Well, Christmas is almost here and the launch of our new website is, as expected, behind. However, it should premiere just in good timing with the unveiling of our new commercial video for Exchange Festival that will be in Tulsa, OK August 5-7, 2011. We are so excited about this. Andrea and Robert Jobe with Pivot Films did a fabulous job with the video and it highlights some amazing dance artists in Tulsa.

Here's a production shot from the filming day.

Now, to get back to work on our beautiful website. Maranda Blumenthal of Black Star Photographica has been laying out our information and photos in our new BluDomain flash template and I have to say, it's gorgeous!! I'm sure she's frustrated, though, waiting for new pictures! Gaaaaa, I wish the Executive Director would get her act together and send them ASAP! (sowy, Maranda!!)

We can't WAIT to show you!!

MEDIA OVERHAUL

There seems to be so much to do and never enough time to do it all. I did, however, accomplish one thing so far this week - updating the portfolio on the design gallery page of The Bell House website.

I put together one digital image in order to showpiece a program I did for Out On a Limb Dance Company for the Out of the Loop Festival in 2009. I didn't want to upload all the pages individually, so I created one document to show the layout and uploaded that. Turned out pretty good.

We'll be auditioning for a photoshoot to create new images for Bell House mid-September. I'll be inviting area artists to participate in exchange for free images that they can use for their own purposes. The ideas that the BHA creative team have come up with for this shoot are amazing and will be exciting and challenging to capture. I'm finding a lot of inspiration from Laurent Ziegler, a brilliant photographer/video artist with an impressively abundant resumé. Under the collective name of un|still, Laurent's work ranges from dance, portraits, documentary, and art projects. And she simply signs her eNewletter with:

laurent ziegler

photographer

© copyright 2010 by laurent ziegler

There are many changes to the look and feel of our media coming. Just plugging away one thing at a time, which is all I can do these days and still not miss out on my two boys.

photo by Maranda Blumenthal

~Rachel

Don't miss Out On a Limb Dance Company's bi-annual Summer Dance Workshop
When: Sept. 25th, 2010
Where: McCallum High School, 5600 Sunshine Drive, Austin, TX 78756-1598
Cost: $60

Workshop Vision:
Out On a Limb Dance Company is committed to connecting and collaborating with other artists and dancers at various artistic levels. The workshop focuses on technique, improvisation, performance, and dance-making, as these aspects are important to the company and the artistic mission. Making dance, together.

CONTEMPORARY DANCE NEW GENRE
LIGGETT STUDIO
FRI & SAT, FEB 26 & 27, 8PM
$12 ($10 MEMBERS AND STUDENTS)

With assistance of Living Arts Council's newly formed Contemporary DanceCommittee, the Festival will feature new eclectic works which go beyond traditional dance boundaries. Encouraging and supporting the creation and presentation of new local contemporary dance work as well as enhancing the public's understanding and appreciation of the art form is the current focus of the committee. Festival audiences will get a taste of the most intriguing intersection of forms at the Contemporary Dance New Genre this year. The return of local Festival favorites, Living Water Dance Company, and Portico Dans Theatre as well as introduction of Festival newcomers Nina Madsen, Jordan Fuchs, and Sarah Gamblin.

Purchase tickets online at:
http://www.livingarts.org/genre/newgenre2010/ng17.html

INLET DANCE THEATRE
SDI 2010 Scholarship Audition
FEBRUARY 20, 2010

Why: To enable students needing financial assistance to attend Inlet Dance Theatre's Summer Dance Intensive 2009. All scholarships are based on ability and financial need.
Who: Serious students ages 12 & up
When: Saturday, February 20th from 10am-12pm Please arrive at 9:45am for registration. Audition begins promptly at 10am.
Where: Mosaic Experience Dance StudioCleveland Heights High SchoolCleveland Heights, OHon the corner of Cedar Rd. and Lee Rd.Enter from the parking lot off of Washington St.
HOW: Call the Inlet office at 216-382-0201 or email us @ inletdancetheatre@sbcglobal.net and leave your name and contact info to reserve your spot at the audition. Then go tohttp://www.box.net/shared/az90bu1bzb to download and print out the SDI 2010 Scholarship Audition Application Form. Please come to the audition dressed and ready to dance. Bring your completed application form with a parent/guardian signature on the medical release. Company members from Inlet Dance Theatre will lead scholarship candidates through a planned audition process (no need to prepare a solo).

Dance for Camera

The Bell House had a great screening this weekend of two of our videodances at the Living Water Dance Company's performance at Kivisto Studio in Tulsa. The films screened were She Drew a Picture of a Whale and, the longtime coming, Deeper. Both seemed to be received well by the audience who generously applauded after each dancefilm, as they did for the entire concert. What a great audience!

Thank you to Amy McIntosh, Artist Director of Living Water Dance Company, for the opportunity to show our work. We especially appreciate the premiere for Deeper.

THE 2009 EXCHANGE Choreography Dance Festival

Well, the first annual EXCHANGE Choreography Festival has come to a close and we couldn't be more thrilled. I know it was small beginnings but everything went so well from start to end. We had some phenomenal teachers who joined us for our inaugural year: Melody Ruffin-Ward from Roger Williams University, Stephanie Miracle from New York, L. Brooke Schlecte from Baylor University and Artistic Director of Out On a Limb Dance Company, Sarah Newton from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and our very own Tulsans, Amy McIntosh (Oral Roberts University/Living Water Dance Company) and Jessica Vokoun (The University of Tulsa). Joining Melody Ruffin-Ward, L. Brooke Schlecte, and Stephanie Miracle on the adjudication panel was Tulsa's dance legacy, Becky Eagleton. Thank you so much to all the faculty and staff for making our first EXCHANGE a success!

Notable work/performances in the adjudicated concert series included stunning work by Rebecca Borden and Rebekah Hampton, both members of Perpetual Motion Modern Dance Oklahoma out of Oklahoma City. Borden’s, “i does not exist”, revealed Rebecca’s ability as a performer to throw her body to the floor in a blend of violent sensuality that rarely made one feel uncomfortable, but rather amazed and magnetized to her primal physicality.
Several students presented work birthed during Amy McIntosh’s (Living Water Dance Company) DanceMaking workshop in late June. Students were invited to continue working on their pieces and present as student choreographers during the adjudicated series. All of the students came from Pam Haden’s studio, The Dance Pointe, and exhibited a surprising maturity while performing and in receiving and responding to feedback from the panel.

Artistic directors of REDDance, Amanda Jackson and Meredith Cook from Texas Woman’s University presented another notable work, entitled “Shall Too Pass” that questioned the idea of ‘watchers’, as well as, a mysteriously ominous solo by Kayla Jenkins presented in the Sunday adjudicated concert. "Inside by Kayla Jenkins is a profoundly visceral experience. Jenkins use of imagery, groundedness, and costume (as a prop) brought the piece to this visceral space and captured the essence of a deep gnawing place in the soul”, says adjudicator, L. Brooke Schlecte, Artistic Director of Out On a Limb Dance Company.

Schlecte, Eagleton, Ruffin-Ward, and Miracle formed the perfect panel for the festival’s inaugural year. Many participants commented on the warmth and generosity of the adjudicators as they shared from their experience in reflection of the presented work and in their master classes. The Gala Performance was a great way to see some of their work as well. There were performances by the always intriguing Out On a Limb Dance Company as well as local and artistically diverse, Living Water Dance Company. Melody Ruffin-Ward set a solo performed by myself as well as Stephanie Miracle sharing a duet site-specific performance that traveled the ORU campus to various sights.

I’d like to close this year’s festival with the following comment from a scholarship recipient: “This weekend has already given me so much inspiration towards my goals as a dance therapist and dance supporter. Please keep in touch and continue to help others grow using your passion and creative intuition in dance.”

*photos by Maranda Blumenthal

OBITUARY | 30.06.2009
German dance legend Pina Bausch dies at 68



Pina Bausch put Wuppertal on the cultural map
Acclaimed German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch has died at the age of 68. The recipient of numerous awards and prizes, she left her mark as an innovator in the hybrid genre of "Tanztheater," or dance theater.

The director of the Wuppertal Tanztheater said Tuesday that Bausch had passed away unexpectedly earlier that morning. The choreographer had just last week been diagnosed with cancer, but had continued with her work up until her death.

Bausch formed the successful Wuppertal Tanzheater in 1973, turning the Ruhr Valley town into an international dance mecca.

Though Bausch tended to avoid the limelight, she became known to many people outside the dance world with her appearance in Pedro Almodovar's Oscar-winning film "Talk to Her." The film also pays homage to her work.

Bausch's oeuvre explores memories, questions of identity and the difficulty of human understanding. Frequently, she thematizes the difficulty of relations between the sexes. Men and women can flirt tenderly at one moment, then fling each other violently across the room the next.

"It is about life and about finding a language to describe life," she said. The choreographer, on the whole, usually avoided pinning down or labeling her creations, preferring to let her audiences make up their minds.

In 2007 she was awarded the Kyoto Prize - one of the top prizes in the culture and arts field - in recognition of her work in breaking down the boundaries between dance and theater, and pioneering a new direction for theatrical art. She was the first woman to receive the accolade in the category art and philosophy.

Breaking with convention


Bausch's works leave a vivid visual impression
Bold and visually arresting, her first works were roundly criticized by traditional ballet fans. She became notorious for having her company dance on dirt, on leaves, in ankle-deep water, as well as for bringing them into direct contact with the audience.

But she began to attract attention abroad with her performances at the World Theater Festival in Nancy, France, in 1977. This was the start of a flourishing international career.

The grande dame of modern dance was famed for her collaborative way of working. She would start by directing a barrage of questions at her dancers, who would respond with words, gestures, and improvised dance. "I'm not interested in how people move, but what moves them," she once famously stated.

Bausch was strongly influenced by Kurt Jooss, a pioneer of German expressionist dance, with whom she began studying at the age of 14. He was to have a strong influence over her work. The psychological ballets of Anthony Tudor, whom she encountered during a scholarship at the Juilliard School in New York, also made a marked impression on her.

Although she led her company for over 35 years, she didn't talk of retiring. Upon receiving the Kyoto Prize less than two years ago, the choreographer said she still had "an awful lot of plans."

jg/kjb/dpa
Editor: Michael Lawton

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4444691,00.html

The Out of the Loop Fringe Festival was last weekend in Dallas at the WaterTower Theatre. I joined 5 members of Out On a Limb Dance Company for a performance on Sunday evening. I am continually amazed at how their choreography evolves. One of the pieces premiered that night, called A Long Journey Home (photographed). The movement was refreshingly physical and the choreography complicated yet palpable. I was in awe as I watched it from 4 different views through rehearsals, dress runs, and backstage perspectives and I could never get enough.

Naturally, it made me wish I was in this piece, but i doubt my one year old infant son (who's trying to crawl into my lap at this moment) would let me travel for rehearsals any more than I already do.

But more than just being a piece that makes me want to dance it, it is a piece that is delicately smart and generous with kinesthetic detail that begs to be seen more than once. The longer I watch this company, the more I see the performers evolve as well. It is work that breathes and allows the performers to actually BE performers - to bring to the work an individual telling of the story, not just an imitation of the choreography. I so appreciate that as a performer myself.

Kudos, OoLD. More than kudos...bravo.

Rachel Bruce Johnson

The following article was posted on the Dance Magazine website.

http://dancemagazine.com/issues/November-2008/DM-Contributor-Clive-Barnes-dies-at-81

DM Contributor Clive Barnes dies at 81


Clive Barnes
Dance Magazine mourns the passing of our great friend and colleague Clive Barnes. His loss to the field of dance will be deeply felt. He brought his formidable knowledge to every review and essay he wrote and was completely dedicated to the world of dance in all its rich variety. Those of us privileged to work with him at Dance Magazine will miss acutely his wit and insight, and his deep knowledge of the field. He became the magazine’s London correspondent in 1955, and began his signature “Attitudes” column (long the magazine’s back page) in 1989. Last year, he wrote a generous and wise essay in that space celebrating the magazine’s 80th birthday, which happily coincided with his own. It recapped the many decades of dance he had chronicled. He filed his final column on Nov. 7. It will be published in the January ’09 issue. With his passing, we have lost a champion of the art of dance, who helped us to realize our mission to the fullest. We extend our deepest sympathies to his wife Valerie Taylor and his entire family.

Have your memories of Clive Barnes posted on our online tribute. Click here or email your thoughts to emacel@dancemagazine.com.

Post has begun for the underwater dancefilm, Deeper. It's going well and there are new connections being discovered that can only be uncovered by the visual and kinesthetic fusion that happens in editing. There is still a lot of work to be done but it is coming along. View a draft of the film project at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDiATUnL5Ck

On another note, THE EXCHANGE Choreography Festival is in the planning stages. The first mailout for the festival should go out by mid-December and we are all a buzz about its potential. Hosting this premiere event is Oral Roberts University located in southtown Tulsa. As you guessed by the title, THE EXCHANGE is a choreography festival dedicated exclusively to the creative process. There will be master classes dealing with choreographic and performance process as well as a site-specific workshop with the potential for a performance opportunity during the festival. There will be two adjudicated concerts for artists who wish to receive feedback and critique from our jurors as well as a professional gala on Saturday night featuring Living Water Dance Company, Melody Ruffin-Ward, Brooke Schlecte and Out On a Limb Dance Company, Stephanie Miracle, and Bell House's own, Rachel Bruce Johnson.

Keep a look out for registration details and further festival details at www.bellhousearts.org

The weekend's closing in and the summer workshop with Out On a Limb Dance Company in Denton, TX is almost here. If you haven't registered, never fear. You can pay at the door. Go to http://www.bellhousearts.org/currentcampaign to learn more.

The Bell House is moving into filming on DEEP in two weeks and everything seems to be coming together. DEEP focuses on one woman’s experience of baptism. As she’s plunged into the baptismal tank, she enters an underwater world of death and renewal. As she struggles to come to a spiritual understanding of who she is and what her purpose might be in the real world, images of her life overpower her and bring her to the edge of complete surrender only to find that in letting go, she can now live more fully.

Performing her own choreography, Katy Eurich finds it challenging to navigate the difference between choreographing for a live work and choreographing for camera. "You see the movie in your head and you think the possibilities are endless, but then you realize that, while the film/video medium is vast, it does have limits, the main one being financial. When you don’t have the luxury of deep pockets, the reality of what you can do influences your artistic process. For example, with no money for a hi-end camera crew, the product output may be treated to create intention between the type of film necessary to use and the look and feel of the final dancefilm." Having no choice sometimes opens up more choices than you thought you had and forces you to go places artistically that you wouldn’t have explored if you hadn’t had to consider them in the first place.

All that said, DEEP, is an exciting step for The Bell House in that we are moving into territory that is new and untapped. The dancefilm medium is pervasive but few of have their hands in both meaningful messages and artistic excellence. It is a direction we find ourselves pleased to be headed.

We’ve wrapped filming on Paper Cuts, a dancefilm choreographed by Linda Caldwell and directed by Rachel Bruce Johnson. In Paper Cuts, a world of shredded paper surrounds the dancer as she cuts through the space with joy and wonder. Her ecstasy turns to greed as she consumes, destroys, and leaves her delible footprint on the delicate paper world. After her gluttony is fulfilled she finds herself in a static, torn space destroyed by her activity. Her sorrow cuts through her final gestures.

Now that we’re in post, I realize how special this medium really is. There are so many magical moments in Sarah Newton’s performance of the role and together with Keith Fleming’s original sound score of manipulated paper sounds is truly a provocative experience. Paper Cuts has already been submitted to several film festivals even as we wrap up. It will be exciting to see how it is perceived and what kind of thoughts is provokes about consumption and the consequences of greed.

EXCITING NEWS!

We have launched a new arts collaborative along with a new website for dance. It's called THE BELL HOUSE and you can find the link at www.bellhousearts.org. We are currently working on getting a 501(3)C for THE BELL HOUSE and are looking forward to reenforcing all the new projects we've got for the future as well as those already in the mix. Visit the website to learn more about this dance/art collaborative.

Friday, November 9, 2007
Dance Recital Review: Dance Fusion
By Justin Smith
I wept. Let me just say from the outset that when confronted with immense beauty I have been known to leak a few. But I certainly wasn’t prepared for what I encountered Friday night at Dance Fusion, held at the John Anthony Theater at the Spring Creek Campus of Collin College.

The moment in question was the second to last number, performed by Muscle Memory Dance Theatre out of Dallas. The name of the piece was Under the Yellow Sky, choreographed by Lesley Snelson-Figueroa. As the lights came up, there were two swings hanging from the fifty foot ceiling and four dancers appeared wearing black and white. From there it gets a bit hazy. I know there were three sections in the piece, demarcated by first purple, then orange, and finally black as the backdrop colors. The whole piece in its entirety is hard to describe, but what I can say is that if you were to film the piece with a high speed camera, every millisecond when render a stage picture so breathtaking that it would leave you in total awe. Somewhere in the middle, I became overwhelmed by the music, the motion, and the colors that I felt Divine Transcendence touch my shoulder. What can I say? You should go see this show.



Muscle Memory jumps to new heights.

Dance Fusion is a show the features the local talents of the Collin Dance Ensemble, Elledanceworks Dance Company, Muscle Memory Dance Theatre, and the not local Janice Garrett and Dancers from San Francisco. The show was opened and closed by the Janice Garret and Dancers performing Brink (Excerpt) and Archimedes’ Revenge, respectively. I remember the first was like watching water whip around the stage as the dancers undulated up and down and in and out of sight from the audience. It was extremely flowy and did not have the course angles or hardness one usually finds with modern dance. The Janice Garrett Dancers also performed another piece just before intermission, Fast Brass, which was truly amazing to see. The piece was extremely fast and the dancers accented the music by fast shaking hands and faces. When they would walk, it seemed a bit comical as the dancers would strut around on stage with stiff arms swinging at their sides, looking like an old Keystone Cops film.

Both Elledanceworks and Collin Dance Ensemble were very good also. Elledanceworks' piece, Wavering Reflections, had three ladies in what looked to be something like white pajamas and each one was holding a long wooden stick. With the sticks the dancers looked to be about ten feet tall as they would never stand up straight while the sticks were standing straight. Either the dancers were swaying at an angle or the poles were at an angle and it produced a very strange effect. The Collin Dance ensemble performed three pieces, and it was obvious that there strength lay in classical training. The second piece they performed was called Conspirare, and it was a mixture of classical and modern dance. When given the opportunity to rely on their apparent ballet training, they really shined.

You can catch Dance Fusion again Saturday the 10th at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. I say you should drop everything and go see this show. Who doesn’t desperately need a little more beauty in their life?

Just finished a summer dance intensive in Houston. The aesthetic of the student showings and the faculty concerts seems to stay true to the 'look' of dance in this region. There was a lot of linear shapes and a tremendous amount of whipping. Lots of vocabulary in a short amount of time. Don't get me wrong, the dancing was lovely; however, I do feel a bit out of place aesthetically. That could be exciting, though.

It was a good week of meeting new people and getting to know older friends. Although I am having some difficulty processing the changes in my body now that I'm pregnant, it was so good to have more energy this month. It couldn't have come at a more perfect time, I just finished my first trimester and classes start this week at ORU. We just had the second round of auditions and everything looks good. We're going to have a great start for the program - about 30 students.

Excellent.

A confession.

I've enjoyed developing my skills in dance photography; however, I find I get stuck technically by my disinterest in the technical. Considering myself a dancer first and a photographer second, I find myself more interested in the composition of photos and the intrigue of 'finding' movement through either choreographing the shot or cropping it in a way that enhances movement. The focus of my photography work nestling here causes my technical skills to suffer and I find that I rely more and more on photoshop and other post-production software to create the 'magic' I love.

Dance Photography: I'm attempting to fuse my work in photography with my work in dance, choreography, I mean. There are just too many hats and too many irons in the fire. These are new thoughts, so no brilliant epephanies as yet, but I'm sure they will come.

Like most of my life, I just simply have too many ideas and want too many things. It's time to sift.

I suspect it would be good for me to weed out the projects that are not producing just yet and filter more energy into those that are a little more fruitful. The idea being that the projects with renewed focus would florish from the attention and energy and the rest would die.

Well, maybe not die. Either die or hybernate until the time where sufficient energy and resources could make them great too.

As my friend Bill Wade, artistic director of Inlet Dance Theatre in Cleveland, OH says, sometimes it's necessary to stop the bleeding.

Thanks, Bill. I think the time is now.