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Jodi Melnick Today we share ideas and stories from four artists who have written for the blog during the past half year. Click on any name to read an artist's full profile.  Jodi Melnick (New York, NY) As I have always felt since the beginning of my dancing career – I believe in the profound expression and…

Michelle Boule     “White”     Photo by Ian Douglas The artist profile is at the heart of the Life as a Modern Dancer project. Each artist is asked a dozen questions about his/her career path, training, setbacks and sacrifices, growth as an artist over time, and wishes for the future. Today we reach the milestone…

San Francisco Bay Area artist Amy Foley Reggie Wilson (Brooklyn, NY) Create door #3…then walk thru… Merge your creative side with your science/nerd side.  Avoid making decisions at all costs…Nope, do it anyway YES I CAN! Know if you care about something or not. Trust! Something can be the right answer at the moment, but not forever…  It’s…

Dancing in Italy By Meghan McFerran On May 11th, I embarked on my first journey traveling overseas to Europe to study abroad at Temple University’s campus in Rome, Italy! I was fortunate enough to have a very unique experience compared to the average student studying in a classroom setting. While most of my peers studying…

Photo by Dat Nguyen in Jennifer Nugent's class I'm writing to reflect on these past two weeks of community, art, and creativity. At this year's Salt Dance Fest, I was able to connect with people I've known for years and people I have just met on physical, intellectual and problem-solving levels. I have seen myself…

Photo from the SDF Improv Jam, with Caroline Eskew, Rebecca Aneloski and Ian Spak This is the last day for Salt Dance Fest. I can't believe how fast it flew by. So much hard work and such a beautiful time getting to explore dance with people from all over the United States. This thing that…

Thursday, June 16 This is a shorter post this evening as we are closing out our festival. There is something so creatively inspiring about watching work by individuals that are both inspired and interested in what they are doing, that they cannot help but be interesting to the viewer. This evening we were able to…

  Hot Mess with Alex Ketley My day started with Alex Ketley’s Hot Mess. Today was a unique class as we started reworking tasks from the previous week, for the festival showing on Friday. One of the elements of the class is an exercise that calls for the participants to string about 8 different emotive…

Artists Alex Ketley (left) and Jeanine Durning; photo courtesy of Salt Dance Fest Hot Mess  My body is tired but my brain keeps telling me to go forward. People are giving their best. I'm being pushed even into the second week. I keep thinking that eventually I won't be able to learn from a process.…

——– Two prominent questions I am asking myself right now: 1) Why does this festival format produce a different kind of creative environment than traditional educational formats? 2) How can I access this low-pressure creativity in my own creative work, not just in the classroom? I am in the process of creating an evening length…