Guest Choreographer at Carleton College

 This year I was chosen to be the guest artist and co-choreographer for Semaphore, Carleton College’s dance and performance company. I had worked with Jane Shockley, adjunct professor and Senior Lectureror of Dance, at Zenon Dance Company and Dance School. Our classes combined Modern Dance and T'ai-Chi as well as introducing meditation, qi-gong, and various martial art styles. Jane asked if I would like to compose a piece together. We agreed that we should show movement representing alchemy, ritual, martial arts, weapons, and dance, with an overall feeling of sacred movement.

Throughout this Summer, Jane and I talked and researched and danced until our ideas started to jell and a piece formed. In September I got to spend five days with Semaphore and we taught and refined the movements and let the muse join us for some amazing teaching and learning. It was a real pleasure to work with such talented and eager students. One of the dancers said that the piece was more about letting the audience into the performance than for the dancers to perform for the audience. Indeed , the work, titled Azoth, has a transformational personality of its own.

Since September, Jane has been putting on the finishing touches as well as leading the rehearsals for the upcoming performances. I am excited to see the piece performed and more to the point, to see how it has transformed! A lot of work, time, and inspiration went into the creation of this dance. It has more the feel of ritual, or sacred movement, with some nice martial arts punctuation.

 Azoth will be performed two nights, 11/8 & 11/9, at 7:30 PM at the Weitz Center for Creativity. You can see this work by contacting the college and “buying”tickets, which is reserving free tickets. Go to the bottom of this link; https://carleton.tixato.com/buy