Life as a Modern Dancer

Category: Blog Series: Building a Dance Company

  • Building a Dance Company: Jenny Stulberg of Simpson/Stulberg Collaborations

    This is the third piece in a series with San Francisco Bay Area artists Jenny Stulberg and Lauren Simpson. What Now? By Jenny Stulberg On Thursday, March 31st, it happened: Simpson/Stulberg Collaborations presented STILL LIFE DANCES at ODC Theater. It's still a little hard for me to believe that after months of planning, rehearsing, and actualizing, we produced…

  • Building a Dance Company: On The Topic of Educational Programming

    http://alexandrabellerdances.org/summer-intensive/ Master classes, workshops, or weekly classes? Adults, kids, or teens? They are many ideas and options when it comes to developing an educational program with your dance company. The value of an educational component – under the umbrella of your company’s name – builds connections, relationships, visibility, audience members, and future dancers in your…

  • Building a Dance Company: Working with a Youth Ensemble

    Shawl-Anderson Youth Ensemble (Berkeley, CA) The intersection and interplay with having a company – and teaching and choreographing in the community – are rich and important relationships on many levels. Today let's consider the idea of choreographing on youth ensembles – i.e. teen companies with serious and curious young people. For the students, it is…

  • Building a Dance Company: The Art of Decision-Making

    The Art of Decision-Making By Sumi Clements The hardest part of doing anything is deciding to do it. When approached to contribute to this blog, I was invited to write about any aspect of building a dance company. Since I could write short novels about my particular experiences in dancemaking, directing, working in a partnership, fundraising, producing, the…

  • Building a Dance Company: Open Studios and Rehearsals

    Photo by Becca Green. Wearable art by Amabelle Aguiluz. Open Studios and Rehearsals – How and Why By Stephanie Zaletel It is rare that I feel comfortable opening up my process to the public. As dancers (and choreographers), we are trained from a very early age to present our work polished and unapologetically "complete." At…

  • Building a Dance Company, and Becoming an Arts Administrator: Lauren Simpson of Simpson/Stulberg Collaborations

      Establishing Simpson/Stulberg Collaborations: My Biggest Challenge So Far By Lauren Simpson  When we established our own company, I quickly saw why it makes perfect sense that larger companies have an Executive Director and Artistic Director. These jobs require two different minds. The ED is results driven, concerned with productivity, detail oriented, logical and self…

  • Building a Dance Company: The Pre-Company Stage (Part 1 of a 3-Part Series)

      Part One: The Pre-Company Stage By Lauren Simpson and Jenny Stulberg of Simpson/Stulberg Collaborations Around ten years ago, we each had the goal of starting a dance company, but that was long before we knew each other and had the wherewithal to take action steps to make it a reality. A whole set of…

  • An Incredible Music Resource for Choreographers and Teaching Artists: Mike Wall and soundFORMovement

      By Mike Wall   I am a composer, performing musician and faculty in The Department of Dance at The University of Utah. My family and I moved out to Utah 3 years ago and really love it out here. I was born in Mississippi and grew up in New Jersey, attending Rutgers University to study…

  • On Building a Dance Company: Ten Questions for Banning Bouldin of New Dialect

    Banning Bouldin, Artistic Director of New Dialect in Nashville, TN   What was the inspiration for you to start your own company? Growing up in Nashville, there was nowhere for me to get the kind of education I needed to pursue a career as a professional contemporary dancer; from the time I decided that was…

  • Building a Dance Company: Expanding Your Audience in 2016

    As dancers, we joke around that we "just pass our money around" (ie "I go to your show, and you attend mine…."). But seriously, as choreographers with a dance company, it is very important to re-evaluate your current audience and potential audience each year. As you build a company, you begin with two degrees of…