Warm Welcome In Philly

Philly was certainly a warm and welcoming town for Mountain Empire and our Telephone Dance Project was well received for the Salon Show and for the H-O-T Series. We made some new friends and can't wait to go back!

Read about our exploits via the link below courtesy of ThinkingDance.net

http://thinkingdance.net/articles/2014/05/23/3/iMprovisational-Melange-at-Mascher/

Next Stop for TDP: Philadelphia!

The TDP 2013-2014 season is wrapping up with a stop in Philadelphia, PA and it'll be a full weekend May 8-10. There are so many dance opportunities to take advantage of that weekend, from taking class to partying to taking in one of the performances.  

Without further ado, here are the TDP-Approved activities:


TDP's Salon-Style Show
Drinks, snacks, dancing, performances, and more, featuring Joy Davis, Loren Groenendaal/Vervet Dance, Antonia Z Brown, and the Telephone Dance Project! 

When: Friday, May 9, 2014
           Doors open at 8:00 p.m. - performances will happen throughout the evening. 
Where: Mascher Space Co-op, 155 Cecil B. Moore Ave. Philadelphia, PA
Cost: $5-$10 sliding scale

Join our FB Event!


H-O-T Series at Mascher
This monthly series features improvisational dance, music, and other experimental performance from local and touring artists curated by Loren Groenendaal and flandrew fleisenberg.  TDP will perform an origibal improvisational score with accompaniment by local experimental musicians.

When: Saturday, May 10, 2014, time: sometime around 8?  
Where: Mascher Space Co-op, 155 Cecil B. Moore Ave. Philadelphia, PA
Cost: $5 or $10 dance pass
Join the FB Event!

4 Countertechnique Classes with Joy Davis

• Thursday, May 8, 2014 from 6-8p at Mascher Space Co-op, 155 Cecil B. Moore Ave. 

• Friday, May 9, 2014 from 9a-11a at fidget space, 1714 N. Mascher. 

• Saturday, May 10, 2014 from 10a-12p at Mascher Space Co-op

• Sunday, May 11, 2014 from 10a-12p at Mascher Space Co-op

Joy Davis is a dance-artist and certified Countertechnique® Teacher. Originally from Nashville, she has spent the last ten years between Knoxville, Chicago, and Amsterdam creating, performing, and studying contemporary dance and improvisation. Joy received her BA in Performing Arts through the College Scholars Program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She then served as interim Artistic Director of Circle Modern Dance, taught and choreographed as adjunct faculty at the University of Tennessee, and presented many works independently. While in Chicago, she received the Chicago Dancemakers Forum (CDF) Greenhouse Grant for emerging choreographers; danced with Erica Mott, Redmoon Theatre, and Striding Lion Performance Group. Joy also collaborated extensively with Meg Anderson to produce four original evening-length works and jump-started frequent gatherings for artists to share information. She had the honor of receiving her yoga teacher training from renowned center for yoga in Chicago, yogaview. Joy continues to train and study Countertechnique® with Anouk van Dijk. After completing the 2012 Countertechnique Teacher Training®, as only one of 14 teachers worldwide, she teaches classes and workshops all over the US. Joy is now a MFA Teaching Fellow at Smith College in the Department of Dance.

Performances in MA, NC, and PA are set!

The project that turns the classic game of "telephone" into a long-distance dance collaboration tool has performances happening across the East Coast, starting on January 18 in the Workbench Series in Northampton, MA.  

We’ll perform again the following night on January 19th in a Salon Performance at 7:30pm at Studio 310 in the Florence Arts and Industry Building in Northampton, MA in a shared evening of performance with Joy Davis, and Shaina Cantino. For more information email eliza.larson@gmail.com.

TDP has also been invited to perform on April 5th as part of {Re}HAPPENING, a fantastic improvisational evening of art and performance at the historic Black Mountain College in Black Mountain, NC.  We’re excited to share a night of installation and art making with over 80 artists from around the country.

Additional performances will take place on May 10th for the H-O-T Series in Philadelphia, PA, and TBD in Washington, DC.

See what we’re about HERE: https://vimeo.com/83334697

Meet the Dancers: Barbara Tait

Barbara Tait is a long, tall Texan, dance artist, poet (under the name Charlie Bennett), and pseudo-librarian who relocated to Philadelphia in 2009 after graduating from the University of North Carolina Greensboro with a B.A. in Dance and minors in English and Psychology.

As an art-maker, she is interested in exploring the questions: what role does dance have in community development and cultural construction? how can dance help create empathy? and, what is the informational value of movement? She thinks all movement has communicative value, and this belief has led her to pursue collaborations with dancers and non-dancers alike.

Her community-based projects include co-organizing Philadelphia Rising, a call to end violence against women, with Saroya Corbett, Colleen Hooper, and Katherine Kiefer Stark, and making a video performance piece on patrons of the Free Library Hot Spot at Heavenly Hall in collaboration with Colleen Hooper.

She has studied movement techniques with B.J. Sullivan, Gerri Houlihan, John Gamble, and many fabulous others, and has performed in North Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania with The Naked Stark, John Gamble Dance Theater, Nick Cave, Mereminne Dancers and Vervet Dance. In addition to her work as a dance artist, Barbara is a Digital Resource Specialist at the Free Library of Philadelphia and an Archives Associate for the Local Dance History Project at Philadelphia Dance Projects. She recently graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with her Masters in Library and Information Science.

What is the Telephone Dance Project?

Do you remember the "telephone" game? One person whispers a phrase to another, which is passed down a line of people until the phrase becomes increasingly distorted and the original meaning is lost.  Hilarity inevitably ensues.

The Telephone Dance Project turns the classic game of "telephone" into a long-distance collaboration tool. Over the past several months our four collaborators, spread over 4 different states, have been creating choreographic material inspired by their own geographical location, transcribing it, sending it to each other via snail mail, and letting each recipient reinterpret it as they pass it down the line.  With each reinterpretation, the movement changes until finally it barely resembles the original phrase.  These phrases are then used to create an improvisational score, directed by each participant in their own home state, that bring each location and inspiration together.  The dance will change with each performance and each new location.

Performances of the Telephone Project will happen across the East Coast, starting in Northampton, MA, traveling through Philadelphia, Washington DC, and ending in Asheville, NC.   Each performance will be quite different from the next: a concert of improvisational dance; a salon; a performance at the zoo!  The dance emerges anew each time it is performed: duration, sound/music and creative choices depend on the specific place and time occupied by the participants. 

Travel with us in person or on this blog as we reinterpret what it means to dance across the country.