Studio Stories: CANDY BOX Edition with Megan Mayer

Join us Thursday, April 20 at noon for Studio Stories with a CANDY BOX Dance Festival special conversation with featured artist, Megan Mayer for Season 10, Episode 129.

These special CANDY BOX editions of Studio Stories delve a little more into the dance works the artists will be sharing. Megan Mayer presents a pair of new works. Emerging from the early part of the pandemic when performance ghosted us and dance never texted back, grief, rage and old haunts are all invited to this party.

To learn more of Megan Mayer’s history go to our archives and listen in to Season 5, Episode 67.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or listen here!

Studio Stories: CANDY BOX Edition with J’Sun Howard

Studio Stories podcast airs this Thursday, April 13 at noon with a special CANDY BOX Dance Festival conversation with featured artist, J’Sun Howard for Season 10, Episode 128.

These special CANDY BOX editions of Studio Stories delve a little more into the dance works the artists will be sharing. J’Sun Howard of Chicago will be sharing his work, moonless night. The dance is the research/next iteration of a multi-year project titled The Righteous Beauty of the Things Never Accounted For that explores Black fugitivity. moonless night is about Black banality and mundanity and is loosely based on “Enacting Entanglements: A Score for Four,” a performance score conceived by scholar and artist Amber Rose Johnson.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or listen here!

Studio Stories: CANDY BOX Edition with Berit Ahlgren

Studio Stories podcast airs this Thursday, April 6 at noon with a CANDY BOX Dance Festival special conversation with featured artist, Berit Ahlgren of Honeyworks for Season 10, Episode 127.

These special CANDY BOX editions of Studio Stories delve a little more into the dance works the artists will be sharing. Berit premieres Cedarbacke, a dance project in 3 phases which considers the history of Minneapolis’s Southern Theater and its diverse neighboring community. As a trilogy work, this first segment considers the Southern Theater in the 1920-30’s as a central location for immigrants and first generation Americans to gather, sharing in entertainment and cultural exchange. Nine dance artists collaborate and share with violinist Sara Pajunen in a playful homage to the Southern Theater and a recognition of the waves of cultures the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood has been home to.

Everyone can hear more of Berit’s history within the dance community at our ARENAs archives in Episode 56 on our website or wherever you get your podcast. 

Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or here!

Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Maria Gomez Tierney

Studio Stories podcast airs this Thursday, March 30 at noon with Maria Gomez Tierney for Season 10, Episode 126.

Maria Gomez Tierney has been choreographing, dancing and teaching in the Twin Cities since 1989. She received a B.A from the University of Minnesota and an M.F.A. from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Tierney has directed Gomez Dance Group since 1998. She was a faculty member at Gustavus Adolphus College and Hamline University, where she directed and co-directed the dance company programs.

Tierney has taught Creative Dance and Dance for All Abilities for Young Dance, where she also served on the board of directors. In 2011, She completed the Master’s-level Holistic Health Studies Graduate Certificate at St. Catherine’s University, and became a certified Master Reiki practitioner. Tierney is also a certified yoga teacher and has taught since 2004.

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Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Mariusz Olszewski

Studio Stories podcast airs this Thursday, March 23 at noon with Mariusz Olszewski for Season 10, Episode 125.

Mariusz is a ballroom artist, coach, and choreographer whose work has been presented at the biggest ballroom venues, dance festivals, theaters, and on televisions around the world. He choreographed for the World, American, Polish, and Ohio Star Ball Champions and other top-ranking ballroom couples including the Blackpool Dance Festival American Smooth finalist.

Mariusz moved to Minneapolis in 1996 to join Jazzdance! by Danny Buraczeski and danced with the company for 5 years, performing at the most prominent theaters such as The Kennedy Center, The Joyce Theater, Ordway Center for Performing Arts, and The Guthrie Theater as well as at prominent dance festivals including Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, and American Dance Festival among others. Prior to Jazzdance!, Mr. Olszewski was a lead dancer and assistant to the Artistic Director of The Silesian Dance Theater, the first professional modern dance company in his native country Poland.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or listen here!

Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Megan Flood

Studio Stories podcast airs this Thursday, March 16 at noon with Megan Flood for Season 10, Episode 124.

Megan is a 2005 McKnight Dancers Fellow and presently a Mental Health Occupational Therapist. The majority of us know her as a company member of Zenon Dance Company for many years while also performing with several others, like ARENA DANCES and independent choreographers Cathy Young, Wynn Fricke, and more.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or listen here!

Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Duncan Schultz

Studio Stories podcast airs this Thursday, March 9 at noon with Duncan Schultz for Season 10, Episode 123.

Duncan is presently a dancer with the Gothenberg Opera Dance Company in Sweden – one of the most prestigious contemporary dance companies in Europe. A graduate of the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities dance program, while in Minneapolis Duncan was a company member of ARENA DANCES and TU Dance.

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Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Leslie O’Neill

Studio Stories podcast airs this Thursday, March 2 at noon with Leslie O’Neill for Season 10, Episode 122.

Leslie is a 2010 recipient of the McKnight Fellowship for Dancers and most of us know her from her many years with Zenon Dance Company. However, you could have also seen her in Black Label Movement or with a number of independent artists such as Paula Mann, Tamara Ober, Maggie Bergeron and many more.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or here!

Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Rabbi Diane Elliot

Studio Stories podcast airs this Thursday, February 23 at noon with Rabbi Diane Elliot for Season 10, Episode 121.

Diane enjoyed a varied career in dance and theatre, studying with Alwin Nikolais and Murry Louis, Nancy Meehan and Finis Jung in New York City; performing and touring from 1972-77 with New York-based Phyllis Lamhut Dance Company. We got to have Diane from 1981 to 1998 where she taught at the University of Minnesota as a guest artist and then joined MICA (the Minnesota Independent Choreographer’s Alliance, later the Minnesota Dance Alliance). In her time here, Diane kept busy performing with several independent choreographers and creating her own work as part of the Women’s Performance Project and so much more.

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Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Cynthia Stevens

Studio Stories podcast airs this Thursday, February 16 at noon with Cynthia Stevens for Season 10, Episode 120.

Cynthia Stevens/INSITU slips into swamps, streams and forests creating environmental performance and media. This multidisciplinary work explores the interconnections of dance with original music, somatics and ecology to foster a visceral sense of place.

Listen where ever you get your podcasts or here.