 30 at 12:00pm and listen here.

Available on our website or wherever you get your podcasts!
Image: Rambert2, Killer Pig

Join ARENA DANCES for our weekly Studio Stories podcast with this week’s guest, Donald LaCourse.

Donald LaCourse is the driving force behind Ethnic Dance Theatre, with an outstanding national reputation as one of the most diverse and distinctive repertoires to be performed in the world of ethnic dance. Donald is the artistic director, lead dancer, choreographer, cultural researcher, and costume designer.

Tune in this Thursday, June 23 at 12:00pm and listen here.

Available on our website or wherever you get your podcasts!

Join ARENA DANCES for our weekly Studio Stories podcast – now in Season Seven – where each week we reminisce on Twin Cities dance history with a new special guest. This week we hear from Georgia Stephens.

Georgia Stephens was active as a Dance Theater choreographer, director, writer and sound designer from 1975 through 2009. She moved to the Twin Cities in 1980 to participate in the newly formed Independent Choreographer’s Alliance (MICA). Through this organization, she received numerous performance opportunities and financial support for her work.

Tune in this Thursday, June 16 at 12:00pm and listen here.

Available on our website or wherever you get your podcasts!

Photo by Ed Bock.

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 chat with Philip Bither.

Serving as the Walker’s Senior Curator of Performing Arts since 1997, Philip Bither spearheads one of the country’s leading contemporary performing arts programs. He regularly sits on foundation and governmental arts panels, writes about interdisciplinary curatorial practice and travels globally to research new performance and to speak about trends in the contemporary performing arts.

Tune in this Thursday, June 9 at 12:00pm

Available on our website or wherever you get your podcasts!

Photo by Gene Pittman for the Walker Art Center.

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, Megan Mayer interviews the Studio Stories producer, Mathew Janczewski of ARENA DANCES, to launch the seventh season!

Tune in this Thursday, June 2 at 12:00pm

Originally from Illinois, dancer, choreographer, director, and creative Mathew Janczewski (he/him) has been residing in Minneapolis, MN since 1989. He was a company member, most notably with Shapiro & Smith Dance from 2007-2014 and JAZZDANCE! By Danny Buraczeski from 1992-97. As a dancer, Mathew has performed as a guest with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Bebe Miller, and Jacek Luminski of Bytom, Poland. Over the years, he has performed the works of Beth Corning, Sean Curran, HIJACK, Marge Maddux, Shawn McConneloug, Jane Shockley, Robin Stiehm, Morgan Thorson, Doug Varone, and Cathy Young.

Shortly after receiving his degree in dance from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, and performing internationally, Mathew founded his own non-profit dance company, ARENA DANCES, in 1995. His practices are profoundly inspired by music, architecture, self-expression, and an ongoing collaboration with dancer’s opposition of distal extremes while pushing the edges of space within the body’s potential. ARENA serves as the vehicle for his body of work and provides young, aging and underserved segments of the Twin Cities community with opportunities to experience the transformative power of dance.

Available on our website or wherever you get your podcasts!

Photo courtesy of Aaron Warkov.

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 continue our special CANDY BOX Dance Festival edition, hearing from Happy Hour Artist Margaret Ogas.

Margaret Ogas is a dancer and choreographer based in Minneapolis. Using an interdisciplinary approach rooted in dance, her works tell surreal everyday stories through a collage of movement, text and sound. She is a recipient of the 2021 Naked Stages Fellowship at Pillsbury House + Theatre. In addition to her choreographic work, Margaret performs with the Taja Will Ensemble and is a teaching artist. She holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Learn more at margaretogas.com.

Tune in this Thursday, April 28 at 12:00pm to hear about the work Margaret will be sharing Tuesday, May 3 from 5:30-6:30pm as part of the CANDY BOX Dance Festival at the Southern Theater.

Available on our website or 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 continue our special CANDY BOX Dance Festival edition hearing from Featured Artist Joanie Smith.

Joanie Smith founded Shapiro & Smith Dance (S&S) in New York City with husband Danial Shapiro. Smith’s works and their collaborative works have been commissioned by companies as diverse as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Repertory Dance Theater of Salt Lake City, Utah and the PACT Dance Company of Pretoria, South Africa. S&S Dance has toured all over the world from Toledo to Tashkent and over 600 dancers in professional and university dance companies have performed “To Have And To Hold,” aka “Bench.” Smith holds the Barbara Barker Endowed Chair in Dance and the John Black Johnston Distinguished Professorship at the University of Minnesota and has an M.A. in Dance from UCLA.

Shapiro & Smith Dance will be performing two works for the festival:
Ferdouganal – a call to arms—a women’s march and
SHIRT – an absurd competition by three men over a shirt

Tune in this Thursday, April 21 at 12:00pm to hear about the work Shapiro & Smith are sharing as part of the CANDY BOX Dance Festival happening May 2-7 at the Southern Theater.

Available on our website or 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 continue our special CANDY BOX Dance Festival edition hearing from Happy Hour Artist Emily Michaels King.

Emily Michaels King is a performing artist based in St. Paul, Minnesota exploring sensory and embodied engagement in live experiences through movement, multimedia, and visual art. Pairing minimalism and subtlety with cacophony and bared irreverence, Emily’s works employ the lush landscape of the inner world and the power of unapologetic vulnerability.

Tune in this Thursday, April 14 at 12:00pm to hear about Emily’s Happy Hour showing, 5:30-6:30pm of  ELECTRIC on Friday, May 6 as part of the CANDY BOX Dance Festival happening May 2-7 at the Southern Theater.

Available on our website or 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 continue our special CANDY BOX Dance Festival edition hearing from Featured Artist Leila Awadallah‘s and her company Body Watani.

Leila Awadallah (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker based between Minneapolis and Beirut. A body of indigenous Palestinian, Arab-American, SWANA, Sicilian and mixed Mediterranean ways and waves. She is the founder of the Body Watani dance project in partnership with Noelle Awadallah.

Tune in this Thursday, March 31 at 12:00pm to hear about Body Watani’s new work TERRANEA: Hakawati of the Sea as part of the sixth Annual CANDY BOX Dance Festival happening May 2-7 at the Southern Theater.

TERRANEA: hakawati of the sea is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project, co-commissioned by ARENA DANCES, Arab American National Museum, LINKS HALL INCORPORATED, and NPN. For more information: www.npnweb.org.

Available on our website or 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 continue our special CANDY BOX Dance Festival edition hearing from Happy Hour artist, Alys Ayumi Ogura.

Alys Ayumi Ogura is a storyteller through her movement, voice, and quirky humor. Her dance training began in Japan, studying from the late famed godmother of Japanese contemporary dance, Mika Kurosawa. Her choreographies and performances have been curated for the Walker Art Center’s Choreographer’s Evening by Megan Mayer, BodyCartography Project’s/HIJACK’s Future Interstates, and most recently completing residence as part of Naked Stages. 

Tune in this Thursday, March 31 at 12:00pm to hear about the work Alys Ayumi Ogura is doing as part of the sixth Annual CANDY BOX Dance Festival happening May 2-7 at the Southern Theater.

Available on our website or wherever you get your podcasts!