District Choreographer’s Dance Festival (DCDF)Being Alive: Brave & Startling TruthsMonday, September 9th-Sunday, September 15th Dance Place invites you to join us for our fourth annual District Choreographer’s Dance Festival (DCDF). The festival’s theme, Being Alive: Brave & Startling Truths, embraces the vulnerability of living bravely and beautifully in one’s truth. Much like the themes in Maya Angelou’s poem “A Brave and Startling Truth”, our festival’s essence can be encapsulated by her line “We must confess that we are the possible.” The festival is a celebration of the limitless possibilities within the DMV dance community. This year’s week-long festival, held from September 9-15, features exciting classes, conversations, and performances. Each artistic activation opens space for witnesses to consider the geography of their becoming. This year’s choreographers include; Ava Delasanta, Javier Padilla, Jessy Dick, King Molasses, Liana Conyers, Marcus Isaiah, Matthew Cumbie, and Shanice Mason. |
FESTIVAL CLASS SCHEDULE
Modern with Sarah Beth Oppenheim
Monday, September 9th, 2024 from 6:00pm-8:30pm
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Class Description:
Please join us for a special Monday Night Modern with Sarah Beth Oppeheim to kick off our season opening week and celebrate Sarah as the recipient of this year’s Pola Nirenska Award for Achievements in Dance. Expect the usual: quirky-luscious movement, feel-good phrase work, and extra special hearty-hardy community love. Plus good snacks in a post-class reception.
Contemporary Fusion with Lauren DeVera
Tuesday, September 10th, 2024 from 6:00pm-7:30pm
Level: Open Level
Class Description:
Lauren’s contemporary fusion class is rooted in her personal practice of improvisation, mindfulness and hybrid of dance styles. Her unique movement aesthetic intersects elements of modern/contemporary, house, and industry choreography, with a focus on embodied storytelling and making confident choices. This dynamic and grounding experience includes a mind-body warm up, improvisational practices and contemporary fusion choreography. Open to all-levels – join us!
Contemporary Modern Technique with Orange Grove Dance
Wednesday, September 11th, 2024 from 6:00pm-7:30pm
Level: Advanced
Class Description:
Using principles of weight, momentum, and energetic connection into space, we will explore movement that is virtuosic and complex. Influences of classical technique are fused with contemporary and improvisational movement practices while we explore floorwork, inversions, weight shifting, and partnering. This class will dynamically move between solo explorations and set energetic phrase work. Participants are encouraged to explore their own decision making process in interpreting, executing, and ultimately transforming the movement material.
Contemporary with Shanice Mason
Thursday September 12th, 2024 from 6:00pm-7:30pm
Level: Intermediate/Advanced Professionals
Class Description:
What happens when you allow yourself to be present? Free from distractions and judgement, yet open to new possibilities and the occasional surprise. What does it mean to actively “show up” for yourself, even when it feels impossible? Through a guided Music Study—an improvisational score investigating the body’s response to musical impulse—we’ll explore the depths of our interiors. Together, we’ll navigate the hallways, rooms, and dark corners that make up our being.
Intergenerational Dance Lab with Matthew Cumbie
Saturday, September 14th, 2024 from 11:00am-12:30pm
Level: Open Level
Class Description:
Join Matthew Cumbie for an Intergenerational Dance Lab at Dance Place! Together we will explore, experiment, and play with ideas about support and connection, moving our bodies and collaboratively making small dances along the way. This class is for people of all ages and backgrounds, and especially suited for folks who want to co-create in a space that celebrates intergenerational collaboration, curiosity, and fun!
Party Moves with Daché Green
Sunday, September 15th, 2024 from 11:00am-12:30pm
Level: Ages 18+
Class Description:
Get ready to light up the dance floor with Party Moves! This high-energy dance class features the most popular and trending moves from social media, blending multiple genres to create a dynamic and fun experience. From hip-hop grooves to viral dance challenges, you’ll learn choreography that’s perfect for any party or social event. Whether you’re a seasoned dancer or just looking to have fun, Party Moves is all about expressing yourself and bringing your favorite dance styles to life. Come ready to move, groove, and have a blast!
Jessy Dick
Confiance : An Artist’s Exploration
Confiance is the French translation of one of the most fundamental aspects of being an artist : Trust. In order to feel safe to explore we must have trust: trust in ourselves, our partners and the creative process. As a professional ballet dancer I ask myself the question, how do we bring the beauty, majesty and grandeur of ballet to different communities and make it feel relatable to all? As artists, we are tasked with sharing our passion for true expression and exploring what makes our soul feel free. In doing so, we aim to bring about connectedness in this time of polarization and create a shared experience of what it means to trust.
Matthew Cumbie & Collaborators
what remains / to be seen
What happens when the world we need isn’t the one we have? We create a new one.
what remains / to be seen is a meditation on world-making, and a reflection on the tangible and intangible aspects of artmaking – those things we see, those things we don’t get to see, and those yet to be seen. Weaving together movement, projection, and text, we explore notions of memory, support, and articulation. Join us.
Javier Padilla
tu y yo, conmigo, repito
In an exercise on togetherness, “tu y yo, conmigo, repito” explores synchronicities, chance and a dialogue in partnership. Two dancers collaborate with the audience to create a rich soundscape through live looping, spontaneous choreography and improvisation to explore what it means to create, co-habitate and collaborate together.
Ava Delasanta
When One Door…
When One Door… is an upbeat, whimsical site-specific trio that questions the known and unknown. Using a modern-jazz movement vocabulary, the performers propel off of walls, craft playful patterns, and whirligig through space.
King Molasses
A Good Third Husband
This piece is a selection of three songs from the 2006 revival of the musical Company by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth. The musical begins on the 35th birthday of the central character Robert, a single man living in New York City, and dives into the rewarding and challenging dynamics with his married friends, romantic partners, and his relationship with desire. A Good Third Husband seeks to lift this existing framework and place it onto a black body, creating an exploration that takes on a diasporic and spiritual quality. The roots of the protagonist’s desire are viscerally tethered to their founding attachments (Mother and Father), the ancestors that preceded them, and an ever-present diaspora that offers Robert their own life.
Marcus Isaiah
Birthright and God Breathed
This work delves into the unique relationship between an expectant mother and the fetus growing inside her. It contemplates the concept of “birthright,” which refers to a specific right of possession or privilege one has from birth, particularly as the firstborn. What does it mean to be a mother? A mother is a caring and selfless human who puts the needs and wants of her children before her own. She works tirelessly to ensure her child is equipped with the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to become a competent human being. A mother is much more than just the woman who gave birth to her child; she is a guiding force and a source of unwavering love. This is her heartfelt prayer.
Shanice Mason
Hide & Seek
“Hide & Seek” is a daring exploration and relentless quest to uncover one’s inner being: who we love and what we despise, our capacity to consume and our ability to adapt. Escaping the complexities of our interior, yet craving to understand what makes us whole, this work questions if we really know ourselves at all.
Liana Conyers
#43: Same shit, new city
43- is the first iteration of a four-part series in collaboration with mixed-media artist Valentina Vidali. There’s something brewing, a slow rumble of ideas flowing downstream. Stars burst, rain falls, and an echo of safe words whispered. A drive through winding roads, as memories shimmer in the distance. #43: Same shit, new city is a call for home.
Click here to learn more and purchase tickets.