Dance in the Annex (DITA)

Monday TECH w/DITA

December 4, 2019

A SEMI REGULAR CLASS SERIES

We are excited to announce a semi regular class series on Monday’s from 11:00am – 12:30pm. Starting on December 9th we are hosting Monday TECH at Michigan Ballet Academy. These classes will feature local dance educators teaching modern, post modern, contemporary and improvisation. December classes will be taught by DITA Artistic Director Amy Wilson. Suggested donation $10
For all dancers ages 16+

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December 9th & 16th
11:00am – 12:30pm
Michigan Ballet Academy
1595 Galbraith Ave SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546
For dancers ages 16+

December 9th & 16th Teacher:
Amy Wilson is a dance artist, choreographer, dance educator and the Artistic Director of Dance in the Annex (DITA) – a Grand Rapids based modern dance collective. DITA regularly hosts master classes, produces large-scale concerts, and creates live and dance-film works that are site-specific with an emphasis on process. DITA collaborative works regularly take place at 337 Project Space, Avenue for the Arts, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, and SiTE:LAB. DITA was awarded the Time Based Juror Award for their piece respirador (breather) at ArtPrize 2014. In 2015 Amy was awarded the ArtPrize 2015 Fellowship for Emerging Curators and was the YWCA Tribute Award Honoree for the Arts. Amy has served on faculty at Grand Valley State University, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and is a regular guest artist and choreographer at studios, schools and universities around West Michigan. Amy is currently on faculty at Michigan Ballet Academy and Civic Theatre.

*Photo Credit Artpeers

DITA, Falling and Rolling with guest artist Kristi Faulkner

January 5, 2019

Join us in welcoming Kristi Faulkner / Kristi Faulkner Dance
Falling and Rolling
Sunday March 24th, 2019
4-5:45 pm
Meijer-Royce Center for Dance
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503

Class Description: Falling and Rolling

Explore sensation and surrender while learning to make friends with gravity. Dance is physics – we will explore the ways in which momentum and surface area can help us achieve efficiency moving in and out of the floor. While maintaining a continuous flow of energy and efficient use of muscle tone, we will hover on the edges of suspension and surrender to impulse.

Kristi Faulkner is the Director of Kristi Faulkner Dance – a queer-identified contemporary dance company based in Detroit that dares to be different. Performing everywhere from warehouses to community centers, from museums to the middle of the street, Faulkner believes in making dance accessible and empowering audiences to connect with their world. Her work has been commissioned and presented throughout Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Kentucky and New York. Faulkner is a 2018 Maggie Allesee Choreography Award finalist for “Women’s Work” and a 2016 finalist for “OBject/obJECT”. She received the 2017 MCACA New Leader Award. Her winning Knight Arts Challenge project to engage and inspire LGBTQ youth through performance and storytelling titled “Not In My House” premiered October 2018. KristiFaulknerDance.com

Pre-registration
$17 Advanced General
$15 Advanced Professional/Dance Educator
$13 Seasonal advanced ($65)
Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers: https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/
Day of Class
$20 Drop-in
For dancers 16+ years old ~ for more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

DITA, Open Improvisation w/Marlee Grace wsg. Fiona Dickinson

December 14, 2018

Join us in welcoming Marlee Grace and Fiona Dickinson
Open Improvisation (all levels, all movers)
Sunday January 27th, 2019
4-5:45 pm
Meijer-Royce Center for Dance
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
Pre-registration
$17 Advanced General
$15 Advanced Professional/Dance Educator
$13 Seasonal advanced ($65)
Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers: https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/
Day of Class
$20 Drop-in
For dancers 16+ years old ~ for more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

Open Improvisation
composition and choice making through movement

Join Marlee Grace for a workshop in improvising as a tool for performance, choice making, and composition. We’ll work through solo movement, duets, and group work – playing with space and generosity, spontaneity and thoughtfulness, solitude and togetherness.
We’ll look at different ways to discover your own movement vocabulary as well as collaborate with others

Soundscapes from other planets provided by Fiona Dickinson

No dance experience required, just a willingness to move your body
No moves to learn! All movement generated from your self

Marlee Grace is a dancer and a writer who uses improvisation as a method for creating new works, hosting artists at her residency and studio CENTER, and being in the world.
Marlee has a BFA in Dance from the University of Michigan and documents her dance practice on the Instagram account @personalpractice which has been featured in the Huffington Post and the New York Times

Fiona Dickinson is a British songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and music educator currently residing in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Along with her work arranging strings for the ambient noise project, Saltbreaker, Fiona has a lengthy list of collaborations on stage and in the studio. She also has a background in composition for independent film and live score for site-specific performance with dance, video, and analog projection.

Pre-registration – New Rates – New Discounts

December 12, 2018

Pre-registration is now open for all of the DITA Master Classes for Winter/Spring 2019 at the Meijer-Royce Center for Dance! All classes can be purchased for a discount in advance. Save your spot and save money!

You can also give the gift of dance to a loved one or friend – just in time for the gift giving season! Our new “Season Pass” is perfect for the dancer/mover in your life!

Stay tuned for more details on each of our guest artists!

Please note – our class with Marlee Grace will feature live music by the lovely Fiona Dickinson and will be open to all movers! Our class with Heather Vaughan-Southard from Educating Dancers will also be open to all movers!

RATES
Pre-registration
$17 Advanced General
$15 Advanced Professional/Dance Educator
$13 Seasonal advanced ($65)

Day of Class
$20 Drop-in

Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers: https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/
For dancers 16+ years old
For more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

DITA Winter/Spring 2019 Master Class Scedule

All classes are held at Meijer-Royce Center for Dance

341 Ellsworth Ave SW

Grand Rapids, MI 49503

January 27th – Marlee Grace wsg. Fiona Dickinson
Open Improvisation – All levels, all bodies
4-5:45pm

February 17th – Lucy Riner/RE Dance Group
Int/Adv Contemporary Modern
4-5:45pm

March 24th – Krisit Faulkner/KFD
Int/Adv Contemporary Modern
4-5:45pm

April 28th – Heather Vaughan Southard
Movement Based Mindfulness – All levels, all bodies
4-5:45pm

May 19th – TBA
Int/Adv Improvisation, Rep
4-5:45pm

DITA, Int/Adv Contemporary Modern, w/Lucy Riner / RE Dance Chicago

August 30, 2018

Join us in welcoming Lucy Riner / RE Dance Group Chicago
Int/Adv Contemporary Modern Technique
Sunday February 17th, 2019
4-5:45 pm
Meijer-Royce Center for Dance
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
$17/$15 Professional/Dance Educator
$13 Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers:https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/
For dancers 16+ years old ~ for more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

Class description:
A fast-paced contemporary modern dance class that explores weight, momentum and musicality. Using an eclectic movement style inspired by social dance, modern dance traditions and somatic practices, the class moves in and out of the floor and encourages the dancer to make personal movement choices and embody immediacy.

Lucy Vurusic Riner (Executive Director/Co-Founder) is a native Chicagoan who has been dancing, choreographing and teaching in the Midwest for over twenty years. She received her BS Degree in Dance and Dance Education from Illinois State University. Lucy has been a member of Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak, RTG Dance Company and Matthew Hollis’ “The Power of Cheer.” She has also been part of the community cast of White Oak Dance Project and David Dorfman Dance. Lucy has taught modern, hip hop, and jazz at numerous studios and high schools in the Chicagoland area. For the last fourteen years she was the Director of Dance at Oak Park and River Forest High School. Lucy now teaches at New Trier High School. In 2005, Lucy completed her Masters Degree in Education from National Louis University and also received the Midwest Dance Teacher of the Year award and was the youngest of four finalists in the running for the National Dance Teacher of the Year award. When Lucy is not working with RE|Dance Group, she spends time with her super, supportive family: Jim, Margie and Luka.

DITA, Int/Adv Afro Modern, w/Dasan Mitchell

August 30, 2018

Join us in welcoming Dasan Mitchell
Int/Adv Afro Modern Technique
Sunday November 18, 2018
4-5:45 pm
Grand Rapids Ballet
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
$17/$15 Professional/Dance Educator
$13 Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers:https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/
For dancers 16+ years old ~ for more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

Class Description: Afro-Modern
The Katherine Dunham Technique is used as the foundation of this class. Students will explore both classical modern and contemporary movement through an African Diaspora lens. Finding clarity in movement and rhythm is achieved in this class through a series of foundational movement sequences and fully embodied movement. The students of this class will allow themselves to activate the mind, body, and spirit.

Dasan Mitchell:
Dasan Mitchell has trained and studied at Wayne State University, receiving his bachelor of science in dance. He has trained with many artists/companies nationally and internationally for over eight years. Some of these include Bakalama Dance of Senegal and Deeply Rooted Dance Company. His dance training is rooted in African Diaspora dance, classical modern, and more contemporary movement approaches. He currently studying the philosophy, pedagogy, and theories of Katherine Dunham, in the process of receiving the Katherine Dunham teaching certification. He continues to establish a wholesome approach to dance education that includes cross-cultural communication. He is currently a dancer for Wellspring / Cori & Dancers and a teaching artist for Education for the Arts in Kalamazoo, MI.

DITA+Calvin College, Workshop w/Molly Shanahan / Mad Shak

August 30, 2018

Join Calvin College and DITA in welcoming
Molly Shanahan / Mad Shak
October 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 2018
Calvin College
3201 Burton St SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546
FREE

Workshop:
Diving into Spirals with Molly Shanahan / Mad Shak
Sunday October 21st, 3:15-5:00pm
Spoelhof Fieldhouse Complex Dance Studio HC251/252
For dancers 18+ years old
**Space is limited – to reserve your spot in this workshop or for more information please contact Amy Wilson at
[email protected]

This dance phrasework experience will offer participants an embodied glimpse into choreographer Molly Shanahan‘s current movement research, which emphasizes whole body lusciousness, the incorporation of a mobile pelvis, articulation of the juicy ball and socket joints, and articulate movement phrases that feel so easy and yet challenge the body-mind to find ease within precision, vigor within rigor, and forgiveness within discipline.

Performance:
Mad Shak
Monday, October 22, 8pm
Covenant Fine Arts Center

Lecture:
Molly Shanahan
Tuesday, October 23
(time and location pending)

Choreographer Molly Shanahan has based her work in Chicago since 1994, after receiving her Master of Arts in Dance at The Ohio State University. Sustaining a lifelong focus on movement practices in and out of the studio, long-term creative processes involving multiple iterations, and inquiry into the philosophies and theories that touch her work, Molly is recognized as a “singular voice in Chicago dance,” (TimeOut Chicago) who has been “distilling the essence of performance—the relationship between audience and artist—for years, exposing the honest beauty of the body in its natural state: fluid, organic motion” (New City Chicago).

Molly’s work has been supported by two National Performance Network Creation Fund Awards, a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Award, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for choreography, and a 2010 Meier Arts Achievement Award, among others. In 2012 Molly received a Presidential Fellowship from Temple University (Philadelphia) to pursue a PhD in Dance. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at Denison University; and has taught at Wayne State University, Bryn Mawr College, Temple University, The University of Chicago, and Columbia College Chicago, among others, and was a Lecturer in the Dance Program at Northwestern University from 2008-2012. www.madshak.com.

DITA, Int/Adv Contemporary Modern w/guest artist Matt Farmer

May 7, 2018

Join us in welcoming Matt Farmer
Int/Adv Contemporary Modern Technique
Sunday May 20, 2018
4-5:45 pm
Grand Rapids Ballet
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
$17/$15 Professional/Dance Educator
$13 Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers: https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/
For dancers 16+ years old ~ for more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

Int/Ad Contemporary Modern: Using a variety of elements of modern and contemporary dance techniques, this class requires dancers to push themselves both physically and artistically. Building on the long fluid lines and posture of contemporary dance, while simultaneously implementing the strength and stamina of classic modern and post-modern floorwork, this class is sure to challenge dancers from all training backgrounds.

Matthew Farmer is currently the Chair of the Dance Department at Hope College, the Co-Artistic Director of R.G. Dance Productions and the Co-Artistic Director of H2 Dance Co. Formerly the Head of Dance at Anderson University, Farmer has had great success as a director, educator, choreographer, performer, and author; co-authoring the book Introductory Modern Dance: A Teaching Manual. Formerly the Associate Director and company member of LehrerDance, Farmer has appeared in Dance Teacher Magazine, Dance Magazine Online, and Dance Magazine. Prior to dancing with LehrerDance, Farmer danced with Peter Sparling as a company member of The Peter Sparling Dance Co. While dancing for Sparling, Matthew received his MFA from the University of Michigan, and he received his BA in Theatre and Dance from Hope College. As a soloist and guest performer he has performed in multiple cities throughout the United States and Europe, and has had the privilege of working with and/or performing works by Avi Kaiser, Sergio Antonino, Merce Cunningham, Laura Dean, Matthew Thornton, Doug Varone, and many more. As a master teacher and choreographer his works and classes have been produced by Eastern Michigan University, Anderson University, Western Kentucky University, Chicago National Association of Dance Maters, Southern Association of Dance Masters, Dancer’s Inc., On Tour dance conventions, Blue Lake International Ballet Ensemble, Interlochen, Wellspring/Cori Terry an Dancers, Fort Wayne Dance Collective, Hope Summer Repertory Theater, Next Step Dance, Musiker Productions, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and many more.

DITA Master Class at Grand Rapids Ballet: Sunday, March 18th, 2018

February 27, 2018

WE’RE ON THE MOVE!

In February 2009 DITA launched its first Master Class in the Wealthy Theatre Annex, creating relationships with the most accomplished dance educators in the region and beyond. DITA enters its 10th year of dance education and performance with a new partnership: the 2018 DITA Master Class season kicks off at Grand Rapids Ballet, home of Michigan’s only professional ballet company.

WORLD-RENOWNED INSTRUCTORS

World-renowned Graham Technique master teacher William Crowley will lead the first DITA Spring Master Class – March 18^th, 2018 from 4-5:45pm at Grand Rapids Ballet.

PREREGISTRATION

Our friends at ArtPeers made a special offer: dancers can pre-register for the first class of our 10th year for only $12! Going forward, class fees will return to normal, ensuring the sustainability of DITA Master Classes. DITA does not operate for profit, and class fees go toward space rental costs, and for our instructors, many of whom travel here from other cities. Pre-registration ends March 17th at midnight. Sign up HERE!

ABOUT DITA

Led by Artistic Director Amy Wilson, DITA produces large-scale concerts, and creates live and dance-film works that are site-specific with an emphasis on process. DITA has long called Wealthy Theatre home, with dance education and a number of groundbreaking, sellout events produced at the historic landmark. DITA also has explored other spaces in the region and beyond: collaborative works regularly take place at 337 Project Space, Avenue for the Arts, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (UICA) and SiTE:LAB. DITA was awarded the Time-Based Juror Award for their piece respirador (breather) at ArtPrize 2014. More recently, DITA joined a collective of Michigan artists on a journey to the Path of Totality during the 2017 solar eclipse, where we produced a full-length dance film that will be released in 2018.

JOIN US IN WELCOMING WILLIAM CROWLEY

Int/Adv Graham Technique
Sunday March 18th, 2018
4-5:45 pm
Grand Rapids Ballet
341 Ellsworth Ave SW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
$17/$15 Professional/Dance Educator
$12 Pre-registration provided by ArtPeers: https://artpeers.org/pre-registration/

For dancers 16+ years old ~ for more information contact Amy Wilson at [email protected]

The Master Class introduces students to the Graham Technique, its basic principle of “contraction and release”, and the beneficial knowledge that comes from the awareness of one’s own center and core strength. The structure of the class is composed of floor work, standing center work, and traveling exercises. Intermediate/Advanced level students will also be exposed to learning phrases of original choreography.

William Charles Crowley, received his MFA in Dance from the University of Michigan and additional training at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in NYC. He has danced with numerous companies and has garnered favorable reviews from The Detroit Free Press, The Chicago Tribune, Denver Rocky Mountain News, The Miami Herald, and Dance Magazine. William is the Artistic Director of Next Step Dance based in Miami, FL., and currently teaches throughout the United States and Europe.

Most recently, William had the distinct honor of being one of the first Americans ever to teach in Cuba since 1959, as part of the U.S.-Cuba People to People cultural exchange program, at the Danza Contemporanea de Cuba in Havana.

DITA, the practice & the person w/guest artist Marlee Grace

August 28, 2017

Join us in welcoming Marlee Grace to the Annex
wsg. Fiona Dickinson (musical accompaniment)
Tuesday Sept 5th, 6-8pm
Wealthy Theatre Annex
1110 Wealthy St Se
Grand Rapids, MI 49506
$15/$12 students w/ID
All movers ages 16+ welcome

the practice & the person

a workshop on improvising & revealing the complete person

september 5 2017 + wealthy theatre annex grand rapids, mi

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Drawing on themes from the chapter PRACTICE in Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch we’ll navigate a series of exercises in ensemble improvisation. Making duets, trios, & group works while honoring the act of practicing as research, as performance, as the thing.

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We will generate solo material from our own bodies, practicing witnessing and being witnessed.

We will slowly combine our solo material into duets, finding ways to stay true to our own work while navigating space with others.

We will transition into ensemble work, trios, quartets, and full group improvisations.

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This workshop is open to all people 16+ years old with a willingness to explore with their bodies

Tag: Modern Dance

Pre-registration is now open for all of the DITA Master Classes for Winter/Spring 2019 at the Meijer-Royce Center for Dance! All classes can be purchased for a discount in advance. Save your spot and save money!