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Dance Spaces: ChicagoSpaces.org

May 2, 2012 by 4dancers

If you are from the Chicago area and are searching in vain for the right rehearsal or performance space–there’s help on the web.

The League of Chicago Theatres has launched *ChicagoSpaces.org, a comprehensive, searchable database of performing arts venues and rehearsal facilities in Chicagoland. The website is a free public resource that helps connect artists and performing arts organizations with places that are available for rental.

The database is searchable by location, rate, seating capacity, square footage, equipment, amenities and more. Over 100 Chicago-area venues are currently listed on the site, and it is continually expanding. There is no cost for facilities to list their spaces–or to search the database. If you have a space available, please list it on the site.

*ChicagoSpaces.org was developed with Fractured Atlas, a non-profit organization that serves a national community of artists and arts organizations.

Filed Under: Dance Spaces Tagged With: chicagospaces, dance space in chicago, fractured atlas, league of chicago theatres

Support RE|Dance Group

July 1, 2011 by 4dancers

Contributing writer Lucy Vurusic Riner would love your support during her dance company’s annual fundraising campaign!  Get all information and updates on RE|Dance Group at www.redancegroup.com or “Like” them on Facebook.  I’ve included her annual newsletter below so you can see what the company is up to and how to give!

Dear RE|Dance Group Supporter,

We hope you are having a lovely start to the spring season.  With the flowers finally in bloom, RE|Dance Group is budding with new ideas and charged with the energy to push the company forward.

Our inaugural year was a huge success and we would like to thank everyone for your support.  We had the privilege of presenting our work in San Francisco, CA, Minneapolis, MN and at home here in Chicago, IL.  Also this year we became a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization dedicated to assisting small arts companies.   RE|Dance Group is artistically thriving and in the coming year we hope to build inroads toward financial health.  As we push forward into year two, we hope that you have the opportunity to see the work we are creating.

We are very excited about the beginning stages of two new dance theater works.  Inhabitants of Tall Grass will premiere in January at Chicago’s historic dance venue, Links Hall.  We will preview a works in progress at the Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival in September. The work will have an original commissioned music score and will be performed amidst an installation of tall reed grasses.  The environment is designed to both shield and reveal the dancers as they roam through the installation searching for personal connection.  This piece is being partially funded by an Illinois Arts Council Grant that we have been so fortunate to receive!

The Attic Room is an intimate dance story of escape and desire.  The evening length work for six dancers exists in a small attic room where the dancers, clad in fantastical owl masks, long for a way out, convinced they can find it through objects sprinkled through the space. An old map, a flock of paper cranes, a dusty antique rug, tiny glowing lamps and stacks of books offer the dancers the possibility for departure from a place now so comfortable they are unsure of their desires to escape. The Attic Room is filled with images of balance, travel and desire.  Again this year, we will be presenting our work at the Minnesota Fringe Festival in Minneapolis from August 4th-14th.  Hopefully we’ll see some of you there!

We hope that as you begin to enjoy the warm weather and summer months you’ll have time to consider assisting RE|Dance Group in our continued efforts to create meaningful dance theater.  Our fundraising goal during this campaign is $3,000.00.  This year’s funding campaign will once again help RE|Dance Group return to the Minnesota Fringe Festival and sponsor our Chicago performance season. We could not have made it this far without your support in whatever ways you have been able to provide it.

The easiest way to make a contribution to RE|Dance Group is through our website.  It is easy, safe and secure.  Simply click Donate Now and you will be directed to the Fractured Atlas contribution page. Thanks to our fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas, all donations are now tax deductible!

If you don’t feel comfortable contributing online, you can drop Catherine an e-mail here at info (at) catherineltully.com and she’ll give you a mailing address so you can drop a check in the mail. If you can’t donate, but would like to help, spread the word!

Thank you for your generous support.  We hope to see you in one of our audiences very soon!

Lucy and Michael

Artistic Directors

RE|Dance Group

RE | Dance Group is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the purposes of RE|Dance Group must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Filed Under: 4dancers, 4teachers, Organizations Tagged With: fractured atlas, lucy riner, RE|Dance Group

10 Questions With…Ashley Thorndike

May 28, 2010 by 4dancers

Ashley Thorndike, is the founder and director of the Now & Next Dance Mentoring Project. She is recently completed her dissertation, a study of studio-based learning in college dance and will earn the first PhD in Dance Studies from Ohio State University in June 2010. An artist, scholar, and activist, Ashley has developed N&N in response to three major concerns facing contemporary dance today: 1) college dance students desire opportunities to connect dance with community, 2) middle school youth are underexposed to the artistic and physical practices of dance, and 3) professional dance artists lack the resources to deeply investigate process. In N+N, Ashley combines her expertise in mentoring and youth development and her life as a dance artist. She holds a BFA from the University of Utah Department of Modern Dance and an MEd in student affairs practice in higher education from the University of Virginia. She has taught as a visiting assistant professor of dance at Oberlin College and was a co-artistic director of Prospect Dance Group. For four years she worked with the Young Women Leaders Program, a large college women/middle school girl group mentoring program at the University of Virginia. Ashley has recently performed at Movement Research in New York and Green Street Studios  in Boston, in Annie Kloppenberg’s Indelible Marks and at the Theatre Building in Chicago with Beserra Dance Theatre’s Jenkins Farm Project. Most recently, her workin collaboration with composer Peter V. Swendsen—coldness & lightness—was performed at Oberlin Collge and the Goose Route Dance Festival.

 

Ashley Thorndike

1. Can you tell me who you are and share some information about your dance background?

I’m a performer, choreographer, and dance educator. I began dancing at age 16 and immediately knew it was my life path. I earned a BFA from the University of Utah then I moved to New York to continue my dance training. After a year, I moved down to Charlottesville, VA—a little artistic haven. There I completed a master’s degree in counselor education and founded a small dance company, Prospect Dance Group. After graduating I spent two years switching back and forth between teaching, performing, and making work as a resident artist at the McGuffey Art Center and running the day to day operations of the Young Women Leaders Program, a mentoring program for college women and middle school girls at the University of Virginia. I decided to combine dance and service-learning but knew I needed to delve intensively into study, so I pursued the PhD in Dance Studies at Ohio State University.

 2. What is the Now & Next Mentoring Project and how did you become involved with it?

I founded N+N in Fall 2009, but I had the idea way back in the summer of 1997 when I was a summer study student at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. I loved the intensity of my dance practice, but also felt that common sense of wanting to give back. After 12 years of letting the idea percolate and learning about non-profit management and service-learning, now seemed like the time.

3. Can you explain how college dancers fit into this program?

The college dancers get to have two roles. They will begin the day  as dance students with a somatic class followed by a 3-hour technique and creative process class. After a lunch break, the college women will take on a leadership role, serving as mentors and teachers for the adolescent girls.  During the afternoon, the college women will develop their dance teaching skills, provide one-on-one mentoring, and learn important group facilitation techniques.  On some evenings, the college dancers will attend mentoring sessions with the professional dance artists on making a life  as a dancer. The program also allows time for personal reflection, hiking, and enjoying the local community.

4. How does this project involve dance artists?

Dancer artists need space and time! After teaching the morning technique and creative process class, the artists will have rehearsal space and time to work on current projects.  The focus is process, rather than product, allowing artists time to play with new ideas and concepts.

5. What will the project do for adolescent girls?

Adolescence is an important period, especially for girls who can lose confidence and self-worth during this time.  In the afternoon workshops, adolescent girls will build confidence by focusing on what their bodies can do, rather than simply how they look, by engaging in both creative dance making and movement based life skills. The will also have time to get to know a college women dancer and learn more about dance appreciation.

6. Can you explain a bit about service learning?

Service-learning has become an important new direction in university education.  The philosophy is that students need to connect their classroom learning experiences to real-life experience through reflective practices.  Unlike community service, or volunteerism (an important activity in its own right), service-learning is a more structured approach to working with a community and developing as a leader and learner from that work.  For instance, in N+N the college women will have multiple opportunities to develop as dancers and dance educator, and to reflect on their growth as artists and leaders.

7. How can people get involved with this project?

College age dancers (or recent college graduates) can apply to attend the program at our website–same goes for middle school girls. The application period for college dancers and middle school girls is open through the spring. Dance artist selection occurs in the early fall. Schools interested in hosting a project should contact me in the late summer.

8. What are you in need of to develop this project–how can people help?

As with most new organizations, what we need most is capital. At present we are fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas, a 501(c)3 based in New York City, so we can accept donations through them. Here’s the official language:

Now & Next Dance Mentoring Project is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Now & Next may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

You can donate online at Fractured Atlas.

We use these donations to provide scholarships for college women and middle school girls, pay the artists, and buy supplies. We are grateful for donations large and small.

We are particularly excited about innovative fundraising. For instance, Katie Anderson, a senior dance major at Oberlin College just hosted a benefit concert for Now & Next.

Beyond financial donations, folks can help spread the word about the Now & Next Dance Mentoring Project by joining our Facebook group or fan page and letting dancers and dance departments know about the program. Join our mailing list at www.nownextdance.com!

9. What else can you tell readers about Now & Next Mentoring Project?

Dance is important and we need to cultivate strong leaders in unstable times.  By combining dance training and leadership development, Now & Next is an innovative program that addresses the many needs within the dance community by bringing together the strengths of these three communities.

10. What are the next steps for this project? Anything new on the horizon?

We are looking forward to our first workshop this summer in Boone, NC and have begun talks with more schools for potential 2011 programs. We are also working on an online community to facilitate connections during the year. Our longer term plans include developing a program that also serves adolescent boys; producing an annual showcase featuring N+N artists; and developing a curriculum that dance departments can use to develop their own yearlong movement-based mentoring projects.

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Filed Under: 10 Questions With..., 4dancers, 4teachers Tagged With: ashely thorndike, fractured atlas, now & next dance mentoring project, service learning

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